My winter project is finally done. This started as a pretty much all-original Lister Startomatic generator set. It started up and ran when I first got it, but the valves and guides were pretty worn so I took the head off. I found a piece had chipped out of the chrome cylinder lining at the very top of the top ring travel some time in its past and one of the main bearings had a little slop, so I decided to just do a full rebuild. I got a full spare parts kit from Central Main Diesel (Thanks for the great service!) and replaced the cylinder, piston, rings, gaskets, complete head, injector and pump, and the wrist pin bushing. I got main bearings, felt seals and generator brushes from stationaryengineparts.uk. The generator bearings were noisy so they got replaced and the commutator was turned in the lathe. The slip rings just needed to be polished up, but they are not even in use. The slip ring brushes are held off the slip rings by steel wire since I'm not using the generator portion.
The air filter is an oil bath type from an International Harvester power unit and the exact same as they used on their tractors. The generator is a brushless 8.2 KW from Central Georgia Generator. I tried a ST-5 first. There was a problem with that generator, but Tom took care of me and we worked out a deal to upgrade to this generator. Central Georgia Generator and Central Main Diesel are great to deal with. Since I don't want my parents to have to mess with lubricating the valves, I put a Madison Kipp type SVK automatic lubricator on it. It puts about one drop per minute on each valve. It drips on the very end of the rocker arm so the whole valve gets lubricated. The rockers are lubricated by grease, with wicks tied on both sides of each one to wick additional oil to the rocker arm shaft. Thanks to Mike Monteith for that idea! There is a drain on the side of the head just in case the lubricator ever delivers too much oil, but so far, the oil does not accumulate enough to even fill the spring cavities all the way. The fuel is pumped from the main tank to the auxiliary tank by a gear type pump and the water pump is a Jabsco rubber impeller pump. They are mounted in a tray with a drain to the Rotella container hanging on the generator to contain any leakage. I replaced the packing seals on the lubricator, but I know they are going to leak some small amount some day and I don't want that getting on the belts or making a mess in general. The fuel pump also leaks just a tiny bit past its packing and there are shields to collect any leakage from the lubricator and the fuel pump drive shafts. The drain from the head also empties into that container. In all my testing there was never enough leakage to get anything in the container.
The cooling system uses a small radiator I got off Ebay and a small 120 volt fan that are mounted outside the shed above the muffler. I added a galvanized sheet metal cover after the video to protect it from the weather. It lifts off easily to add coolant. There are two thermostatic switches mounted in the box on the engine, one controls the fan and the other is for overheat shut down. The tachometer doesn't work because it was defective from the start and the replacement didn't arrive in time for the install. I'll fix that when I go back to Salt Lake next time.
The muffler is the typical propane tank type. I buried it because the sound of the exhaust going through it is pretty noisy actually. Now it's totally quiet. The exhaust comes out of the engine, goes through sheet metal on the shed wall, through the propane tank, and out a 24 foot tall stack. The bottom of the stack is sealed only by resting on the dirt, so rain will go into the dirt instead of into the propane tank. The propane tank also has a hole in the bottom to let out any moisture. The exhaust noise is zero until it gets a good load, then it's still pretty quiet.
The shed is in their back yard and the whole thing had to go around the house on the grass with a hand dolly. I took each flywheel, each generator, the base, the sub base for the added generator, and the engine itself back there separately and then put it all together. It is anchored to the concrete floor with six 5/8 inch concrete anchors. The sub base is two pieces of 2x2x0.25 inch square steel tubing with a 24x24x0.25 inch piece of plate steel welded on the end with additional tubing between to make the plate higher for belt clearance. There are four 5/8 inch bolts going all the way through the tubing with the heads welded to the tubing on the bottom to hold the original base to the square tubing and six flanges welded to the tubing for the anchor bolts. It doesn't move one tiny bit except for some minor vibration. The fuel tubing itself shakes a little from the pulsing fuel being sucked in and out of the injection pump, but that isn't from engine vibration. The fuel tubing is set up to self-bleed any air in the system. There is a constant flow of really tiny bubbles coming from the injection pump. I'm not too sure if that's normal, but this fuel tubing arrangement takes care of it and makes bleeding the fuel system very easy. I kept checking all the connections and they are good and tight. No fuel leaks out, so I don't see how air is getting in. There is a fuel shut off solenoid near the pump that's powered by the same circuit as the decompression solenoid. It's rated at 24 volts, but the coil got really hot after a while so I put it on that circuit and now it's fine.
I designed and built the control system. I wish I got a video of the start up, but I forgot to do that. It took all the time I had just to get it installed and I was exhausted by the end of it all. I'll put up a bunch of pictures in the gallery. The heart of the system is five delay relays. The first is for the glow plug (about 20 seconds), second for the starter motor (10 seconds), third for the delay between full power and low power for the decompression and fuel shut off solenoids (5 seconds), fourth for the main power contactor (60 seconds), and fifth for the delay between overload and automatic shutdown (currently 40 seconds). They are all 5 amp max so most only control 40 amp relays with more robust contacts. It has automatic shut down for overheating, overload for too long, low fuel, and low oil. There are separate breakers for each on the panel. The breakers are just solenoids that push switches and shut the whole thing down. The solenoids and the relays that control them have capacitors to provide additional power to completely move the switch once power is cut. Diodes prevent the power from the capacitors from back feeding into the rest of the panel. The six red lights are to indicate why it shut down, one for each breaker, one for the emergency stops, and one for the DC fuse. The red light on top is the overload alarm. The two red lights above the six are an extra overload alarm and low fuel alarm. They flash on and off and sound like a smoke detector, but not as ear-piercing loud as a smoke detector. The knob is for the large variable resistor to adjust how much current flows through the decompression and fuel shut off solenoids. The original resistor in the startomatic controls was 12 ohms and this one is set at about the same resistance for a total of about 1.5 running amps in the whole DC control circuit. The main panel has the typical volt/amp gauges, one for each leg, frequency gauge, and DC voltage and amp gauges. The DC circuit is powered by a Jopler-Schauer 7 amp 3 stage automatic 24 volt battery charger. It maintains the circuit at about 27 volts. There is a 50 amp 3 pole contactor to connect the generator power to the house 60 seconds after the decompression solenoid engages.
There is an additional control panel inside the house so the generator can be controlled from there. I forgot to get a picture of that panel. It's much smaller, only 8x8 inches and has overload alarms on top. I had fun with that alarm: it's a combination of a revolving red light with it's own electronic siren (same as in the shed) and a small mechanical siren. The mechanical siren is just steady tone, but it's still pretty cool. The mechanical siren is really loud so I added a volume control knob to reduce the speed/noise level to something that won't give my parents a heart attack. There is also a low fuel alarm on the house panel that's the same type as in the shed (beeping/flashing red light). An "automatic start enabled" switch and amber light is on the house panel too, which turns on the amber light on the main control panel to let anyone down there know it may start any time by itself. The automatic starting isn't enabled yet because my parents didn't want to invest in an automatic transfer switch until next year. My parents have central air conditioning and exterior security lighting and both are disabled any time the generator is producing power, the central air because there isn't enough power and the security lights just to save power for other things, about 400 watts. The wiring for the automatic starting is also there and ready for an automatic transfer switch, then it will be fully automated: power goes out, lister starts then the power magically comes back on about a minute later. The house panel has one red "fault" light that comes on any time any of the six red lights in the shed come on. Both panels have an emergency stop and the main on/off switch.
Here are some videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US7xA7ElJZchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqFdhQjBKQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-k4WlX2vQs
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