The Listeroid Chronicles-WMO and Other Listeroid Modifications

[EdDee]

Hey B99,

Agreed, and the thing about it is: If it was a needy being in search of shelter or a roof, they would have appreciated the building as it stood... To vandalise and demolish 1000's of $ worth of fittings and work for the pittance that would be gained in scrap value is simply ridiculous...  The place is pretty much a write off by the looks of it... My mate managed to remove the remainder of the IBR roof sheeting and get it back here by this evening, along with a 5000L rain tank and some other bits and pieces....

The scary thing is, we know where the goods are most likely to be, but due to certain unmentionable reasons, the police will probably not act and assist in recovering the stolen items or apprehend the thieves in possession of them...
Cheers...
A still very pissed off Ed...

[EdDee]

Hey Glort,

All cool here, been busy on a couple if non engine projects the last while... Sorted out another 10kl if water storage and catch tanks... Started on the replacement of a whole batch of windows on the flatlet with ali frames... Almost finished rebuilding a 2m manual bending press for sheet up to about 2mm thick... Plenty of gun work came in and kept me busy during the days too... Plus, just got news last week that the replacement of the replacement flywheel has been located, just waiting for the guys to ship it 1500km so I can do the last 600 km haul...

Tm1 is running fine on a daily basis, I run him 3-4 hrs in the late afternoon on cogen work, he is using a bit of oil, about 100ml every third day or so, no leaks that I can see, so its not too bad... Its almost time to do ac brushes on the genhead, but I can't complain... they were second hand more than 2000 hours ago, so they have had a good innings...

I made up a small  burner the other day, just to play with, works well, but small isn't so small! More on that later...

I am still lurking in the background, just not much to add...

Catch u later...

Cheers
Ed

[EdDee]

Hey Guys,

I am still here.... No missing fingers, no exploded flywheels, no blood shed due to stupidity....(for a change....No really! .... unless I stick a screwdriver into an appendage during a project, the damn thing never works properly first time round!!)

Apologies for my long absence, as I alluded to previously, I am busy/have been busy with some non-Lister type projects that I need to get out of the way in the interim. Here's an example of one that has been hanging around for the last couple of years or so, a 2m odd hand bending brake for thin plate...

Pics here:http://www.warriorpaintball.co.za/private/20160316 Bending Brake Refurb...

This little baby, all 600kg of it, has been blocking up the front of my bulldozer and I finally removed digit from rectal orifice to get it functioning... Mainly because I have to make up a replacement inner panel for the back of my Ford "pickup"... In ZA we call them "Bakkies"...

The bender works well, so much so that I have immediately stacked up (or had stacked up for me), a bunch of other projects... Actually, believe it or not, even a "prettifier" for TM1 - I am, when I get a chance, going to make up a duct/cowl for the radiator fan... but hey... Rome wasn't built in a day!!

The replacement, replacement flywheel is due any day now for TM2, I am probably going to ultrasound the faulties along with magnaflux'ing them to see if I can salvage and use them for TM2 - he is destined to run at around 500rpm on heavy oil, so the stresses will be much lower too... I am probably going to bolt with CSK's a "Tyre" spanning both rim external surfaces in place - this will effectively give it the appearance of being a large width flywheel with 2 bosses locating it on the crankshaft. Only the outer wheels will have gib keys installed to hold everything in place, the inner flywheels will be driven by the "shrink-fitted" and bolted mild steel tyre. The tyre hoop will be around 200mm wide and about 6mm thick, this should more than strengthen the rim enough to hold explosions at bay, even assuming that the wheels have less than perfect integrity. (but I will test/check them thoroughly beforehand though.) These "tyres" will be bolted in a zig-zag pattern onto each wheel rim with about 8mm dia CSK screws...

Incidentally, I did some deflection measurements on the crankshaft, comparing vertical deflection between one and two flywheels weight... very little!! In fact, most of the deflection I picked up was due to the footprint area of the motor flexing the work surface slightly... I have re-run the calcs, and the additional weight/distance from bearing should not be a major problem either. (Calculate the centrifugal force imposed on a crankshaft by a flywheel with a built in rim balance weight....scary!!)

As this is a CBW engine, the flywheels are (supposed to be) in balance and the engine oscillating balance is taken care of the CBW on the crankshaft(supposedly)... I am doing a static balance on the flywheels pre installation. I will add about a 30% oscillating mass additional CBW to crank throw radius to get things really smooth throughout the rev range... This has worked VERY well on TM1...

If anybody has any bits to add or check over, please shout NOW, before I start hacking things apart and together!! Any comments, questions or concerns, no matter how small, are welcome and always add another perspective!!

Keep it spinning!!

Regds
Ed

[EdDee]

Hey Guys,

Another word from sunny paradise.....

Just spoke to the suppliers a few minutes ago, it looks like TM2's replacement, replacement flywheel has arrived in the next major center... Only a 7hr round trip to go and fetch it!

But... Something I noticed yesterday on TM1 - I have installed an extended crankcase breather/CC vent valve assembly a while back. As luck would have it, it tuned perfectly to the resonant frequency of the crankcase volume and rpm I run TM1 at... Result: a crankcase vent sound level that is louder than the exhaust!! To get around this "problem" I put a 1" thick foam type "filter" on the end of the breather. This detuned the length enough to make it passable in the meantime... Now, the interesting thing that I found....

After running a couple of weeks with this gizmo in place, the temp has been around the 90C (Approximate) for the cylinder head water outlet temp.... It changes with load obviously, but hovers around there by and large. I saw, yesterday, that the foam filter was getting a bit clogged up, so, not having enough time to wash it, I simply removed it, pro-tem... During the cogen run yesterday evening, I noticed that the temp of TM1 was down by about 7 to 8 degrees... The ambient temp wasn't much changed from previous...

Has anybody else perhaps noticed that a change in crankcase pressure, or restricting the cc breather influences overall engine temperature perhaps? (There is not an excess crankcase pressure that I have noticed when the foam is in place, no oil leaks/gaskets seeping etc)

I will try and do a with/without run and see if there is any influence on temperature that can be picked up, possibly there is another reason for the temp decrease that I haven't noticed...

Keep it spinning...

Regds
Ed

[mike90045]

The crankcase pumps a fair volume of air, so it may help cool the underside of the piston somewhat (and other parts).   Or not. 

[EdDee]

Hey Mike,

That's a distinct possibility, not sure if it is the case though... Difficult one to actually put a finger on decisively...

I did verify that I wasn't imagining it this evening, I put the gubbins in place and the temp rose anything between 5-7C and dropped correspondingly when it was removed... Still wouldn't believe it if I hadn't done it myself... Curious indeed.

I wasn't satisfied with a simple on then off check, I had it on and off at least 9 or 10 times during the course of the evening over a space of abut 3 hours.... Various loads, from lighting and fridges only through to a fully blown 25A output at 220v from dishwasher to electric iron, so it was a pretty thorough and random yet monitored run.... Was quite fascinating (small things amuse... etc...) and definitely something to file away in the memory banks for future reference.... I am now quite keen to try routing the cc vapours to the inlet, as there is virtually no oil in liquid or droplet form that makes its way up the vent stack, so a runaway is highly unlikely... Seems a shame to waste the bit that is escaping in vapour....

On another note, my replacement flywheel is definitely waiting for my collection, now must just try and hitch a ride for it up this way...

Keep it spinning...

Regds
Ed

PS and by the way... long term average so far is 603ml fuel per kWh... excluding heat from coolant and exhaust that is captured... Not too bad I don't think... what do you guys say?

[buickanddeere]

  A 6 shaft HP diesel will have to dump about 3.5 KW of heat from the radiator.

[EdDee]

Hey Glort/B&D,

The crank venting temp change is simply a curiosity for me, I am going to change it, just haven't got around to it... I doubt that I will take it much further... It could also probably be something so simple as the breather pipe shadowing a small draft to the side of the cyl head outlet pipe where the thermocouple is taped on... that could cause it I suppose.....

As to a fan blowing on the crankcase, I don't think it will make a noticeable difference, the wheels stir up plenty of breeze in the small enclosure as it stands....

I went back and checked the records... From new through to today, the consumption has been worst case 610ml or so to best case 590m or so per kwh... I have fairly accurate records, granted, my maths and formulas on excel aren't so hot anymore, but I think I am about right in my calcs.

What offsets it for me, is the cogen aspect - We haven't bought LPG for bathroom water heating in months. The heat store(which is very inefficient) holds temp overnight and hot water is available till early afternoon, after which it is a bit cool for comfort. The other small plus, is that the heat store is directly below the kitchen floor, albeit cement slab, and this has made the kitchen which luckily is fairly large, the social center in the evenings... What a pleasure to have everybody pitch in and clear up after dinner on a daily basis, then sit around with coffee and talk sh!t for a while... Very social!! (There are up to 9 of us in the household when most are home, and average around 7 most of the time.)

I might have sourced a contact for some large storage cells, flooded, 2V. If all goes well I might also go to a PV type addition. What has been holding me back is the cost of the batteries and the lack of good used ones on the second hand market... Hold thumbs!! For inverters, I have already got and am using 3xAPC UPS's. they total about 7.5kw in all, more than I need, but I don't know how well they will like to run on a continuous basis...I am going to look for a decent size single inverter to do the job, around 10kw I reckon should handle it mostly. Damn, Glort, now we are both gonna get kicked off here....

As I have said before, way back in this thread if I remember correctly: If I was in the middle of nowhere, no other source of power or heat, totally off grid, the Lister cogen is the way to go... As long as you are reasonably mechanically minded and not afraid to get your hands dirty on a daily basis. As a cheap/fully viable/reliable alternative to on-grid if it is available... Look elsewhere... (Eeeek....now I am really going to get flamed!)

I have also done the sums... How the Greenies at this stage can justify the cost/payback for PV, I really dont know. Every time I do the sums, the payback time is way over the MTBF estimate for the hardware. Granted, no emissions(for using them anyway), but the manufacturing emissions overheads were pretty horrible last time I checked, so either way, the planet gets a bit screwed up, not by the user, but by the manufacturer in this case..... I feel just a little bit better when I walk out my door and know that if the beast is belching out black smoke I can do something about it!

Interesting point re the power companies... Kinda "catch 22"... We know we are being screwed... We go PV... Juice price goes up... More go PV... Prices rise more... More go PV... PV panels now popular and take over as a monopoly... PV panel prices start hiking... A never ending loop of greed...

B&D - I haven't done the calcs or checks since I installed the heatex on the top line of the radiator input, but I can say that I am getting a "more than initially expected" return in heat harvesting from it. I initially calc'd out after measuring, that I was getting around 1.6Kwh worth of energy out of the exhaust heatex. With the coolant heatex in place, I, at a guestimate, am well over double that now. My initial heat store was around 90kg of water and from the exhaust only. Now we are running around 250Kg of water store and this gets up to well over the 60C mark from around a start of 10C approximate.. It does this within 2 hours or so, so I am more than satisfied. During the evening shower cycle, putting 9 people through the wash bays, with TM1 running, there is still plenty of hot left over for most of the next day.

Again I ramble....

Keep it spinning....

Regds
Ed

[38ac]

As I have said before, way back in this thread if I remember correctly: If I was in the middle of nowhere, no other source of power or heat, totally off grid, the Lister cogen is the way to go... As long as you are reasonably mechanically minded and not afraid to get your hands dirty on a daily basis. As a cheap/fully viable/reliable alternative to on-grid if it is available... Look elsewhere... (Eeeek....now I am really going to get flamed!)

Ed,
As always a good read on whats going on with your system.  The portion of your post I saved in the quote is spot on in my opinion even though I have never and do not ever plan on being off grid. I do supply equipment and try to follow up on what happens with it.
Seems that the vast majority who dream of cheap energy via diesel power and re-purposed fuels get a rude awakening to real and continuing costs  and (I suspect) also they tire of the required daily routine.  The vast majority end up back on grid,,, one way or another.  My hat is off to all of those with enough brains and brawn to stick with it,, and it takes BOTH.

[dieselgman]

I spent some years living off-grid on a mountain top in Alaska. That was 20 years ago and as I recall diesel fuel at $0.75 per gallon. We ran a couple small Lister plants 24/7 between two households and had fairly good luck as far as equipment maintenance costs were concerned... The reality of finding or producing cheap power is - it isn't ever cheap. You either put in the time and effort to keep up a "free" fuel supply and a maintenance program, or you put in the bucks to keep the fuel delivered and new equipment operational, or somewhere in between. The trade-offs are still there and nature will always balance itself out. I think it becomes a matter of what your particular desires and talents and resources might be that tip the scales one way or the other. What is best for social responsibility is not likely the same thing for everyone and certainly drastically differing depending on the locale in which you live. In my opinion, this is one of the major flaws in the EPA regulation that forces a "one size fits all" regulation on our possible choices. America has become a nation of sheep by and large... to even accept such idiotic intrusion and regulation on our lives. The wolves are in power obviously and the decline continues...

dieselgman

[EdDee]

Hey Guys,

Agree wholeheartedly!

Even discounting time entirely, if there is ANY cost to your fuel, the "payback" time for investing in one of these babies runs to an eternity. (When you take running spares and maintenance material costs into it.) Cost vs return is a very slim line... you really gotta love it to justify it. As a paying hobby, it is worthwhile, if you take into account that very few hobbies will enable you to pursue other avenues while they are in progress... ie, running your engine for fun and making hot water/juice for the household while you are at it vs say, flying model heli's or the like.... Both much fun, but one is pure expense while the other benefits everybody around you.... (even the butterfly in South East Asia...Lol...) You are "disposing" of fossil/other waste oils in probably, what I would say, the most environmentally acceptable method around!

But hey, this is not my usual long ramble... I have dodged inside to type this post while I await a courier with the "hallowed replacement flywheel" .... and... yes, I know, I am an addict (in the background the rest of you addicts greet: "Hello Ed")... Along with the flywheel a few badly needed basic household appliances(well I need them and I have a strange household) and other bits and pieces... AC/DC Tig welder(Chinese probably, but it has some really cool twisty turny knobs and its .... YELLOW) ... A couple of 750Kg Chain hoists(Always running out of those)... A couple of hoist load levelers(always wanted them but never got round to getting)... An argon flow meter(where did I put that other one now)... and a beam crawl to hook the chain blocks to the new gantry(I found my other one, maybe I should have got two so I would have a spare)...

Chat laters...I am gonna wait for a courier and carry on welding up the new gantry, its almost done...

Cheers
Ed

[38ac]

In a way its little different than burning wood for heat. Those that get into it to save money usually have the stove, saws, splitter all for sale after just a couple years and spend their money on fuels while spending their  spare time complaining about how much work it was,,,  I have a hell of chunk of money invested in burning wood but wouldnt have it any other way. 

[EdDee]

Hi 38ac,

Yep, very much the same in all walks of life... Burn bright for a short while then slowly die out till not even embers remain... More often than not, those that give up on the sustainable/recycled fuel lines usually find fleabay to be a good friend for getting rid of the now "surplus" to needs equipment... And, don't forget, there are the inevitable complaints about how little money they could recover for selling the near perfect condition (yet totally buggered), saw/splitter/listeroid etc....

Now my rant.....!

The lazy SOB couriers "lost" my goods, only to find them "just before" closing time... "Too late to deliver now, first thing tomorrow morning, should be just before or around noon..." ...They say.... What a bunch of absolute wankers.... If first thing is around just before noon, I need to check my sundial...Blerrie eedjuts!

Right, let me go pack the block and tackle away, seeing that the a$$holes wont need the pallet offloaded this eve....

Cheers....
Ed

[EdDee]

Hey guys,

Woohoo...

My flywheel has arrived! It looks a "bit" different to the originals, around 70mm larger diameter(approx 670mm od) with almost kidney-shaped holes instead of the previous round holes in the web... the hole spacing seems symmetrical, so it looks like its from a CBW type 'roid....

Anybody had similar?

Keep it spinning...

Cheerz
Ed

[EdDee]

Hey Guys,

Talk about putting Descartes before a horse....

Picture the scene... Double flywheels in temp position, lightly keyed into place.... Looks Awesome!! .... .... .... .... Grab overhead hoist to lift TM2 and turn him around... .... .... Then it dawns on me.... Overhead hoist is rated safely to about 750kg... TM2 was around 600kg with single flywheel set... Add another 200kg or so of flywheels... Bad Idea.... Open the household pub and proceed to drink copious amounts of brew....

Decide to finish building new hoist that is rated to safely lift 1000kg.... Tomorrow is another day!!

Cheers
Ed