Please, go easy on me. I'm back on night shift. I did seriously consider not posting for the next 4 or 5 days.
But take note, those points equally apply to the standard mount as well.
except they don't, but full marks for trying to cloud the issue with yet another assumption.... >;^)
Thanks, but I wasn't purposefully trying to... it seems cloudy enough already!
As far as the concrete goes, you get VERY clear VERY early visual clues long before any appreciable percentage of block integrity is lost, or does your argument rest upon the owner being so blind they cannot see cracking, flaking, powdering or other decomposition of the block?
Well, yes. Especially if you insinuate that people can't spot a broken weld/dangling crossmember. If you've made a mount correctly, you're going to have to break more than one before it all goes to bits. Ditto goes for people with concrete then? Would you spot flaking/cracking on a block covered with engine oil and crud? Would you say, "oh that's just shrinkage/surface cracks?"
Unless you have x-ray vision, literally, you have no fucking idea how good or bad a weld is..... but again, nice try at clouding the issue.
As far as the mounting bolts, they were supplied by Lister, or you bought them yourself, NOT high tensile or anything like that, but good steel bolts, and also 3/4" diameter, nothing else and nothing less.
But they're not supplied by lister anymore. With their new 6/1's , anyway. And mistakes with the tensile strength of bolts can be made by people competent enough to pour concrete. Who here checks their mount bolts before their engine is run, every time?
That's right, they are not supplied by lister, add another item to the list of things that you can't take a chance on.
As to who checks equipment over, who doesn't?
I would not dream of getting on a bike without giving it a quick once over, why on earth would I consider firing up a stationary engine without giving it a quick once over?
yet another clouding the issue comment.
As far as the subsoil is concerned you poured your block inside an outside building, if it took the weight of stone walls the lister will be no problem, so another assumption / straw man argument that simply did not apply to the original intended usage of these engines... see a pattern forming here?
Not really , there's plenty of conditons where subsoil will turn to moosh (technical term) or settle when a lot of vibrations are applied to it. Building walls generally don't vibrate. But was I was trying to say is that there are factors that need to be considered with every type of mount. Incidentally, I recieved the engineer's report today for the place I'm building. The pole foundations have to go 20 feet in (!!) to take into account an unstable, saturated clay layer in the slope. Apart from me clutching my chest about how much that's going to cost , it raises questions of how much jiggling is going to be safe for me regarding my choice of engine. I'm hoping in my case, that a fancy-pants mount with low energy transfer to the ground will solve my problem. But I will be discussing it with the engineer.
"slope", mmm, and "clay", _you_ have those things, I don't, now if I were to take your attitude I would be asking if you expected me or anyone else to pay for complex and expensive site surveys before siting our listers....
if I was anywhere near a slope with clay I'd be drilling lateral inclided drainage holes throughout that slope and piping them in, only way to stabilise clay is keep water away from it.
As for the engine balance, You just bought a Lister, you paid as much as you would for a house, it was properly engineered. SO yet more assumptions that exist for no purpose other than to mask the obvious differences, differences which need addressing, and not with more assumptions. These differences are where all the problems lie.
But you can't buy a lister new anymore, even if you're willing to pay as much as a house. (hippy voice) You're stuck in the past, man! Contemporise! (/hippy voice) We're stuck with new engines that are apparently a case of random-parts-assembled. So someone takes the general advice to bolt it to a block of crete before running, gets a fair bit of vibration, pours a bigger block (because that will solve all the issues, according to many posts I've read) - 50 hours later something tears off his engine and goes through a wall. An original lister will not have this problem, granted. Everyone else will to some extent.
Again you make my point, you can't buy a lister, so you have to go right through the entire engine, so you have to know how to go right through an entire engine, so you have to know what is different from the originals and how you can get as close to that as possible.
Remember that Lister engineer that came around and comissioned the set, that is he did if you wanted your warranty.
Think you could sneak a 20:1 mix of sea sand and old crete past his nose? Or fasten it down not at a level with 5/16 high tensile bolts? Or maybe re-build and "improve" the engine with various trick mods?
Err, no.
He's long dead, most likely. Or retired, anyway. Again, If you get a listeroid (or a used lister) these days, you're on your own. Do it right, whichever way you do it.
But which way is right?
You could suggest that Lister knew what they were doing and follow their lead, I wouldn't suggest it because all you will be met with is scorn from everyone as soon as they realise that this approach will not fit in with their plans, and their plans are all that count.
Yeah, I deliberately poked the hornets nest, but it seems that is the only way to get some people to wake up to the fact that that mellow buzzing and smooth shape does not mean it is a surgical appliance.
Fair enough. Sometimes you have to poke the nest to give everyone a reality check.
So how about coming back to be with an argument that actually holds water, instead of one that requires a bunch of so unlikely as to be impossible connected scenarios like blind owners who can't see concrete cracking but can mix sea sand cement and can make trick mods to an engine and can do all this so well the Lister engineer doesn't notice a damn thing?
Lister engineer aside, these engines will run unattended. And never underestimate the stupidity of people. Do we both agree on that? Anyone can make a slab, drop an engine on it and call it done. One hopes that they inspect it regularly, just like they regularly inspect eveything else.
Never underestimating the stupidity of people is where I have been coming from all the way through all my posts.
The trouble is there are always people eager to prove you did under estimate them...
You wonder why George at Utterpower (who I have never met so this is just speculation on my part) has started to sell a "kit" and not an "engine"
Cover Your Ass
Yeah, CYA is everywhere these days. But is it a CYA with the EPA thing or CYA with the liability thing? Going over his site, you often find mention of some way of doing something and then a small "and I never would recommend you do work on an open flywheel engine".
You (well, I) make assumptions that the people you converse with have a good idea of the risks. But that doesn't stop something going wrong and some lawsuit coming on down. But is the alternative do and say nothing and letting all your info go? Guy_F, if you were painfully aware of the possibility of legal action every time you recommended something on this forum , would you continue to post? In the legal world, there's no such thing as common sense when you're talking saftey issues. If you say "Well, anyone with common sense would know not to fall in that open manhole I left unbarricaded", it ain't gonna fly.
There is a world of difference between making a sensible suggestion that is in tune with the status quo and backed up by decades of standard practice, and talking shit basically, at least, there is a world of difference IF you have the knowledge and experience to tell them apart, in which case you won't be coming here looking for answers or suggestions....
The majority of people coming here ARE looking for answers and suggestions, and they literally cannot tell the shit from the shinola.
I dunno. It's all definitely food for thought.
(edit: damn nested quotes)
In a world where people are suing musicians because their kid played the record backwards and followed the instructions (which are unintelligible to anyone who isn't stoned) to kill himself, the point is not that the people lost the lawsuit, the point is such lawsuits happen every day of the week, most of them just aren't newsworthy, but none of them are cheap.
This is a world where anyone can come on to a website called LISTER ENGINE dot com (as clear as you like an indication it is official and knowledgeable and trustworthy and expert etc m'lud) and follow advice given by people who do not own a lister, have never owned a lister, have never operated a lister, and have precisely zero experience of stationary diesel engines.
So these people will buy some old steel, use a walmart welder to make a frame that rings solid and doesn't tear apart in their bare hands, they will then buy some cheap ass rubber mounts, and put half a ton of engine on said steel frame.
They won't give a shit about fatigue or harmonics or anything else, because it is old hat, there is new technology now, everything is bigger, brighter, better and in technicolour too. Besides, all these things have been discounted, only stupid anal old farts like that english dude who whines a lot give a damn, besides, this is only a puny weedy cute little sexy slow revving 6 brake horsepower engine, my lawnmover makes more than that, what can possibly go wrong...
When their total lack of QA listeroid bolted to their chickenshit steel frame with birdshit welding via totally unsiitable (but cheap) rubber mounts turns around and bites them with 10 Mega watts of fang (yeah, you read that right, there is that plus a whole load more instantaneous power available) and little johnny who was playing next door 300 yards away has his brains spread all over the lawn by flying cast iron you can bet your ass little johnnys parents are going to sue everyone even remotely connected, because little johnny was going to grow up and be the next joe dimaggio don't you know.
You meanwhile will be thanking your lucky stars little johnny is dead, if he was just brain damaged for life it could have gotten really expensive.
============================================
All my experience of engineering and assholes has taught me one thing, and I kid you not.
The one person likely to walk away from such a disaster (no such thing as an accident) completely unhurt is most likely to be the asshole that threw it together.... I actually saw a stationary engine and ac generator disintegrate when the coupling (it was direct coupled) blew up, those vibes cracked the steel frame (you guessed it and threw everything a few thou outta line, only a question of time until it let go) the ONE person not hit by ANY of the debris was the asshole who was responsible for it.
I got a nice gash to my cheek, a broken spectacle lens (lucky I was wearing them) and a cracked rib, the cracked rib was when a mate rugby tackled me to stop me connecting with the asshole with a swinging 4" pipe wrench (stilson to englishmen) and we both went down onto another piece of generator...
One crescent shaped piece of coupling only 5 inches in diameter was embedded in a piece of 1/8th steel plate, nearly punched through, and this was a 4 pole 50 Hz job so only spinning at 1500 rpm.