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Topics - farmerjohn

Pages: [1]
1
Listeroid Engines / DIY Short block
« on: January 04, 2020, 09:29:53 PM »
Guys,

I have been thinking about building my own block from metal plate.  After a few rebuilds of my listeroid I have enough spare parts lying around to build another one

You can easily buy all the parts minus the block for cheap.  The blocks are next to impossible to find / source for a reasonable price.  Importing new engines is getting harder and harder

I have access to a machine shop with CNC waterjet, plasma and CNC machine

I'm thinking of machining up a simple block which would consist of metal plates around 1/4" or so welded together.  It would be more square / rectangular than the original but all the holes, etc would line up and everything would just bolt on.

What do you guys think?  has anyone done this before?  Am I crazy?  Should I start selling it as a DIY weldable kit?  lol
If the Indians can do it - why cant we?

It would certainly get more guys into the hobby..  What about flywheels?

John


2
Other Fuels / Pyrolysis Oil - Free fuel from wood / plastic
« on: January 04, 2020, 07:55:03 PM »
Hey guys,

Thought I would share my quick experiment with Pyrolysis Oil
https://photos.app.goo.gl/D2TRXR9GM3PEmr83A

I made a crude reactor just to test the concept..  Made about a liter of oil from a few handfuls of wood pellets

The listeroid ran on it for almost an hour

This spring I plan to scale things up..  I have access to a machine shop with a CNC machine.  I'm building a screw auger reactor out of stainless

We live on 10 acres of land with TONS of trees/brush..  My goal is to be 100% energy independent before the end of the year.

Right now I collect WVO but its becoming harder and harder to source for free

Next tests will be figuring out a good catalyst to improve the quality of the output.  As-is the oil is pretty acidic and will wear out the engine.  I may rebuild the fuel pump and injector with stainless and maybe get the piston coated..  But improving the oil will be better long term.

It is a carbon neutral process

I'll share more in a few months when I get back to it.  But so far its showing promise

John

3
Listeroid Engines / Listeroid pressurized oil system / Rebuild
« on: January 04, 2020, 06:09:31 PM »
Hey guys,

Thought I would share some photos / videos of my Listeroid rebuild
https://photos.app.goo.gl/eZ4YnjaGkPcPPXrk6

I added an external pressurized oil system to it.  It holds about 50L of oil and is constantly filtered.  I machined some bronze bushings with oil grooves, drilled oil galleries in the crankshaft, etc

Its kinda overkill but I have pressurized oil going to the main bearing, both of the roller bearings, both camshaft bearings, the idler gear, etc..  Also still has splash

I put near 10,000 hrs on this engine before the rebuild..  running 100% WVO

It died only because I let it run out of oil..  (the original oil pump spring a leak)

It is now fully automated with a generator controller and charges a very large 80Kwh lithium battery pack.  I run it for about 24hrs to charge the batteries and then live off the batteries for about 3 days.   It auto starts back up when the voltage gets too low.  The gen controller monitors cylinder head temps, oil pressure, RPM, etc and will pull a solenoid on the rack if there are issues.  There is a heat exchanger on the exhaust and I have an insulated pipe going to the house.  When its running - it heats my house 100%

It should run forever now!!  So far I have about 500hrs on it since rebuild and its going strong

Please don't make fun of the red paint!  :)  I had a can of Glyptol and went to town inside and out

Hope this inspires others

John


4
Engines / Help finding part for LPWS2
« on: July 28, 2017, 03:20:33 AM »
Hello all,

I recently acquired a LPWS2 engine and I would like to mount a generator head to it

It is missing the flywheel disc drive adapter

According to the manual - I need the following part:
Accessory Kit Code CY - LPW/S2,3,4 .....................750-10441  With 6.5" Adaptor

Does anyone know where I can find one that will ship to Canada?

Thanks for your time

John

5
Lister Based Generators / My experience
« on: March 25, 2017, 01:52:13 AM »
Hello all!

Long time lurker - first time poster!

I have a powerline 6/1 that I run 24/7 from WVO.  It has approx 6000 hours on it and going pretty strong! - thought I would share my experience

I change the oil once a month and in between add a liter or so every sunday and check / adjust the valve clearance - other than that - I don't really do a darn thing..  it just keeps chugging away and I do not really think about it. I dump the waste motor oil into my WVO tank thats waiting to be filtered by centrifuge which I do once per month
The waste vegetable oil that I use is delivered to my farm once per month for free!  I then let it settle for a couple of months and then run it through the centrifuge.  I do it in 1000L batches at a time - once per month

I paid about $1200 Canadian dollars for the listeroid and about $400 for a 5KW chinese ST genset - pretty cheap if you ask me.  I have that coupled to my solar power system via a bridge rectifier and a capacitor bank that then gets fed into my charge controller 300 feet away in the house.  I cranked the voltage up on the AVR to 250V before going into the rectifier.  Under no load the charge controller sees about 360VDC.  I do not care much about frequency or voltage since the charger can work with upto 600V and will auto adjust for the best efficiency.  Under 3600W load the voltage dips down to about 275VDC.
I have a 10KWH capacity battery bank as well as a net metering contract with my utility company.  I keep the batteries topped up 100% and send the excess into the grid for credits.  The grid and batteries act as a capacitor when large loads come on that the solar + generator cannot support

Since a full rebuild kit is less than $400 - my plan is to run it into the ground and then rebuild it when it dies.  So far it has more than paid for itself, my electricity bills used to be ~$600 per month.  They are now $0 with net metering credits to spare!  :)

I run the engine with high compression since most of the time it does not see a full load.  At night my loads go down to under 1000 watts while during the day they can average 3,000 watts.  My solar system allows me to communicate with it via Modbus over TCP.  I wrote a small python script running on a raspberry pi that will constantly adjust the charge rate of the generator's charge controller in order to maximize my solar when its available.  With that in place - my fuel economy is fantastic - I average 0.75L per hour during a 24 period

I made several modifications to run with WVO
1) I advanced the injection timing to 25 deg BTDC
2) I Increased the injector pressure to the maximum
3) I preheat the oil with a copper coil wrapped around the exhaust pipe which the oil flows through before the pump

Basically I followed the findings in this paper I found: https://www.slideshare.net/XZ3/a0018-12759205

I also use the waste heat from the head and the exhaust to heat my house.  I put a stainless steel swimming pool heat exchanger on the exhaust and buried 300 feet of Logstor insulated pipe from my barn to the house.  The coolent starts in an old hot water tank, enters the cylinder head via a thermostat or goes though a bypass, then into the exhaust heat exchanger, then to the pipe to my forced air furnace where I have a heat exchanger that is the same size as my old filter, it then loops back to the hot water tank.  Last winter it cost me close to $6,000 on propane to heat my house.  This year it has only been approx $1500.  A major savings!  The lister is not able to fully heat my house in the coldest of days but it does a great job most of the time.  I keep the furnace fan running on low 24/7 in the winter.  My house is 2900 sq/ft

This project has been a great deal of fun and I love being "off the grid".  Thanks to all of you who have posted to this forum - I have learned an incredible amount from it and cannot wait to do the rebuild!

Let me know if you want more details about my system

John


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