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Messages - dieselgman

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3001
Generators / Re: ST Heads in the Pacific NW
« on: January 21, 2007, 10:15:07 PM »
I expected this to generate some heated responses based on what I have read in the Forum. I do agree about the price/performance ratio that applies to common sense decisions in these things. We are after all, putting a $120 device along side a $1200 device or trying to compare a Chinese KIA to an American Cadillac. The comparison is inherently unfair simply based on that ratio. I am also somewhat bent towards the higher end products because this is the quality level our customers have come to expect and sometimes demand in America. The price comparison really is a factor of 10 in real numbers (not 1/4 or 1/5) when putting the ST alongside a Marathon. Shipping will be comparable for any heavy chunk of copper and steel - good, bad, or otherwise...

Leaving the American $2000 heads aside, there are a large number of other options that would make a viable discussion here though. From the best Chinese manufacturers we can identify many variants of the ST head and copies of the high-end heads for anywhere from a very nominal price increase to about triple the going ST price. They would include  ST with AVR, STC, STT, SLG, SFPW, SD, SDC, TZH, TFW models. My business model calls for evaluating quality above price but knowing full well that many on this forum and elsewhere have limited budgets; I will be importing and doing further analysis of the current options. If we come up with some contenders, they will come to the forefront. Some of the other European designs also appear worth looking into. French and Italian models ...

I have heard or read many reports of various problems with the ST heads and I'm sure that a big part of what we are hearing about represent the variances from different low-buck manufacturers. This is an avoidable pitfall.  Fortunately, China presents a different business culture altogether from that found in India and I have been pleased with their responsiveness to the priority of needs inherent elsewhere in the world. It is hopeful and probable that these are going to be the new premium players (despite the negative impacts and adjustments caused in other economies).

Anybody interested in a good Marathon copy at 1/3 the price if all other quality and design factors are addressed??? This is what we will be assembling and offering with our original Listers. More later on...

I know that AVR devices will defy the average DIY person when it comes to diagnosis and repair but that is generally handled by simply having a spare on hand to swap-out. As to rewinding and repairing rectifiers/rotors/stators, equal skill and difficulty is presented by any of these devices. Except for some of the Euro designs using metric wire sizing, it is hard for me to see anyone judging one rewind more difficult than the next. Not a job many would undertake but still possible given the right knowledge, tooling and supplies.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3002
Generators / Re: ST Heads in the Pacific NW
« on: January 21, 2007, 05:22:54 PM »
I did not import my ST heads, I purchased from a well known supplier that everyone else mentions here, and paid the premium price. These were the very heavy heads but that is not the measure of a good device. No doubt these will suffice most homeowners' power needs until it comes to motor starting loads and more sensitive loads calling for close regulation or very clean sine-wave output. At any rate, I normally use the Marathon Lima MAC designs in all heavy 3-phase applications and Newage/Stamford for single phase.

There are Chinese manufactured equivalents to these - almost exact copies, and they are looking pretty good from all angles. I'll report our results here once we have hands-on the new products. 18 month warranties and the largest manufacturer of such hardware in China sounds pretty good from the start. BTW Cummins, Lister/Petter, and Perkins are OEM partnered with this outfit.

As far as voltage regulation and the ST heads go, I made mention of the fact that the manufacturers offer this option as well for this head, just in case someone is trying to 're-invent the wheel' because they didn't know this option was available for resolving some of the issues present in the basic design. The bare single-phase ST is the cheapest 4-pole generator head out of China.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3003
Generators / Re: ST Heads in the Pacific NW
« on: January 21, 2007, 09:55:13 AM »
Andy,

The Chinese ST style generator head appears to be pretty much the bottom of the barrel for quality and technology but they do come with optional AVR packages from the manufacturer if so specified. If you or other list members are interested, I can forward more detail and also some suggestions for better quality generator heads for this application. There are many available that are better suited to North American and perhaps European functional standards, can be regulated to within 0.5% and have much higher quality control. I do not accept the substandard approach to these parts based on initial cost and I am surprised that so many accept the ST as the right combination for their Lister(oid) powered generator sets. After my first batch of these, I definitely will not install any more of them. In my opinion they represent a false economy just like the lower quality Indian Listeroid constructs do. I believe that most of us would prefer to own, operate and work on original Listers if they were readily available at decent prices, in the case of the genheads this is a clearly available option.

On the other hand, perhaps there are those who welcome the challenge of repairing a new engine or resolving the myriad little problems that result from a poorly executed manufacturing process that lacks accountability for quality control. To each his own, but I am not one of those types. Just give me good quality for my $$$ and leave the real junk in the third world where it originated.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3004
Listeroid Engines / Re: De-Carbonizing / Reducing NOx Emissions
« on: January 15, 2007, 05:30:26 AM »
The water injection (through air intake) method does work for clearing carbon and de-fouling a slobbering engine. I believe the steam reaction cleans the combustion by-products and causes the rings to wear a bit until the lubrication comes back. This will help re-seat an engine that has ring-seal issues if the rings and cylinder walls are still in OK condition. I have seen this work quite well and is certainly a major labor saving tactic in certain common situations with these machines. On the air-cooled Listers the trick is to get them hot so the water mist turns directly to steam and can do the trick without other ill effects. I would not think that the f.i. pumps and injectors would live very long at all with a water emulsion sent through the fuel stream though. We spend a great deal of effort trying to keep water "out" of the fuel system for this reason.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3005
Listeroid Engines / Re: When did they start making these in India?
« on: January 12, 2007, 01:40:39 PM »
Lister does seem to have some manufacturing operations in India. I believe that information to be secret and cannot get any deeper than this, but when I was traveling there in 2004 I spoke with locals in the business in Pune - they indicated this to be the case.

Message Forum member "OM" if you want more details, I believe he knows a little bit about this as well. His family has operated export business from there for a couple of generations and has dealt widely in Lister parts.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3006
Listeroid Engines / Re: When did they start making these in India?
« on: January 12, 2007, 03:23:46 AM »
A lot of current production is reverse engineered parts but I believe I read that the Lister product was Introduced into India with British occupation and that pretty much concurrent with Independence came an exclusion of English Imports. Therefore, local production became important and has developed from there.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3007
Straight Vegetable Oil / Re: 6 cylinder air cooled lister
« on: January 04, 2007, 04:29:30 AM »
The HA6 is not too common but luckily most of the HA2 and 3 parts will interchange with that model. Lister officially orphaned that unit in 1991 so very few parts are available through them, You will have to go to aftermarket sources such as diesel-electric.us. This model does not use cylinder sleeves or TRBs but is a relatively modern and sophisticated design as far as having a very good oil pressure and main bearing setup. The individual cylinders can be serviced seperately and bored to many oversizes for long service life.

Definitely use steel fuel lines for the fuel ring but we also often use rubber fuel-rated hoses as well at all flexible couplings.

The HA is direct injected and thus carbon buildup in the combustion chamber (top of piston) can have an immediate negative affect on the performance of the injector nozzles. I can get the pump specs and nozzles details for you but it will still be a matter of trial and error to see what various fuel types do to the engine performance. You can manipulate injection pressure via simple injector adjustments if you have a test stand handy. Worst case I can see for this model will be carbon and combustion residue sticking the upper rings and exhaust valves causing loss of compression. A simple decarb job will normally retuirn the unit to health as long as it is not run long-term with a low-compression problem. Take a look on the web for some of the experiments done with copra oils in the Pacific Islands, some of those were done with Lister HR models ( very similar to your HA).

For load bank ideas, take a look at adding resistance-type electrical heating elements, baseboard units can add the Kilowatts real fast.

Best of luck and keep us posted on your testing and results!

Gary,
diesel-electric.us

3008
Lister Based Generators / Re: what size do i need?
« on: January 03, 2007, 12:24:06 PM »
Wildman,

You can contact diesel-electric.us for a mid Kansas source of parts and engines if you like. I wouldn't be too worried about future availability. The EPA is throwing down some serious roadblocks but have not outlawed stationary use of these engines (yet!). Hopefully we can develop a modified version that will pass the current regulations - with clean fuel anyway.

Gary
gsj@gci.net

3009
Engines / Re: How to manuals
« on: January 01, 2007, 04:21:00 AM »
Email me Gene - for the Kansas Address. Thanks!

Gary

3010
Engines / Re: Safety Modifications
« on: December 31, 2006, 04:25:38 AM »
One other factor regarding using a decompressor to stop a Lister engine... The manufacturer specifically warns against this because it is likely to damage the valve and/or piston. Maybe OK as a last option in an overrev situation but likely no good for the top end of your engine.

A good safety design will provide for shut down of the fuel and or air.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3011
Straight Vegetable Oil / Re: 6 cylinder air cooled lister
« on: December 31, 2006, 04:10:11 AM »
What model 6 cylinder do you have? Most of the Lister air-cooled stuff needs to be run "hot" under heavy loads to keep the carbon under control so I bet that will be a factor. In addition, some of the research has been done with direct injection engines where various fuel volumes and pressures were manipulated to change the combustion results to more efficiently match the alternate fuel. This can be done with various injector nozzles and fuel pump combinations.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3012
Engines / Re: Safety Modifications
« on: December 31, 2006, 04:00:17 AM »
The instance that SHIPCHIEF mentions is the reason for a fuel rack control on the majority of Listers built since the 1960's. These engines are built with a small vacuum bypass in the intake manifold that would likley allow the engine to continue running (barely) even with intake blocked. This is not the intended outcome of the design but rather a by-product of their method of achieving a slight crankcase vacuum. Another consideration... a fail-safe may not have to fully shutdown an engine to be effective in preventing a runaway.

I am not surprised that the Detroit Diesel trained people will lean heavily toward air-shutdown. By the way, I have seen many failures in the Detroit 2-cycle shutdown controls and shutters and in my opinion they are generally more complex and less reliable than fuel-rack servos. They do NOT always fail in the shutdown position but are as likely to fail in the open position thereby eliminating their function of protecting the engine.

What is the likelihood of a fuel rack failure or an overrev on a Lister CS? On other models I would say that the odds are pretty strongly against it even though they rely on mechanical linkages. The normal position for these mechanisms is shut-down, all the internal springs push that way except for the governor. The newer (1960's onward) designs have a spring loaded disconnect between governor and fuel rack so a governor failure will normally not cause an overspeed condition.

Gary,
diesel-electric.us

3013
Engines / Re: How to manuals
« on: December 31, 2006, 03:35:55 AM »
Thanks Gene,

A look at your materials might spur me on a bit. I am pretty sure that an additional resource along these lines for the Listers would be valuable to many others. I remember first starting work on some old Listers 10 years ago. I was already a seasoned air-cooled and diesel mechanic but still had quite a bit of trouble figuring out the quirks and deciphering the English jargon contained in the factory materials. I was surprised by the amount of fill-in-the-gap knowledge that was required to use those manuals. I don't know when there will be time, but I believe that this is a project I will undertake in the near future.

 Gary - gsj@gci.net
diesel-electric.us

3014
Engines / Re: How to manuals
« on: December 30, 2006, 05:41:09 AM »
I have seen and purchased many of these type manuals on eBay in the past. There is pretty good maintenance training material for generating plants and prime-movers as well. I have found the Lister factory manuals to be less than satisfactory for more than general information and have often thought about publishing something more comprehensive and detailed.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

3015
Engines / Re: Safety Modifications
« on: December 30, 2006, 05:36:27 AM »
A fuel rack shutdown is a much more comon type of shutdown used on many generations of Listers. Murphy also makes an inexpensive version that kills the fuel supply on a 12volt impulse (or loss of same). The only comment on this that I read indicated a failure mode wherein the fuel rack was stuck wide open. Are there many instances of actual fuel rack seizure on these engines? Caterpillar, Cummins, John Deere, and so on (with the exception of the GM Detroit 2-cycle) all use fuel control as the means of emergency shutdown. That is the direction I would go for inexpensive yet effective engine controls, especially emergency shutdown.

Gary
diesel-electric.us

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