List,
One of the reasons why the Listeroid makes such a good generator engine, is because there is considerable energy stored in the flywheels. There are about 90lbs in just the rims of the spoked flywheels, and the old Startomatic had nearly 3 times this amount.
When you turn on a big electrical load, the stored energy is converted to electrical energy and assuming that the generator head has enough overload capability the motor can be started.
On Friday I went to the local car-wash to get the Lister-Gen and its trailer jet-washed as it has been a bit muddy around here.
The car wash crew had never seen a Lister, (being from Eastern Europe, Poland and Russia), and were all over it asking questions.
The boss approached me and asked some questions about the Lister and said that he would like to buy one. He had recently bought a very cheap 3kW Chinese gen-set, and was dismayed to discover that it died every time he tried to turn on the jet-wash.
From my measurements and calculations, a pair of standard spoked flywheels running at 650 rpm have a kinetic energy of about 13,500 Joules.
If you turned on a big load and the engine slowed from 650 rpm to 600 rpm, then 2000 joules would be absorbed by the alternator.
If this all happened in 2 seconds, then the alternator would supply it's usual 3kW plus an additional 1kW for those 2 seconds.
Sure you would lose your frequency regulation, but worse stuff happens.
Have any members got any experiences of starting big loads? If so how big, and using what engine and gen-head?
Is this 125% figure for a 3kW load about right?
Ken