Lister Engine Forum
Lister Engines => Listeroid Engines => Topic started by: John (Boston) on December 30, 2018, 05:07:57 PM
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Hello Everyone,
Made a little video yesterday of my current "temporary" setup. This is the first winter that it's been outside and in a convenient position to run it. Last year I did start it at about 32F one time. It had straight 30 weight oil in it. This winter I have 10-30 Kubota diesel rated oil in it. Seems a lot better already. It was 43F yesterday when I lit it off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeJ38ZDjhZw
I'm going to do several test runs as it gets colder to make sure I can get it going when it's needed. The crazy weather we have here will often bring a big snowstorm followed by several clear but below zero (F) days. If the power goes out during the snowstorm I need this to start so the house doesn't freeze in the following days (pellet fired boiler for heat).
I originally had it set up in my basement but had to move it outside due to exhaust issues. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the "bus smell" from creeping into the house (back of the bus smell). I liked it inside because it was easier to run in winter and the waste heat was inside the house. Plus it gave the whole house a comforting "throb", kind of like a ship.
-John (Boston)
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Now that's what I call a trolley. That is a wheel/roller under the generator end isn't it?
Nothing is more permanent than "temporary". I'm betting the video of moving it from the basement to the garage would be fun too.
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Like Casey, I would love to see the video of the beast being moved! Good build, and a very ingenious use of rubber chock blocks, I may have to borrow that idea.
Ron.
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I must assume John must have disassembled it to move it.
Nice looking setup, John.
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Very nice video John, thank you. I have a question about your ST generator head, I have looked at a lot of videos of these heads in operation, yours rotates anti clockwise when viewed from the pulley end. I have also seen them running clockwise. The instruction manual for my head clearly shows it running clockwise, what effect if any would this have on the polarity of the output?
Bob
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The ST heads I'm familiar with work equally well in either direction. My ST-3 is running CCW to make room for a compressor head driven off the other flywheel, most run it CW for a smaller frame footprint.
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Very nice video John, thank you. I have a question about your ST generator head, I have looked at a lot of videos of these heads in operation, yours rotates anti clockwise when viewed from the pulley end. I have also seen them running clockwise. The instruction manual for my head clearly shows it running clockwise, what effect if any would this have on the polarity of the output?
Bob
Your AC is 180 deg out of phase and L1 becomes L2 . But seriously, nothing happens. Maybe if brushes were broken in one direction, they may have to "wear in" for the other direction.
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Was'nt there discussion about the air flow thru the gen head for cooling?
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Probably depends on whether it has straight (flat) fan blades or shaped, one-directional) ones?
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Mike's right, the typical ST fan blade is straight and bidirectional.
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Hi Guys, none of the replies have really answered my question. On a standard generator head there is one tapping which remains neutral while the other tapping swings from +370 volts to -370 volts (240 volt RMS). My concern is that rotating the generator head in the wrong direction will reverse this so the neutral will swing from +370 volts to -370 volts. Not a problem until you have an appliance that has a shared earth and neutral, at which point the sh1t hits the fan. This could have significant effects on the performance/life expectancy of the generator, AVR`s and the operator.
Bob
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43 degrees and bare feet you are an ironman.
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Barefoot engineer you have to love it!
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Barefoot Engineering. Has anyone copyrighted it yet?
At least he doesn't have to worry about tropical critters biting his toes.
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Bob, to answer your question regarding rotation:
Regardless of rotation the neutral will be the center point, which would be tied to the house neutral, which is grounded. The ST stator windings are essentially a transformer secondary, so which way you spin the rotor (with 4 electromagnet poles) makes no difference.
Like a transformer secondary, you could tie the neutral to any other AC voltage you wanted, and the L1 and L2 would shift accordingly.
The 110/220 scheme as Edison's for DC power- got twice the power to the home with adding only 1 wire, with the safety of only 110V to earth. Later AC power just copied it for DC appliance compatibility. Edison quickly learned to not use the earth as a conductor (Brooklyn "Dodgers" was due to DC step potential and it's affect on horses) and did not ground the neutral except at the plant. Alas, the AC power companies starting around 1920 began the abomination of engineering known as MEN or multiply earthed neutral. It allowed the power co to use home water and gas pipes for grounding their distribution neutral which violates transformer isolation throughout the distribution system. It causes 100 times higher magnetic fields in homes and injects about a measured 25-33% of the neutral AC current to flow through the earth an aquifers.
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Just as a comment: I operated a motorsailer with a copper ground plate and a ground wire system but both were finally connected together. It was abir different lash up in that we had an isolation transformer to keep shore power from adding faults and problems to pure ship-based power (110V).
overore
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Yep, transformer isolation is a wonderful thing unless you do something stupid and ruin it as the MEN grounding abomination does. Dark ages engineering.
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Thanks Bruce, that`s what I was expecting but the drawing shows things differently (see picture). My ST5 head is a 240 volt only model so U3, 4, 5 & 6 are not present, please also note the indication of shaft rotation.
Bob
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Nothing different from my ST-3. It will work fine CCW as well, no changes to wiring configuration needed. That's not true for some skewed rotor or brushless designs but the ST's are quite primitive, with plenty of "ratcheting" visible on the AC waveform. It's no Marathon gen head waveform, but you didn't pay for that, either. My 5 step sine inverter has lower THD than my ST-3.
I'm not sure why they have that little rotation symbol (CW) on there. I note it is not specified to run CW only, nor is CW specified. This is the same diagram used for all the ST heads, and having been inside 4 of them so far, there is nothing to cause a problem for CCW operation and both mine and my neighbor's ST-3s run CCW.
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Thanks Bruce, I`ll still check things with a meter before wiring it up to the AVR or house.
Bob
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Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the delay... Not enough computer time :) To answer a few questions…
Moving the genset…
I moved the genset out of the basement in pieces (it's a "walk out" basement). The little Kubota carried the pieces to the shed on a carry all (on the 3 point hitch). I left the Listeroid assembled during the move.
It was quite a move, done alone, in a bit of a hurry, right before a big impending snowstorm. Widespread power outages were predicted and I wanted to get the genset operational beforehand. The power DID go out briefly and I got to run the house on Listeroid power for like a half hour :) You just know it would have been out for days if I wasn't ready.
The hardest part was getting the Listeroid up and over the door threshold (which is like 5 or 6 inches high). It was cold and had snowed, which didn't help any - see last answer, below :)
About the frame…
Actually, I had nice tires on the rear but it proved to be too bouncy so I removed them. This is why there is a lunette ring at the generator end of the skid. With the tires on there I was able to pick up the nose using a trailer mover (with the Kubota) and pull the genset around the yard. Worked very nicely, except the bounce when it was running.
So I removed the tires and put back the dock bumpers as seen in the video. Those are rubber truck dock bumpers under there, at three locations. They were fairly inexpensive, not too squishy, and prevented the frame from digging up the basement floor. I used three points of contact for stability. The frame rails are from a rear clip of a Deuce-and-a-Half which I bobbed.
Rotational direction of the ST5…
The fan is straight bladed. I didn't want the radiator plumbing over the generator and I didn't want the belt on the cranking side of the engine, although that flywheel is smooth. I had a bugger of a time getting the belt to track on the other, grooved, flywheel. So, I put the generator on the valve side of the engine, causing it to turn counter clockwise. Electrically speaking, it really doesn't matter which way it turns.
Wiring...
I wired the two stator coils in parallel for balanced loading at 120 volts. I did not bond one side to the frame. Instead, I brought them both out, along with a ground (which goes to the frame). One of these lines is deemed "hot" at the transfer switch and feeds the branch circuits. The other line passes through and make its way to the main service entrance panel, where it is connected to the house neutral. This gives the generator its reference to neutral.
The frame ground from the generator goes to the ground bar at the service entrance panel. The service entrance ground bar is connected to the water pipes and to the lightning protection system, which has six ground rods at the perimeter of the house, driven ten feet into the ground. This gives the generator its reference to ground. I wired it this way to prevent having a loop in the neutral.
Because the generator gets its ground and neutral reference from the main service panel, running it "local" (not plugged into the house) causes it to have no ground and no neutral. In "local" mode we'll just say it has L1 and L2, which are 120V apart.
Bare feet…
No, not an ironman - that's for sure… Ha Ha… Although, I will say that the feet are pretty tough by this point. I live my life totally barefoot and have been doing so for over eight years, due to a back problem. I was essentially crippled and couldn't do much of anything - barely could walk at all. Today I hike on the toughest of trails, I run, and I once again can play with heavy iron things :)
Yeah, no tropical critters here - but I do have to watch for frostbite. I hate winter but the feet stay bare. Snow makes things a bit difficult for me at times.
-John (Boston)
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John, If your power service is WYE, with a neutral wire without high voltage insulators on the distribution line, this is seriously problematic when the neutral/ground of the service is stuck in the earth around the home as you indicated. Wye distribution lines in the US use the insane multiply earthed neutral (MEN) grounding scheme.
Everything works just fine, but since the distribution neutral is connected to your secondary winding neutral, there is no transformer isolation, and so when the house safety ground is connected to the earth, especially a low impedance connection, neutral current will flow along the grounding path. This can cause substantial ELF magnetic fields, 10- 100x normal. Your situation of rods all around the house would likely result in that range.
Avoiding a hard connection of the neutral to earth at the home is the solution, as is done in Japan, Finland, France, and elsewhere. In your case, since you already have a good grounding system, you might consider using the T-T grounding system used elsewhere which would then use your earth as the safety ground, with no ''hard'' connection to the power co. neutral. This can be done if your grounding system is quite low impedance, though if you had very high current appliances I would suggest putting them or their sub panel on an RCD breaker.
There are several other alternatives.
Some people are happy assuming the power co. is your friend, and believe their purchased "science" saying ELF magnetic fields are harmless to health. I'd be glad to help a forum member who was a bit smarter than that and values the health of himself and family. ELF fields are readily measurable with an cheap meter.
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....... I didn't want the belt on the cranking side of the engine, although that flywheel is smooth. I had a bugger of a time getting the belt to track on the other, grooved, flywheel. ....
-John (Boston)
How did you get the belt to track ? I never could, so I used some heavy 10 mil tape and increased the center circumference of of the fly wheel, making it a "Crowned Pulley" and it's tracked perfectly for years now.
https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/crowning.htm
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I have had similar problems with belts not tracking properly. I used to put the drive pulley in a lathe and machine a crown on it or alternatively built up a crown with Sikaflex, let is set overnight and then turn that into a crown with a very sharp lathe tool. I`ve used this trick a couple of times to resurface the wheels on small band saws with good results.
Bob
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Clever fix, Bob. What Sikaflex product do you use?
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Hi Bruce, think I used black Sikaflex-11FC last time.
Bob
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Thanks Bob. That's an interesting water cured urethane material I haven't seen or used before. Thanks for the tip!
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I can't remember the numbers but Sikaflex literally holds the boat building industry together. Their products aren't cheap but they do what it says on the tin and are extremely durable in a salt water environment
They also do - or maybe did do - a clear liquid called Sika 5 that when mixed with pure cement causes it to harden in less than a minute. It's really useful when you have to deal with water seepage in concrete cellars or cracks in vitreous pipes.
If the pressure was more than the mix would seal we used to put a short length of pipe over the leak, connected to a suction pump, bond the pipe in place then wait five minutes, disconnect the pump, and cap it off, not a lot of use for flat belt alignment 'tho!
Cheers
Stef
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I love learning about new materials and applications. Thanks, Steff.
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It's the upside of Ade's attitude to topic management!
As Glort (sort of) said, a few days ago, when you log on here and there's a few posts it's quite cheering, you know you're going to learn something, even if you didn't need it, couldn't use it, never wanted it and can't see the point of reading the post anyway.
I don't even mind if they are taking the piss out of me - you know who you are, Johndoh
The anally retentive that would like everything under a different topic can always skip ignore or delete the bits they feel are irrelevant........
Thanks again Ade.
Cheers
Stef
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Guilty as charged on topic-slip, yes
And +1 on "thanks Ade" too
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I was wondering if there are any forums besides this one where people are designing and building interesting projects- electronics and mechanical. i haven't been able to find that. Most of my electronics type stuff isn't suited for this forum but most public forums seem to attract the unskilled which makes it not interesting or useful to me.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd be grateful.
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I rarely find use for the arduino or other microcontroller boards, as I usually need low power and that means no USB port. Since then I also need some interface hardware, it's easiest to just put the bare processor on the board with the interface. I've never used a ''shield'' either.
I prefer PIC 18F series for low power 5v, as the AVR parts use much more current at 5v.
I bought a TeensyLC 32 bit board for some low power testing. It is massive in computing power and high speed timers, as well as having USB built in. Haven't done the power consumption testing yet but hope to soon.
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I have more interest in the embedded microcontrollers with micropower. I start loosing interest with a running power draw over 25ma, and start getting really interested below 10ma. I just don't need that much muscle for most controller applications. My inverter was a bit different in that it was doing real time H-bridge gate control that normally would have been in hardware, so the puny AVR was maxed out trying to compute RMS voltage accurately at the same time. The RMS voltage regulation is only barely adequate due to 10 bit A/D and too widely spaced waveform sampling rate. Because of the stepped sine, a very small shift in sampling vs step time results in a few RMS volts of error. I need 12bits and 10x the sampling rate to get it down to +-1 volt.
I'm sure there are applications for the Pi and other bloated super-controllers, but I don't have any like that. It's a power hog.
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I complain but the inverter regulation of 230+-3 volts is good enough that I haven't bothered to change it. I just get annoyed seeing my panel meter jittering a couple volts as it hunts.
I don't run any of my controllers on my main 120VDC power, they are instead run on 12V, thus I make the effort to choose the design and components to minimize power use. I have a very small 12V system for house and shop- just one 140 watt panel and a 110AH AGM battery on a custom linear charge regulator. Since I don't want to use standard 12 to 5v buck converters for things around my living space, I found it's easier to just keep the power use tiny and then throw away 7V via linear regulator.
With the new micropower op amps and comparators, and mosfets, it's not that hard. Stuff that is on all the time needs to sip lightly on my 12V.
Most commercial products are designed without any concern for power use, or EMI concerns.
Most of the new basic top loading washers sold in the US, for example, not only draws power 24/7 when "off" but plugged in, but also has a badly designed switching power supply on the single electronics board- so you can hear it across much of the AM band at 5 feet from any wire in the house. There is no indication that is not really off so the typical consumer won't know. Maytag et al were too ignorant to design a decent supply, and too cheap to put in a frigging off switch. That same power supply/controller board is used in 6 different "brands" including Maytag. In the US, only Speed Queen still makes one basic top loader with mechanical timer and no microcontroller. It's a ''commercial'' model at twice the price.
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I Appriciate the dock bumpers. I assembled a couple of 6/1's for mobile operations. I also noticed it looks like you have a 3 point base. I learned if you use 4 points you never have the same load on each mount and they tend to move until it finds equal load on all 4 points. A 3 legged stool doesn't rock! I'll do that next time.t
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Sorry Guys for the delay…
Bruce, on ELF…
I guess I need to read up on that. I've heard of the problem before but never investigated it. I'm very health conscious so it does worry me, although I'm not so sure what I could do about it. Here, we are required to have the neutral and ground bonded at the entrance panel. Even if I were to remove that bond the neutral is grounded out on the street.
I really don't want to remove the lightning system. I put a lot of effort into installing it, with quite a bit of overkill, including using the heavier cable. I bonded the water pipes in several locations and even the heating system pipes. It was tested a couple years ago when, according to a neighbor, the rod on my chimney was hit.
Speaking of fields, I found that parking my car under a high tension line (I estimate over 100KV by counting the disk insulators) caused it to become charged. I assume this was due to capacitance coupling. This line has the three phases stacked one above the other. I assume this causes the field from the lowest phase to be stronger at ground level than the others and thus not "cancelled".
I got a good buzz off the painted surfaces of the car and an uncomfortable, sustained tingle off an unpainted bolt head on the door striker. I repeated the experiment with a shopping cart and could feel a good buzz on that as well (I had been shopping).
I no longer park under those lines. I don't think it could be good for all the computers in the car. I bet being fairly well grounded had something to do with feeling the tingle (no shoes) and most normal people would never be the wiser.
Mike, on belt tracking…
After a lot of measuring and squaring (none of which worked) I ended up skewing the generator a bit at a time until I "caught" the belt where it was "comfortable" being. I assume the generator shaft and the crankshaft are fairly parallel at this point.
I used a Jeep jack (mechanical bottle jack) between the flywheel and the sheave to adjust the tension in an incremental way - much better than a crow bar or a 2X4.
I bought an adjustable motor mount, a Dayton 2M513 (as a member here had suggested - Thank You). Strangely, it came by motor freight, just like the other guy's did. This has front and rear independent adjusting screws which should make the alignment a lot easier. I'll use it when I do the concrete block.
XYZER, on the three points…
This was something I learned from working on my old Ford Model T. Pretty much every major component in that car is mounted by three points. A genius solution to the bad roads of the day. Three points prevented uneven stresses in things like the radiator and gas tank - even as the car twisted and flexed over the road. The dock bumpers were from McMaster Carr Supply and were pretty inexpensive. They call them "vehicle mount bumpers".
-John (Boston)
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Hi John, you absolutely can fix the neutral to earth problem without disconnecting your lightning system. By bonding to metal pipes and adding this, yes, you have created a situation that is certainly way above the 2 milligaus for doubling of leukemia in children level.
If you were to remove the "ground tie" which connects the line neutral around to your secondary neutral, your problem would go away. Alas, since that can't be done you must then use and isolated neutral system; your lovely low impedance ground would be used for the home safety ground instead of the power co. neutral. This is known as T-T grounding.
I can give you more info if you contact me. Your connection to metalic water or gas lines would have to be revised, as this is in fact another power co. neutral. Neutral current on metalic water and gas mains is another major source of ELF magnetic fields.
Your first step might be to borrow and ELF magnetic field meter. Please realize that in almost all cases the problem is readily fixed, and without great expense. For whatever reasons, most people find it too anxiety provoking and just lapse into denial. It is actually not hard to do or fix, but it's unknown to most electricians. If you know basic house wiring, it's a snap.