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The Lister Generator Project Page 6 By now, the genset had about 260 hours on it and has been very reliable. In preparation for the upcoming hurricane season, some modifications were required. You can see the yellow control box mounted on the wall. I built this from miscellaneous meters ands stuff and it contains the circuitry required for the auto shutdown system. It also contains volt and ammeters as well as an hour meter to show running time. Inside there a small gel cell to power the system during startup. After the genset is up and running, the auto-system steals power from the 14 volt power supply that is powering the radiator fan. The way is works is like this: A small solenoid holds the start-run lever in the "run" position during startup using battery power. After the genset is up and running, the operator throws a switch with transfers power to the main DC buss. If the main DC power fails, the solenoid releases and the engine shuts down. Interrupting the power flow using over heat switches, low oil pressure or a push button switch also shuts down the engine. If the radiator fan power supply fails, the loss of power also causes the solenoid to release and the engine shuts off before it can overheat. There is also a junction box mounted on top of the thing to plug in the visible KILL-A-WATT. This is a fantastic device that displays voltage and frequency plus many other cool functions. Today I did some testing with the new instrumentation. After calibrating and checking them for accuracy, and using a digital FLUKE meter as a backup, the following performance levels were noted:
Outside air temperature: 82 deg
F
Absolute maximum power
attainable:
Maximum power attainable with
minimal exhaust smoke and still governing at 60 Hz:
This a quite an improvement
from earlier measurements and attributed to ring seating and 250 hours of
break-in time. The cooling system also kept up with the higher load with max
coolant temperature reaching 211 deg F. The cooling system is now operating
sealed so much higher temperature can be reached without boiling over. I
shoot for 190-210 deg for temperature as it simply runs better with less
smoke at these ranges. |
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"Sadly,
artificial intelligence will probably never be a match for natural
stupidity." |
