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Messages - mikenash

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526
Original Lister Cs Engines / what a thing is worth - chapter two
« on: September 21, 2018, 09:40:27 AM »
This is the CS of which I spoke

https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1764072533&archive=1

Sold for $1500 in the end

527
Generators / Re: Voltage drop under load
« on: September 21, 2018, 09:31:51 AM »
Hi Hugh
I'm going to order a proper multi-meter with hz function today. I will also recheck the rpm and increase the voltage to about 240v. The vessel for the water holds about 50l it has a diaphragm so the pump didn't have much to do. I have been looking at small generators on the interweb and it seems you can buy 120/240 v 3600 rpm generators which is really confusing for me. This was an old generator when I got it for cheap but it was running at 3600 and making power with no ill effect before I checked the revs so maybe thats as it should be? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing in my case!

P

I have a 5kVa gen head here that's 20-years old.  3000 RPM for 50 Hz (actually recommends 3150 RPM unloaded).  And 3600 RPM (actually 3750 unloaded) for 60 Hz

528
Engines / Re: Are there...
« on: September 21, 2018, 09:25:10 AM »
Fascinating.

Rodales "How to grow Vegetables & Fruits by the Organic Method"  (all four-inches thick of it and with a Glort-length word count)  - the 1968 edition printed before chemicals were really in use anyway - was the bible in my household for a couple of decades when we had kids at home, grew our own veges, ran fruit trees and waged war on opossums, had chickens etc etc

We were lucky enough to have an inexhaustible supply of almost-free barley straw so had big, permanently-mulched, no-dig gardens and big batch-load compost heaps that were built inside big boxes made of straw bales, got so hot they would smoulder sometimes, and produced the best, black, crumbly compost . . .

When I'm a REALLY old fart and am retired I hope to do that again as I am lucky enough to own an acre of prime growing dirt . . . just need to live long enough

Our kids grew up really healthy, too - running around in the country & eating home-grown stuff & living without a television

529
Engines / Re: Are there...
« on: September 20, 2018, 08:27:08 PM »
Case in point:

Hydroponic tomatoes which are kinda red, vaguely tomato-ey and - much more important - consistent in flavour texture and availability all year round for the restaurant trade

But if you cut some slices of a fresh Beefsteak tomato grown in a sunny backyard in compost-rich soil it's kind of like an uber-tomato explosion, flavourwise

Tech is doing a wonderful job of "feeding the world" but it's doing nothing for flavour, nutrition or, probably, health.

Certainly, IMHO, the words "food" and "roundup-ready" shouldn't be used in the same sentence

530
Lister Based Generators / Re: Concerns About My First Real Test
« on: September 20, 2018, 07:58:55 PM »
Hi Mike, I`m sure people who post information (right or wrong) on forums and web sites do it to be helpful or possibly deliberately misleading. Downloading it can`t possibly be any sort of a crime. Redistributing it may be. Keeping a paper or digital copy of something you found on the internet is often a good idea as a lot of sites don`t stay up for long. Just be careful, you can be sure that someone, somewhere is watching everything you do online. This may be benign curiosity or data harvesting so that political groups or advertisers can turn you into an asset. A lot of countries have recently introduced new legislation, forcing the internet service providers to store your metadata, so that it can be made available to law enforcement agencies on demand.

How do I know this? Many years ago I worked in IT and at the time GCHQ (British spying center) had 8000 employees and 64000 phone lines. I wonder what they were doing with all that bandwidth, I doubt they were watching re runs of their favorite TV shows. I also wonder how much bandwidth they now have access to and how many back doors into server systems worldwide. That`s just the UK, add the USA, China, Russia the Koreans N&S and you start to get a picture of what is really going on.

We have nothing to hide and so probably nothing to fear but if there is anything you want to keep to yourself don`t put it online, send a letter. It is still against the law, in most countries, to intercept or open someones mail without a court order.

Bob

+1 on that.  I'm often dismayed by the stuff that my children and grandchildren's generations will casually and trustingly put on line.

"Mother, should I trust the government . . . ?"

531
Listeroid Engines / Re: 24 volt
« on: September 20, 2018, 10:09:26 AM »
Maybe it's like an auto alternator that needs the battery DC?

532
Lister Based Generators / Re: Concerns About My First Real Test
« on: September 20, 2018, 09:53:39 AM »
FWIW I went to Utterpower a while ago and copy/pasted a lot of George's stuff

Quite a bit if it is just incorrect, but that's just a function of learning-by-doing.  But it seemed to me some of the stuff on ST heads an related topics has merit

I have also stolen things like the Lister Dating page at OldEngine

I don't think this is abuse if I'm not circulating or selling or even sharing - I just like to have the information myself

533
Lister Based Generators / Re: Concerns About My First Real Test
« on: September 20, 2018, 08:08:48 AM »
Thanks 38ac for the heads up. I guess old engines aren`t that interesting to young fellas. Doesn`t mean we can`t talk about them. Myself and Stef have put the challenge out to Glort to put up or shut up about WVO. I `m hoping and expecting that he comes up with the definitive instruction manual on how to clean, dry and inject WVO. I have offered my nearly complete CS as a test bed and am happy to follow his instructions and publish the results, I`m also happy to suffer the consequences if it goes wrong.

We need to find some way to preserve this knowledge, it took nearly a century to accumulate and could be lost overnight. God help future generations if this information is lost.

Bob

I think there may be limited interest from future generations?  Over and again i see the treasure of the past ("selling these vintage engines which were my late father's treasures . . . ) passed in without a bid.  In many cases they are items which would have attracted fierce bidding twenty years ago such as antique tractors.

New Zealand was the last country in the globe to have the dubious privilege of being colonised by the British; so our population was sparse and largely agrarian well into the 1950s. Consequently our hedgerows are littered with Listers and the (NZ-built) Anderson equivalents.  You literally cannot give away an Anderson or a Lister petrol engine.  I have refused offers of many such from folks who just wanted the heavy things gone

Although the information on here has been invaluable to me in playing with my CSs, it is the interaction with interesting folks with a range of fascinating skills, experiences, and different outlooks which is equally valuable

In another generation or two the CSs will be museum pieces but we shall be all far too dead to care

But as long as there is someone playing with them, and as long as the Indians continue to make parts and clones - then this information will be valued

I, for example, copy/paste/edited the 38AC valve-events thread in its entirety (cutting out the repetitive comments & tidying it up)  then just printed it off so I can never lose it . . .

I'm sure those who value this stuff will continue to contribute to keeping it alive . . . it's just that I imagine there will be less of us as thee years go by

534
They are badged as "Condor"

BUT

IMHO it's important to think of them just as you would of the Rajkot "Listers" . . . .

In that it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the colour of the paint job or the stickers on the bodywork.  It's all about the importer's relationship with the supplier in China

These old Condor ones haven't been available for years.  But, these days, we buy generators and parts off a local vendor/importer who both sells and services these units and who stocks a whole warehouse of parts for them - as luck would have it, only 20Ks from our work

The woman who runs the company is great and says that the Chinese factory which makes the components that are bolted together and which she has branded as Launtop actually make parts for Honda as well.  On several occasions she has received consignments of parts in "Honda" boxes with the Honda logo scratched out with big black felt pen . . . . she showed me a couple

I guess she has a reputation to maintain and she has worked to organise a quality supply-line for that?

But the badge/paintjob/sticker doesn't mean anything I don't think

I know she exports gensets, pumps, machinery to the Pacific Islands badged as "Launtop" so I guess she is either the major NZ importer or perhaps part of a franchise using that "brand name"

See image of a typical Launtop machine?

I replaced one of our seven-year-old ones a couple months back and paid a bit under $500 including tax for a 2800W unit like the one pictured, just smaller

If we get five years out of it, at $100 a year it's a good deal from our POV

Cheers

535
Here at work we have six or seven 2.2kVa Honda-clone Chinese generators.

I keep a couple of AVRs and a couple of pull-start assemblies and a carburettor "on the shelf" here as a convenience

They are cheap:  AVR maybe $35?, starter maybe $30?,  and carb is about $25 when the carb "kit" is about $17 so not worth bothering with

We use them on site out on farms, often a long way from mains power, to run power tools on service trucks - so they have to be in working order, hence spares here

I have retired one recently and am considering retiring another which has stopped a couple of times - service life seems to be about seven or eight years?

But REALLY the lads have them in their service vehicles to run the microwave and the toasted-sandwich maker

Swapping parts such as a carb or an AVR is very very easy

Cheers

536
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Lister CS 6/1 as form of rehab
« on: September 16, 2018, 10:33:10 PM »
"greater manufacturing tolerances".  A generous term

537
If you look at the old Starfire posts - that is what he does - for a living, I think  (and maybe where his handle comes from?) - modern, solid-state ignition systems and the like to replace "points" type systems

As a young man pushing Nortons & Triumphs on a hot Hawkes Bay summer's day I used to recall the common wisdom of the day:  "Joseph Lucas says - don't go out after dark!"

538
Yes, I have never seen any probs with these either

There will be a reason Joseph Lucas was always referred to as the "Prince of Darkness" . . . . back when I had an old K-series Bedford and my friends had old Bonnevilles and Saints and Nortons and Matchlesses etc (we're talking circa 1975) one of the commonest requests I used to get was "Mike, can I borrow the K to go collect the (enter Norton, Triumph, BSA to suit)?" and the Prince of Darkness was usually referenced as the cause of the problem . . .

FWIW my experience with the automotive inline small, sealed filters is that some are for various forms of common-rail engine and their one-micron (or sub) filters don't serve older, gravity-feed systems well.  I don't know how you'd tell which one was five microns and which was one?  Either way - I'd guess they are more filtration than you need?

539
Oh, I see these have been suggested before but dismissed by the ever-vigilant Glort lol

FWIW some of these I see on diesels we service are so old the aluminium is oxidised and the rubber hoses are brittle - but they still seem to work fine.  Personally, I have never experience any probs at all with them; and wouldn't anticipate doing so in a low-pressure, gravity-feed situation.  They are reccommended to us by the local diesel specialists who suggest we not use in-line ones as they tend to be of "consumer automotive" quality rather than industrial grade

Everyone has an opinion, I guess

Cheers

540
Oh, and they have a water-drain fitting on the bottom and the bottom of the unit is clear so you can see if there is sediment build-up or water accumulation

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