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Messages - John (Boston)

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1
Listeroid Engines / Foundation
« on: April 18, 2019, 05:47:55 PM »
Hello Everyone,

Well, planning a foundation for the Listeroid genset.  Should get started on it next month - we'll see...  Looks like it’s going to be about 48 long X 30 wide X 36 high (inches) – about 4000 pounds of concrete.  I'm planning to use fiber reinforced concrete and rebar.  Depending on what I find when I dig, it could be a little taller (so, even heavier).  Where I am you hit granite pretty quickly.

My plan is to mount the engine right to the block (no subframe at all).  I'll grout it right to the concrete using little soft wood (pine) wedges and machinery grout.  I’m going to use fine thread nine sixteenths threaded rod (grade five) to mount the engine (and the generator).

I’m not going to embed the rod in the concrete, but instead I'm going to "through-bolt" it via long clearance holes in the concrete.  Plan is to go about eighteen inches into the concrete with the bolt holes.

That way, if I should ever break a bolt I can change it.  It also gives the rods plenty of stretch room.  Access to the lower nuts will be through little "tunnels" cast into the block from the sides.  With this much mass, though I really don't think I'll break a bolt.  I'm hoping there won't be any up and down motion with 4000 pounds firmly tied and grouted to the Listeroid's butt.

I've read where others have drilled out the mounting tabs on the engine base to accommodate bigger bolts but I'm nervous removing any more material from an already fragile looking casting.  Nine sixteenths fits pretty nicely as is.

I also found where guys were talking about the top surface of the tabs not being machined flat.  Strangely, my tabs are milled and have a circular depression cut into the tops of them.  It's a crude cut but seems pretty flat.

Last Summer I mixed around 35 bags of concrete (80 pounders) all by hand with a hoe.  My back says "you're NOT doing THAT again!!"

I already bought a concrete mixer.  It's so old that it has a flat-belt drive pulley (sixteen inch diameter by three inch wide crowned pulley) - might as well do this in style...  Don't know much about the mixer but she's a pretty heavy one - I think she'll do two bags at a time.

Sadly, the original engine (probably hit and miss) is gone.  I'll have to graft in a modern replacement.  I already fitted the mixer up to a carry-all so I can move it around on the three point hitch on the tractor.  I'd set it up to run right off the PTO but I need the tractor to load the mixer (so I don't have to lift the bags).  Hmmm...  I guess I really DO need two tractors after-all - can't have too many tractors you know...

Like a lot of my projects, first you have to work on the equipment you're going to use to do the project.  Then you can work on the actual project.

-John (Boston)

2
Things I want to Buy / Re: 7-10kw gen head U.S.
« on: March 19, 2019, 03:16:09 PM »
Yup, forgot to mention...  Slip rings on the newest (iron) gen head are NOT quite concentric and are also a little crooked (side to side).  So I assume the brushes will wear a bit fast on this one.  I have two new slip ring assemblies (don't know how true they are) and I may try to change the wobbly one.  I no longer have a lathe but the brass rings might be thick enough to take a light cut and make it better - don't know.

Not sure what holds the assy onto the shaft.  It almost seems like it's epoxied in place.  There seems to be too much space in the gap for a press fit and I have a feeling that if I mess with it too much it's going to crumble (one reason I bought a couple spares).  I'll probably have an other try at it when I do the bearings (which are noisy, especially in the cold).

The older "tin can" head seems to have straighter slip rings.

"nice" weather coming soon - time to get working on the Listeroid project again - and do a lot of hiking...

-John (Boston)

3
Things I want to Buy / Re: 7-10kw gen head U.S.
« on: March 18, 2019, 06:01:50 PM »
Not sure if I mentioned this before or not...  I have two different ST-5 type heads.

One head I got about eight years ago, maybe.  It's a steel cased unit.  Good and bad with this design.  Good, in that the main housing can't crack like an iron one.  But, not so good in the fit and finish department.  The welds don't look so great and it goes down hill from there.

The case is made up of pieces of welded steel and then machined "true".  During the machining for the stator seats (those ribs that the stator is pressed into) they cut all the way through in a couple places.  The stator seems to be tight but it looks like pretty sloppy work.  Remarkably, the pole gap looks pretty uniform.  The mounting base is made out of the same thin sheet metal and is actually a bit flexible if you yank on the end of the head.

This "tin can" head does seem to have copper windings and it does have iron ends.  The harmonic winding is "weak" and the unit can't hold voltage at much of a load.  I intended to play with capacitors on the harmonic to see if I could get the voltage up a bit but I haven't had the time to play with it.  It came with a "western style" bridge rectifier - which I need to change out (didn't know those were suspect when I first bought the head).

Next, about a year ago, I bought an iron ST-5.  The castings are a lot thinner than I'd like but do seem to be pretty good quality, maybe better than the Listeroid castings.  The machining seems OK - bearings fit properly (not jammed tight but not sloppy).  The mounting base is very solid and obviously has no detectable flex.  The main housing has me a bit worried because it is clear there is some stress in it (trying to make it expand) due to the press fit of the stator.  The bell-end at the pulley side seems to be very fragile.  There is not much iron left where they have all the cooling slots on the bottom.

This iron head seems to have copper windings (the connections are welded, by the looks of them).  It came with an AVR and a digital meter.  The meter seemed to work OK so I kept it (though I moved it off the head).  The AVR worries me (I bought two spares) BUT I assume its presence means that the harmonic winding is "hot" and could be adjusted with a resistor.  I just hope it fails open and doesn't run away and fry my equipment.

I swapped out the rectifier on this head (it was similar to the other head).  I used a nice quality one and put snubber caps across each diode.  I put fuses on the output (though I don't think the Listeroid is capable of blowing up the generator).

I will say that the AVR is pretty stable and keeps the voltage nice and tight - even with good size load fluctuations.  I have not put a scope on the output - someday...  But first I need to fix the scope - or get one of those new ones.  My scopes are all so old they have tubes (and I don't mean the CRT).

Strangely, the armatures of these two vastly different heads seem to be nearly the same.  They both seem to have copper windings.  They have the same plastic bobbins (which have a few cracked and broken ears) and they both have what look like cast aluminum fans.  Both heads came with noisy (but sealed) bearings.  The brush rigging is identical between the two.

Overall, I like the simplicity of these heads - you can take them apart in minutes - I just wish they had a little more quality.  I gave the windings (stator and armature) in the iron head a good coating of Glyptal 1201.  Also coated all the unpainted raw iron (basically the entire inside and the bottom).  It hadn't rusted at all so I thought it was a good time.  I need to do the other "tin can" head as well but it was partially rusted (inside) when I got it so not sure how good that will turn out.

-John (Boston)

4
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Exhaust joints
« on: March 05, 2019, 10:52:39 PM »
I used stainless band clamps (got them at a truck and bus supply house) and high temp pellet stove silicone.  I put the silicone around the pipe joints and at the splits in the band clamps (which you shouldn't need to do - those clamps seal pretty well on their own).  I still had mysterious exhaust smells from somewhere.

I took apart and remade the exhaust joints.  They all looked good - you could see where the silicone had sealed nicely.  They were a bugger to get apart.  I had already screwed sheet metal screws (with silicone) into the muffler weep holes.  Still had smells.

I thought it might be blowby so I connected the crank case vent to the intake - nope, not that.  Then I thought it might be valve overlap so I extended the intake by four feet or so - nope, not that either...  I gave up and moved the beast out of the house.

Now I wonder if the exhaust was permeating its way through the walls of the house and getting back in from outside.  Because, with the engine outside, if the wind blows the right way I swear I can smell exhaust in the house - and the engine is 50 feet away.  My exhaust pipe only went about 10 feet away from the house (when the engine was inside) so maybe that was it.

The odd thing is that I can run my little Cummins 4BT (in a Step Van) right outside (about 10 feet away) and I get no smell.

-John (Boston)

5
Since this message came back up near the top I'll add a couple of comments...  First, the two people that I know who have Volts love them.  But, their commutes are such that they can charge them enough to make it worthwhile.

My commute is too long for an EV.  I actually HAD one (a 1996 Ford Escort conversion).  It was a cool car, built by a good friend who has sadly passed away.  I tried to come up with methods to "make it fly" but in the end the distance was too long, batteries too heavy (to add more), and charge cycles too deep (as most of you know this ruins the batteries).  I reluctantly sold it.

Then, two years ago I bought a used 2009 Prius.  This is the last year of the second generation (in USA).  I was never a "Prius hater" but I will say that I had no idea how good they were.  I wasn't interested in them at all until I was pressed into getting a reliable car that would "pay for itself" - and one that my Wife could also drive (not a manual shift).

In my search I did NOT want an automatic.  Modern automatics scare me.  They are very complicated and enough friends have had them go out - leaving them with either a very expensive repair, or - junking a perfectly nice car.  The Prius (not sure about the newest ones) really has NO transmission.  It has two electric motors and a gas engine, the three connected by a planetary gear set.  There is no shifting - nothing to wear out.  They make the setup work like a CVT by varying the motor torques.

So, I've been driving this car for nearly two years (put about 33K miles on it) - and I LOVE it.  What a nice car.  I can carry the strangest things in the back - and close the hatch (a claw foot bath tub, a 55 gallon barrel, ten foot long boards) things you'd never get into a lot of cars).  Once you learn how to "play" the computers you can get some pretty serious miles per gallon out of these.  On my commute (back roads) I get 55 to65 MPG, typically.  Highway I only get 50.  Cold weather makes the MPG go down, understandably.

Anyway, not sure if this will help anyone here but...  for some this is a darn good commuter car.

-John (Boston)

6
Listeroid Engines / Re: Good price?
« on: January 21, 2019, 06:33:54 PM »
My opinion is - that's a pretty good deal, especially if you are going to pick it up (no shipping).

-John (Boston)

7
Listeroid Engines / Skip (miss)
« on: January 21, 2019, 06:27:44 PM »
Hello Everyone,

So the miss I had was not due to the governor hunting.  I actually got to see how the governor reacted this time.  To prep for this big storm we just got I ran the genset on Saturday.  It was in the low 30's if I recall.  It took two compression strokes to light off and away it went.

The governor hunted for a few seconds after startup and I watched the linkage.  It oscillated slowly back and forth over quite a lot of the rack travel.  I put 600 watts on it after about half a minute and she smoothed out.  After a couple minutes I increased the load to 1500 watts - ran nice and smooth.

I then reduced the dummy load and added in the "house" and let her run for about a half hour.  I happened to be right there looking things over when she missed.  It seems she missed about two consecutive power strokes.  On the first miss the governor immediately started to open the rack.  It continued opening through the second miss and then she fired.  The governor then gracefully closed the rack right back to its normal position and she was smooth again.

The head was hot enough to not want to leave your hand on it so I don't think it's a temperature issue.  I'm thinking that there might be some tiny little bubbles either getting into the fuel line or somehow still in the filter.  It was a bugger to get all the air out of that filter.

I may replace the filter with what's on my Kubota tractor.  It's smaller and has hose fittings molded right into the housing.  The only thing I don't like is that it's plastic.  This *does* allow a nice view of what's inside but now you can't heat it up if the need arises.  Well, a project for nicer weather...

-John (Boston)

8
Listeroid Engines / Re: Colder start 25F
« on: January 15, 2019, 01:12:00 AM »
Bob,
I think the polyurethane varnish you used should be fine.  The main thing you want to do is keep the windings in place and stop vibrations by "gluing" the whole thing together.

I have an other ST5 (my first one) which is really crude.  It has a formed steel shell instead of iron.  It's thin sheet metal with little U channels welded inside to hold the field.  It has machined rings welded at each end to bolt the ends to.  The whole thing was obviously welded up first (lot of work went into it) then it was turned true at the ends so that everything lined up.

They turned the ID (cutting into the little U channels) just like they do with the iron housings and then they pressed in the field.  Everything is a bit off center so they ended up cutting right through one or two of the channels.  The two ends are cast iron but different than the all iron version.

The armature looks very similar to (if not the same as) the one in my newer all iron unit.  The bearings were sealed and the fan was metal.  It used the same slip rings and same brush rigging as the iron unit.

This steel shelled ST5 has a weak Z winding and won't hold voltage under load.  I should try putting a capacitor across the bridge to see if I can get it a bit higher.  It became a spare when I found the iron one.

Ronmar,
I might add that anti-slop spring to the linkage.  I already changed out the governor spring to a longer one and I reversed the adjuster so it pulls straight.  This fixed the lazy governor issue I had a few years back.  Now it's pretty responsive.

Bruce,
Wow, a 500 gallon air tank?  That's a pretty serious air supply you've got there.  Yeah, I've had my time chasing VW glow plug issues.  We have a 2001 Jetta which always seemed to have an issue with the glow plugs.  On ours it was typically the connector at the top of the plug that lost connection.  I eventually changed the little harness and had better luck.

I'm going to revisit the glow plug on the changeover valve plug next summer when I can work out there more comfortably.  There must be internal differences in the heads to have the plugs about an eighth inch different in protrusion.

-John (Boston)

9
Listeroid Engines / Re: Colder start 25F
« on: January 13, 2019, 10:24:44 PM »
Mike,
Nope no gasoline in the diesel - just a little anti gel (same stuff I always ran in the trucks and what I use in the little Kubota - Diesel 911 pretreat).  Much colder than this and I'll give it a little torch flame down the intake.  That seemed to make it start easier.  So far, this was the coldest I've ran it.

My Duece-and-a-Half had an intake manifold flame heater which I'm told works very well.  I never got to try mine since there were parts missing on it.  If I recall, the data plate on the dash says not to blast the flame gun unless the engine is cranking.

I have a changeover valve plug that was fitted with a glow plug but when I took out my CV plug I found it to be slightly shorter than the replacement.  So the heads must not be the same.  I did not install the new plug.  Next summer I might play with the CV plugs again - when it's not so cold out.  I think the glow plug will make it fire pretty quickly.  In the Kubota they make a BIG difference.

Bob,
I did take the ST5 all apart to inspect and to paint with Glyptal.  The bearings had side covers on them (so not wide open) and I did not open them up.  They felt OK so I left them alone - probably a mistake.  In warmer weather they're not too bad, but far from silent.  Funny, I found no sand in mine.

My slip rings are not straight.  They have a little runout.  I was thinking about removing them and trying to get them lined up better.  My fan (looks to be aluminum or potmetal) is also a bit crooked but I'm not worried about that.

The entire inside of the ST5 was bare clean iron - no paint at all.  I must have gotten a "fresh" one off the boat because there was no rust at all, either.  The first coat of Glyptal soaked in pretty well.  I gave it all two coats.  I ran it down into the field winding slots best I could - to try and bind all the windings together.  I don't like the way they just press the field into the case - no wonder why they crack sometimes.  I even made "special" brush handles out of wire so I could paint all the way through to the middle of the case.

-John (Boston)




 

10
Listeroid Engines / Colder start 25F
« on: January 13, 2019, 07:17:37 PM »
Hello Everyone,

Was pretty cold last night so I went out today to see if the 6/1 would light off.  It took a few tries but I got her going.  It's definitely easier to crank with the 10-30 diesel oil in there.  I think the friction of the piston in the bore is lower with this oil.

Air temp was about 25F, head temp was about 17F at the time of this start.  The ST5 started out making a resonating howling noise which I assume was one or both of the bearings.  After a bit it lessened.  I did not change out the Chinese bearings - no idea what they used for grease.

A bit into the run the Listeroid skipped a power stroke or two and then straightened out and ran fine for the rest of the run.  I guess I caught the skip in the video so you can see what I mean.  Not sure why it would have skipped so far into the run.  By this time I'd think the combustion chamber should have been warm enough for reliable ignition.  Worries me a little.  I have anti-gel in the fuel so it shouldn't be a flow issue...

Well, hope I'm not boring you guys...  Here's the link to this latest start.  I'll probably do an other one when it's even colder.  The object of the enterprise is to be able to start this thing down to zero F or colder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpm724Uhsxc

-John (Boston)


11
Listeroid Engines / Re: Students visit a "high tech " assembly plant
« on: January 11, 2019, 03:25:47 PM »
Actually, somewhere I saw a video of the jib key setting as well.  Poor engines.  They were positively ramming the keys in.  These were smaller engines - maybe petteroids - and each blow of the hammer rocked the engine sideways.  I'm surprised they don't crack the crank case.

One of my keys is stuck (can't get it to budge) and after seeing the video I became concerned about stress risers at the square corners of the slot in the flywheel.  That's a lot of force on a taper that doesn't even fit to begin with.  The key I got out had a shim wrapped around it, painted green so probably a factory "repair".  I fitted a new key to that side the best I could.  Took a lot of careful filing to get good contact.

On the sand, they probably won't show that.  It's a trade secret :)

They only showed a little blip of a load test.  I saw a better video of the test - pretty interesting.  If I recall they use a water cooled wrap of heavy rope on a drum to apply a load.  Looks like they can vary the load and even maybe measure it in terms of pull on the rope.

-John (Boston)

12
Listeroid Engines / Re: Students visit a "high tech " assembly plant
« on: January 10, 2019, 05:31:42 PM »
Yes, a very cool video.  I assume most of those engines were for domestic (Indian) use.  Somewhere I read that it's only a small number that get exported.  Not sure where I read that but I guess it makes sense.

I remember seeing a video of them casting things right in the "ground".  I think they were casting air cooled Petteroid cylinders.  If I recall it shows them breaking up scrap iron by hand with sledge hammers (big truck engines and stuff like that).  Then it shows them melting and skimming, and pouring into the "ground" with a big two-man ladle.  These guys are hard workers.

The company I work for once got a job machining big cast iron parts.  The rough castings were from India.  I remember someone asking the machinist how it was cutting the iron.  He said, "It's not too bad until you hit a file".  We weren't sure there were actually files in there but those castings certainly had inclusions.  You could see them plain as day in the cut.  And, I guess they would ruin the tool on some of them.  I always thought of this when looking at my flywheels.

-John (Boston)

13
Listeroid Engines / Re: Video of current setup
« on: January 09, 2019, 02:16:35 AM »
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)

14
Listeroid Engines / Re: Video of current setup
« on: January 04, 2019, 01:01:53 AM »
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)

15
Listeroid Engines / Video of current setup
« on: December 30, 2018, 05:07:57 PM »
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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