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Messages - mikenash

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1
General Discussion / Re: one of the early members has gone to the lord
« on: January 19, 2022, 05:11:27 AM »
Over and over I see good skills being lost as men get old and die.  I suppose it's kinda self-policing - if there was still a market for older skill-sets maybe someone would still be deploying them?  It took me quite a while recently to find someone to weld-repair a cracked pump-housing casting recently.  Maybe soon we'll just replace not repair.  A sad day

2
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Only those without a tractor will understand . . .
« on: January 19, 2022, 05:07:52 AM »
Hi Hugh

Yes, in my work we are forever moving a heavy electric pump motor somewhere inside an ill-designed pump shed with crowbars, rollers and bad language.  A tractor with a front-end-loader would be good though lol.  Cheers

3
Original Lister Cs Engines / Only those without a tractor will understand . . .
« on: January 18, 2022, 07:02:13 AM »
If you don't own a tractor or other means of lifting one of these heavy old girls - then we're probably on the same wavelength . . .

The one on the left has plagued me for the last year - issues with the bore, issues with a +40thou piston badly machined, issues with a cylinder stud . . . it had got to the stage where grass and weeds were growing up around its pad as I had no way to get it "off and out" and no way to get another one "in"

Then it came to me - I was looking at it all wrong: All that was needed was to drag the "new" CS - the one on the right - off the trailer and onto a pile of timber at the correct height - THEN all I had to do was weld in a couple of 500mm lengths of heavy channel to extend the RSJs of the original CS' mounts, and, voila!  Room for two engines lol

The "new" one (on the right) was sold to me as a "good runner, just not started for a few years" (and have I heard that phrase before)

But it feels like progress.  I managed to weld the sections in without setting fire to the diesel-soaked dead grass - that has to be a good omen lol

4
General Discussion / Re: Chrstmas 2021
« on: December 20, 2021, 04:42:25 AM »
Quote from: cobbadog on December 19, 2021, 10:42:49 AM
Thank you for your kind thoughts and no doubt all member and guests here wish you and your Family and friends a happy and safe Festive Season.
We will be stayi ng at home but my eldest Sister is comming up for the day which is always a great time together. Yes kids, grand kids and now up 3 great grandkids all live away so wil not see them at all this year but as we are retiring early next year we will go north and cross the border to annoy them as that is what we call 'getting even'.
Yes, the new variant of Covid is spreading like wild fire here in Australia and it is Summer here when everyone is mostly out doors but the younger population go out to the clubs and bars and it just explodes the numbers. Fortunately Australia is around 95% vaccinated with booster shots being offered up and we will be getting our boosters next month. So it may well be the case of masks and signing in and out of shops and places to try and manage it better. There has not been many reports of deaths due to this latest Covid but there has been one or two that I am aware of.

Stay safe everyone and always keep an eye out for your next project.
Merry Christmas from Cobba & Cobbarette.

Cool.  Since we have the privilege of both living on islands we have hard borders - so we have options, or at least we should have.  Atm we're just trying to contain it at the managed isolation stations long enough to see what works/doesn't work elsewhere in the world.

"good luck" all round :)

5
General Discussion / Chrstmas 2021
« on: December 18, 2021, 08:25:31 PM »
Hi guys

We've had a couple of tough years in 2020 and 2021 worldwide in many ways

I guess lots of us are of an age where we have children and grandchildren all over the place - and it looks as if the new covid variant is spreading just in time for Christmas in many countries

Just wanted to say I hope everyone's families are safe and well over the holidays.  Cheers

6
Listeroid Engines / I figure these guys are cousins of the folks who assemble the Listeroids
« on: December 13, 2021, 07:16:43 AM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-ruzc15Gw

7
Other Slow Speed Diesels / Re: Lister Blackstone advice
« on: December 09, 2021, 07:38:55 AM »
Hey PFG - re O-rings

Here in the pumping industry in which I work, we simply make our own O-rings.  The round-cross-section rubber is available "off the shelf" in all sorts of diameters and various materials.  We simply cut them to length with care taken to get the length just right, and to get the cut ends square - then super-glue them together

I use such O-rings routinely in 150mm and 200mm diameter pipe flanges where water is being pumped at pressures up to eight or ten bar. 

Because the O-ring is sized correctly for its groove, and is completely contained in the three sides of the groove of one flange and the flat face of the other - they never leak or blow out

You will have suppliers of O-ring material who will be familiar with this process - so it may be an option if the O-ring is adequately contained

Cheers

8
Lister Market Place (things for Sale) / Re: Any intrest in Lister engines for sale
« on: December 07, 2021, 06:21:09 PM »
Quote from: 38ac on December 06, 2021, 01:00:26 PM
Yes the small diesel market has cooled considerably from the peak. The fact that Lister Petter is no more doesn't help resale, neither does the fact the holder of most factory parts thinks they are made of gold. Cheap solar certainly cut into the diesel market. I think another factor is people have gradualy found out that the everlasting engine lore attached to Lister engines is mostly that, lore, especially when operated LOTS of hours,.  Certain Lister engines remain quite marketable. The CS series in particular.  Those air cooled engine pictured can be had around here for $4-500 in good running order and in Europe for the price of scrap. There is also the purchase cost/ operating cost factor for a less than 10HP power plant. Its just plain cheaper to buy and operate a Honda gasoline engine.

Also it has been my experience here that the build quality of the many Chinese Honda clones is acceptable or better.  You can get a decade's casual use from a $400 generator.  Even if you ran it a lot and replaced it every year with a new one - and probably still get $100 for the old one - used as a back-up to solar, they are a no-brainer.  You no longer have to buy a "Honda" unless you actually want one, imho

9
Lister Based Generators / Re: ST2 starter battery replacement
« on: November 25, 2021, 05:09:05 AM »
Quote from: mihit on November 24, 2021, 07:25:13 AM
A battery Isolation key/switch would be simpler than "removing the battery"

Solar panels output more in cold weather...are you sure your charger is able to handle that and not cooking the batteries?

Any battery technology (VRLA, SLA, AGM, Wet Cell, even LiPo) will be fine as long as it has the CCA rating required. NONE of them like being drained and left undervoltage.

I'm not sure of the wiring setup on your ST, but it really should charge the battery when running, and if it doesn't then you should be putting a generator/alternator/rectifier on the unit, so it does.

Just a comment:  In my work we have lots of remote sites with generators.  From time to time one of them will lose the 12VDC side of their output and no longer charge the various batteries associated with the installation.  What we have done is simply go down to the local auto parts store, buy a single-phase battery charger, and plug it into one of the single-phase outlets of the genset

Simple solution often the best :)

10
Listeroid Engines / Re: Engine Timing
« on: November 16, 2021, 05:08:12 AM »
Is it a problem where something is binding up on you?  If all the timing stuff is good - is it possible the cam follower thingie for the injector is too high & is binding on the pump?  Just a thought - if everything else is good.  Good luck

11
Changfa Engines / Re: Slow rpm Chang fa?
« on: November 13, 2021, 08:55:00 PM »
Quote from: mobile_bob on November 13, 2021, 02:34:59 PM
seems to me we have two issues at hand

1.  perhaps glort has a "man crush" on hwew?  and...

2. just because one has never educated himself on things like critical speeds, has never witnessed them, doesn't understand the millions of dollars spent on research to either mask them, or move them outside the operating range of the engine and driven units, and doesn't believe in them "does not" mean they don't exist

i have heard there are those that are "flat earthers" maybe we have one here?

;)

bob g

Hey Bob the critical speeds are certainly a "thing" - especially when you have rotating masses at different speeds in different planes

In many of the sites i work on we have "lineshaft" pumps - a series of vertical shafts down a well driving a pump at the bottom in the water, and a 6-cyl John Deere engine (horizontal crankshaft) providing the drive, and, obviously, a right-angle drive in between.  All of these have had critical speed ranges that need to be avoided established by trial and error and both written on the pumpshed wall and programmed into the engine controller

So the combination of the lineshaft & the JD might be fine from idle to 1800 RPM then prone to shaking itself to bits from 1850 - 2200, then OK again from 2200 - 2450

It's certainly a well-recognised phenomenon

12
Everything else / Re: Lithium cell balancing
« on: November 04, 2021, 05:27:33 AM »
Following . . .  :)

13
Everything else / Re: Lithium cell balancing
« on: October 31, 2021, 06:15:42 PM »
Still watching this topic with interest, thanks

14
Generators / Re: Slow speed alternative fuel engine + battery bank = powerful option
« on: October 27, 2021, 06:51:32 AM »
Quote from: mobile_bob on October 26, 2021, 10:36:34 PM
"Batteries are the weakest link in any off-grid system." 
+1

i couldn't agree more!

years ago, on this very forum, and on the sister forum we got into the weeds on this topic and i among others sang the song over and over again

"if" one is in the planning stages, of house and power system, and "if" one is flexible to changing his/her lifestyle to one that is more frugal the options widen dramatically.

anyone starting out with a clean sheet paper approach to home and power system design he could do far worse than learning from the yachting and nasa boys. 

learn how to limit your needs, and control those needs, and the cost of success goes down to something quite manageable.

producing power to charge a battery bank to use later to convert via an inverter to supply poorly managed loads, gets spendy in a hurry.  far better to use the power as it is generated than to go through various stages of conversion, let alone the cost of the battery bank.

every watt saved or trimmed from the need column is a watt you don't have to generate, and probably more like 2 or more watts if you plan on storage and conversion.

that is the main reason the whole tiny house movement has captured my imagination, if there was ever a way to make a very efficient offgrid power system, starting with a well designed tiny home makes things very easy.

bob g

Interesting you say that Bob.  I recently moved from where I lived for the last five or so years - sharing a 130-year-old, timber-framed, high-ceilinged, half-insulated, drafty 5-bedroom farmhouse with an old friend - to a professionally-built "tiny-ish" house made from two insulated containers with a whole bunch of sun-trap glass areas.  Can't believe how little energy it takes to heat the place.  Something of a revelation :)

15
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: rpm limit
« on: October 13, 2021, 07:09:18 PM »
Quote from: vegoil on October 13, 2021, 05:03:09 PM
Hello Bruce,

I am not sure what part of the world you stay but there must be a time difference between us I am in the far north of the UK.

I am generating 220Volt 50 hz it is a old type BKB start o matic
 
Do you think that the photos I sent of the voltage cut out will work on the AC 220volt
I could get one for the 24 volt charging side and set it to trip at 28 volt (that's a guesstimate). you could please advise on the upper voltage trip setting.

the reason that I believe that the 220 volt side wont work as well is because I have one of that device that plugs into a socket then you plug in a load IE: light or heater into it. it has a screen that reads the voltage, amps, hertz . when the unit is plugged in on its own the engine dose not start. then the heater is switched on the engine starts when the heater is switched off but still plugged into the device the engine still runs until the device is switched off. if this makes sense. I only use this plug to test check the volts amps hertz

I am unable to run the engine over rev at the moment because when she over reved she brunt out the charging resistor. I have sent for 0.8mm wire to rewind the resistor.

Regards

John

John in my industry we have simple diesel engine controllers in use out on farms all over the place.  They're made from off-the-shelf components.  They just do simple stuff like track revs and oil temp & pressure and start/stop on a signal.  Several of them use the Hz signal off the diesel engine's alternator to control revs - ie, as the revs rise, so do the hertz and the controller uses this info to talk to the little ram that's attached to the throttle arm

If you had a google, there might be info about a simple version of this?  If you have or wanted to fit a simple automotive alternator - taking a signal off that might be easy and I guess you could set limits with a simple controller

Folks here who know more about this stuff may chime in?

Cheers

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