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Author Topic: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one  (Read 13618 times)

Mr Lister

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2006, 04:24:52 PM »
Guy Fawkes,

Thanks for hosting the CS engine manual. Mine was missing the sectional drawings from the back pages.

The prices for the spare parts are nearly as cheap as the Indian parts!   Was this manual from 1956, same as your engine?


Ken

DirtbikePilot

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2006, 10:47:20 PM »
Holy crap that's cool! I never knew that it actually started itself when a load was applied and shut down when load was taken off. Why hasn't anyone made a portable generator that does that?
Currently no listeroids, sad........ very sad.....
Just some other antique engines ranging from 40 pounds to 33,000 pounds each.

quinnf

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2006, 02:46:35 AM »
Two words:  Product Liability.

Ok, so you're out on a jobsite.  I rained last night.  You plug all your tools into a distribution box, and the 20A twist lock into the generator which is off.  The foreman yells to you to help scoop the pooled water that accumulated against the foundation last night.  So you're shoveling debris away from the foundation when Jose the day laborer comes over to lend a hand.  As he jumps off the platform onto the dry earth next to the puddle you're standing in, his toe catches the power cord of your worm-drive saw, which drops into the water.  Suddenly, you hear the generator starting . . . 


DirtbikePilot

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2006, 02:57:06 AM »
Well, that could be the case. I think it would be neat though!
Currently no listeroids, sad........ very sad.....
Just some other antique engines ranging from 40 pounds to 33,000 pounds each.

Mr Lister

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #19 on: February 16, 2006, 10:39:12 AM »
List,

The Startomatic was designed in a bygone age, long before product liability was invented, and before lawyers realised that they could get mega-rich, feeding on inbred human stupidity. 

But seriously,  the SOM was designed for a specific purpose. It was for the electrification of farms and other remote properties in the UK (and elsewhere), in the 1950s before the electricity grid reached a lot of the smaller isolated communities.

At that time, you aspired to a 60W electric bulb in each room,  a 2kW electric kettle and perhaps a 600W toaster in the kitchen. The only other appliance might have been a 200W wireless (vacuum tube) and a 300W TV in the living room.    Motorised appliances would have been limited to a 750W vacuum cleaner.

Life was so much simpler then.  These houses would have relied on coal and wood burned in open fires for heating, or possibly a oil fired range in the kitchen. 

The SOM would be bolted down firmly in an outhouse as part of a permanent installation. There would be fixed wiring going to the house, with the SOM control box mounted on the shed wall. 

There would be no question of trailing power leads,  1500W buzz saws, or the whole host of electric power tools that we take for granted these days.

I read recently that the auto-start function was not the problem, it was the auto-stop, as recalled in an anectdote by a retired Lister Service Engineer.

A farmer's wife wanting to have an amourous evening asked her husband to turn off the bedroom light.  He did so, but the SOM kept chugging away.  She said "I'm not doing anything until you've turned that racket off".  So he was forced to get dressed and go to the shed to shut it down. When he got back, she was asleep! 



Ken

Andre Blanchard

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #20 on: February 16, 2006, 01:23:55 PM »
Most modern inverters that I know of have a search mode.  My Trace 2512 can be set so that just the added capacitive load of plugging in a 200' extension cord will bring the inverter out of search mode.  And my Generac 3500 watt generator has a mode where it cuts back to about half speed then speeds up to normal when a load is turned on.  I have never used it, it is very annoying to wait for a skil saw slowly spin up.
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DirtbikePilot

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Re: GF's Start-o-matic - WEB GALLERY - use this one
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2006, 01:19:09 AM »
I guess I already have such a generator. I didn't think of it at the time because it's been quite a while since I used it, but my honda eu3000i does something similar. It just doesn't shut all the way off.
Currently no listeroids, sad........ very sad.....
Just some other antique engines ranging from 40 pounds to 33,000 pounds each.