Puppeteer

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - mikenash

Pages: 1 ... 51 52 [53] 54 55 ... 62
781
Everything else / Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« on: October 28, 2017, 06:55:52 AM »
Fascinating thoughts Bruce.  Thanks for taking the time to put all that down "on paper"

I hadn't considered emissions/health - something to think about

Cheers

782
Everything else / Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« on: October 28, 2017, 01:46:44 AM »
Hi Bruce

I'm interested in your thinking on this

My last solar setup I basically had panels, fairly cheap deep-cycle batteries, a controller, an inverter and a voltmeter as a "fuel gauge"

I need to build another in a few years when I "retire", and my thinking was that panels, AGMs and one of the smart inverter/controllers that will accept DC and AC inputs, would be a good balance between not too high-tech and not too basic.  It would allow me to use the Lister with the ST head and the DC alternators to contribute 230VAC when I had a "big load" day, or 24VDC to charge batteries when there had been a few low-sunlight days.

Although the beautiful, industrial, heavy-duty batteries such as the Telecon 2V units appeal, I thought the low-maintenance AGMs might be an OK compromise . . . .

Has it been your experience that the extra work of hygrometers, electrolyte, top-ups etc etc is justified?

I'd be interested in your thoughts

Thanks, Mike

783
Engines / Re: TR3 Bleeding Fuel
« on: October 27, 2017, 10:21:06 AM »
    :)

784
Everything else / Re: Blasphemy..... Solar power.
« on: October 25, 2017, 08:22:51 AM »
Ade FWIW up at my partially-developed, definitely very off-grid property in what is arguably New Zealand's sunniest province I have a "solar shower"

It comprises 50 metres of 20mm black "alkathene" (low density farm water supply piping) wound in a big flat one-layer-thick spiral on a wooden frame covered with a sheet of heavy black plastic 10mm thick that I scavenged off the base of a feed wagon

(sorry I don't have a photo)

Frame is 1600mm X 1400mm and the spiral covers maybe 70% of it.

It's propped up on a stick vaguely north-facing and roughly 15 degrees off vertical

Water from my spring up the hill comes in one end at about 2 bar and the other end uns under the house and is attached to my shower inside

When it has been exposed to direct sunshine for maybe 15 minutes the water is bloody hot - hot enough that you have to add cold water to it at the mixer to have a shower.  There's enough hot water there for a good shower as well as time to wash your hair and a bit of standing-around-wasting-hot-water time as well

It's inefficient in that there is no storage, and in that you need to think about having a shower when the sun shines.  I don't care about those things cos I'm only there for three or four days at a time every few weeks and I have a wetback on the wood-stove anyway.

But it's such a low-tech, low-cost item ($100 for the pipe) and it will produce enough hot water for three or four showers an hour (if you had a queue of grimy folks) that I thought I would mention it.  It has absolutely no moving parts at all unless you count the mixer at the shower

It's the sort of thing that demonstrates how even the crudest "direct" harnessing of the power of the sunshine has so much free energy to give

I once made a more high-tech one with a clear plastic covering and insulation etc - but I made the mistake of leaving it out in the sun with no water in it one day and the "alkathene" promptly melted.  The crude one I now use is so close to idiot-proof as makes no difference

Cheers

785
No.  I'm not interested in your views on people who are different to you, or on politics, or on philosophy, or on government.  I only read the bits relating to diesel or solar - even then I skim through the polemic to find the substantial.

Interesting insights into solar performance in low-light situations, though

787
IHMO it depends entirely on what work the saw has to do

I have seen a 5HP CS/1 running a big firewood saw of similar dimensions locally for years.  Because the saw is doing cut after cut after cut, with a moment between each one,  and because the operator controls the "feed speed", the CS handles that just fine

In various sawmills I have worked on there have been #2 or #3 saws around that size, working as secondary-cut saws behind the big breaking-down saw - typically these have had 40 - 60 Hp motors or similar, as the performance of the saw depends on the rotational speed remaining constant despite varying loads and feed speeds.

If you are running any kind of production sawmill off of a diesel motor this is just a recipe for slow bankruptcy - IMHO

Because of the big flywheel, the CS will make a good firewood saw motor - as long as you know what you are doing with setting-and-sharpening the teeth, and as long as you can control the feed speed manually.

Just my $0.02

Cheers

788
Original Lister Cs Engines / Re: Lister pretty much setup now
« on: October 11, 2017, 08:33:24 AM »
G'day Dayle.  Looking good.  Are those B section belts?  And are they just running free on the surface of the lfywheel - no grooves or whatever?  Was it much of a performance to get them to run straight and true - careful orientation of the alternator pulleys in the same plane as the flywheel or whatever?  Cheers

789

Sorry Starfire - I know you have seen this, what I MEANT to say is he keeps re-listing it and has now taken the trouble to get it to run and wants it out of his shed - wouldn't take much to maybe get him to drop the price. Cheers

790

If my antiques die before I do, this "modern" engine will be the way I will go.

Hey Starfire - did you see this in Nelson.  He has listed several times and drops the price?  Be a good "backup" for you and almost local lol''

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a.aspx?id=1434704466&member_hash=a3a7566550fad4bdc4224f94f4401662016de7c29f5cc5555c&tm=email&et=46&mt=3CD2EA5F-6EC8-4299-AE88-E417DDE97A03

TradeMe listing Listing #: 1434704466

Cheers

791
Lister Market Place (things for Sale) / Re: Radiator Setup for 10/1 Lovson
« on: September 29, 2017, 03:40:29 AM »

Our winter domestic hot water is produced by a thermosiphon through a coil in my woodstove.  it has worked  flawlessly for many years, as has the listeroid cooling system.

Cheers,
Hugh
[/quote]

Hugh, I have had thermosiphon wetback hot water systems running on solid-fuel stoves ("coal ranges") in three successive houses for over 30 years and am just now building one for a fourth house.  The nearest thing to a problem of any kind I have ever had is simply a surplus of free hot water - even when we had teenagers at home.  I just love the woodstove and the wetback

Cheers, Mike

792
Listeroid Engines / Re: Metro 6/1 no oil pump, but cooling pump?
« on: September 27, 2017, 07:35:26 AM »
Oil pump or not has nothing to do with the proper oil to use in the engine. There is absolutely NO reason to make rocket science out the oil requirements for a CS engine. Experience of engines through the shop is that fully 95% of Indian engine failures are due to sand and slag contamination. If you have sand and slag it is going to circulate no matter what oil you put in the sump and a filter is NOT the fix,disassembly and removal is.   In my (slightly ;) ) opinionated opinion non-detergent oil is never a good choice IN A NEW OR CLEAN engine. But it is the only choice for an old dirty engine that has had non-detergent oil run in it previously. Straight grade oil isnt the best choice either. Bottom line is these engines are an easy oil application and if your engine is new AND clean you run about any currently available 15-40 or 30 in in it and your running far better oil than was available when the CS was designed. If you choose an oil with out zinc then you are loosing an important friction additive. Will it kill the engine? NO. Will it cause l-o-n-g  term wear issues? Probably. Evey engine that leaves my shop has a sump full of Rotella 15-40 and a zinc additive.

Thermostat- Again in my (only slightly ;) ) opinionated opinion the only time you need a thermostat in a CS type engine is when you are running a circulating pump or if the engine is pumping water and using a "run through" set up to cool the engine.  In these cases the engine will run far too cold without it.  A properly set up thermosyphon  with tank or radiator will regulate the temp plenty well enough without one in my experience.

Good common-sense, low-tech approach to low-tech engines.  Well said

793
Did we get this one?

https://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/industrial/engines-motors/diesel/auction-1418179208.htm

and this oddball

https://www.trademe.co.nz/business-farming-industry/industrial/generators-power-supply/diesel/auction-1421998160.htm

That one is interesting, its hooked up to the identical alternator that I have, but the pulley ratio looks to be 1.2:1, meaning that engine is hitting probably over 3000 RPM for 50 Hz, the noise would drive you nuts.....
 WAAAAAYYYY  too expensive.....

We have those engines here at work driving remote-location water pumps.  I'd describe them as noisy and revvy compared with the gentle CSs.

I think that harsh noise is a function of air-cooled engines too?

There's a chap up the road from me selling a "rebuilt" 3/1 that he wants lots for.  His granddad spent a chunk of money getting it rebuilt 20 years ago and it has been in the shed since (familiar story) I told him it is a $300 or $400 engine and he thinks I'm trying to rip him off.  I'll watch with interest what happens when he lists it

Cheers

794
Generators / Re: Why ST heads?
« on: September 24, 2017, 08:18:47 AM »
>  Flicker shows up only in  cheap LED/CFL designs where there isn't true regulation. 

Uh, it also shows on my incandescent bulbs.

FWIW I have six generators in various service vehicles and other situations.  All of them have done duty at my off-grid site where I hope the 6/1 will some day serve.  There's a 2.2 kVa Honda which is six months old and probably has twenty hours on it.  There's a 5 kVa Honda/Dunlite which died last year at ten years old.  There's a 7kVa Honda-engined unit with a Chinese alternator which i bought new and is used almost exclusively to run the arc welder, there's a 2.2kVa Chinese Honda-clone the brand of which escapes me which has been the working genset in my service vehicle - I don't know how many hours it has done but it's on its third starter assembly and second AVR, and there's a 6kVa Chinese Honda clone mostly used by my neighbour which I bought last year at six or seven years old but with only ten hours and a lot of dust on it,  and there's a 2.5kVa Honda Dunlite now 14 years old and still going strong as a backup on another site  . . .

What I'm getting around to here is that I have spent a lot of time in my house/shed/workshop there, in the dark, with the lighting running of whichever one of these is in service - and they all flicker just the same as each other, as far as I can tell.

Just my $0.02

795
Listeroid Engines / Re: How Slow can a CS go?
« on: September 20, 2017, 06:57:30 PM »
Germany had more time to develop diesel engines leading into WW2, the Brits and Yanks tended to use available engine designs and tooling due to a hasty entry into the war, caught on the back foot so to speak.. There was even a radial engine using multiple Packard sidevalve six car engines as a tank engine at one time, they even used radial aircraft engines, thats how pressed for time they were.
. Germany was the leader in diesel technology even having diesel aircraft engines.
Unlike petrol, diesels have a long burn time no matter what the revs, and increases with loading. To idle a diesel, the burn time is very short, pressures low,so blowby would be minimal. A diesel always has a cylinder full of air, unlike a throttled petrol version that works with a partial vacuum. Diesel burn time is dictated by injector squirt duration and not RPMs.
I think there are some who would benefit from actually buying their own engine, rather than reading about them.....

Over here, Starfire, I think the kindest term we would use is "plonker"  But arguing with him is as pointless as trying to have a sensible discussion at the front door with a Jehova's Witness IMHO

Pages: 1 ... 51 52 [53] 54 55 ... 62