Author Topic: Power Failure  (Read 6249 times)

carlb23

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Power Failure
« on: October 29, 2008, 01:20:34 PM »
While we don't have power outages ofter or for long periods of times we have had two since Saturday.  The first on Saturday was for about 3 hours and last night was from about 6pm to 11pm. Needless to say the wife is now a listeriod fan and we were the only house in sight that had power.  While we are in a rural setting we do have about a dozen houses in sight from our home and they were all dark.  I had the TV, computer, Satellite dish, etc running and using my dual fuel diesel/natural gas combination. The listeroid only used about 24 oz of diesel and 360 cubic feet of natural gas @ 1.50 per 1000 cubic feet in the  5 hours it was running. I must say it was a great feeling to see the listeroid powering the house while the rest of the neighborhood was in the dark  ;D.

Carl 

Tom

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2008, 04:32:26 PM »
Suggestion, encourage your neighbors to prepare and get some blackout curtains. On a longer term outage you WILL become a target. Even if the neighbors just complain about the "noise". Envy can be an ugly thing. The nice thing about Listeroids though is that no will be steeling it out of the front yard while you are sleeping.
Tom
2004 Ashwamegh 6/1 #217 - ST5 just over 3k hours.

dieselman

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2008, 04:43:25 PM »
I see a potential for new listeroid friends...
1995 F350 7.3L Diesel
8.3 ISC Cummins
14/1 Lovson (in progress)

carlb23

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2008, 05:56:27 PM »
Since my listeroid is in my garage I dont think anyone will be taking it any time soon.  I think they would rather steal my restored 69 z28 camaro. None of may neighbors are that close that they can even hear it running in the middle of the night.  I used a old propane tank for an expansion tank with a 2" free flow muffler then once outside into a 20' length of 4" pvc.  It is virtually silent at 30' away with a fair load.

Carl

Grael

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2008, 02:42:06 AM »
Be sure that next time it happens to turn on every single light in your home. Just so your neighbors can see. ;)
GTC 8-1

"Traveling 33 RPM in an iPod world"

carlb23

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2008, 11:38:39 AM »
Be sure that next time it happens to turn on every single light in your home. Just so your neighbors can see. ;)

That would just be too cruel  ;D

Carl

Petersbpus

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2008, 02:12:28 PM »
Carl,
I know what you mean about that, It’s funny how you view things differently If you are prepared .
When Katrina blew thru Florida as a low Cat 1 Hurricane, really not even that strong,, my wife called to tell me the power had gone out and my reaction was YES!!!!  Literally with fist thrust into the air.
My  Changfaoid 1115  10KW project was not nearly complete with automatic failsafe shutdowns, gauges, cute lights, etc.
BUT it was ready to power the house. It got a good 3 day test.
A month later when Wilma came calling, the project was done,
 I had worked on finishing the electrical panel hookups all day Saturday(as Wilma approached)  and then went home for dinner, then went back to the shop and worked all night till 8:00am Sunday, tested the systems and loaded it on my truck to take it home, 24 hours later Wilma was on top of us!
That was a 9 day outage. The unit ran 23.5 hours a day on 1\2 gal per hour.
Everyone in the neighbor hood was running Home depot gas gensets, waiting in lines for gas. We all have wells, so no power no water.  When some of the gas stations did have power and open for business, often they had no gas but plenty of Diesel!! I also had barrels and barrels of diesel stocked away for the season,
Diesel pickup truck too. I win!! I did loose most of the shingles off my roof, tar paper stayed, kinda weird, but happy about that.

Carl,
Kudos on your air starter, if I wasn’t going to run waste hydraulic oil and need  constant DC for line heaters I would have copied the air starter for sure, the automatic ram to engage it is just too cool.

The natural gas setup looks great too, if I set mine up for propane injection do you think that  running some propane once in a while would help reduce coking of the head and rings?
For sure it would have electric valve for safety, but could it just be hooked up to the hose with standard orifice after the regular pressure regulator from a bbq? 
Bob
Listeroid 6/1 in progress
Alllis Chalmers 60KW 3 ph
Changfaoid 12KW w/  auto shutdowns, modern AVR and panel
2nd Changfaoid 12KW Marine conversion w/ full auto shutdown and remote panel
Changfaoid 7.7 hp driving 5kw alternater /inverter,
other diesel gensets bought fixed and sold

carlb23

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2008, 06:18:14 PM »
Bob,

On my natural gas / Diesel setup the regulator  I am using was for a 70,000 but radiant heater and i found it easier to put a needle valve after the regulator to adjust the flow to the engine.  The hose on mine is just attached  1/8" npt nipple threaded into the intake manifold.  I have a base adjustment that allows me to run the engine at a 1500 watt load with the diesel rack almost completely closed (open only enough to keep the engine running and creating the spark to ignite the natural gas).

I have found that using this method I can run everything i need to in an emergency on about 1500 watts.  I only have a six circuit transfer switch so I only have six circuits that run off the generator.  If i need to pull a larger load the rack just opens as normal upon load increase.  If i am going to run a large load for any period of time i just crack open the needle valve a little more.  I put a hash mark on the injector plunger so I can easily see when the rack is at almost fully closed and I can use the adjustment on the needle valve to push the rack closed by introducing more natural gas.

I did not use an orifice but did consider it in the beginning and may try one in the future, but, this method seems to work great. I believe that running on natural gas / diesel or propane / diesel will decrease coking.  In my case i am running about 80% natural gas / 20 % Diesel.

You can use a regulator from a gas grill but you will still need a metering device after the regulator to control the flow of propane.  Maybe even a gas control valve from the same gas grill.


Carl.

Carl

Petersbpus

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2008, 08:44:57 PM »
Carl,
Having  a blockage here in my head, are you manually closing the rack, or does it close itself and meter small amount of fuel because rpm and centrifical force is created by the narural gas combustion,
In other words if you started on diesel and began to add gas ,the rack would close and apply less and less diesel ( as you apply more and more gas)until you didn't have enough  diesel to start the fire and then you back off on the Natural gas/
Maybe I could do this with propane, an hour or so every 40 hours run on hydralic oil to clean out the coke.? I don't plan on running WMO or transmission oil  but you never know,  Pulling the head is no problem at all, but I don't want to lock up the rings, and really don't want  to burn something that makes me feel I have to pull the piston to clean the rings out.   Now I'm thinking to much, haven't even powered the house yet, just heat guns and 500 watt lights (2800 watts total) in the shop on diesel. not burned oil yet, those systems not yet complete.

My save money on my power bill scheme won't work unless I run virtually free fuel.
That's how I sold this deal to my bettter half, breakeven is somewhere out in the next decade. maybe 2012 or so. Although with the fuel adjustment charge on the  power bill it's pretty hefty.
77 KWH  in a month with all the taxes ,fuel charge and all was $320. That's $4.15 per kilo watt hour with my math. Can that be right??
77 hours of using 1000 watts. in 30 days.?
720 hours in 30 days,
 so I only averaged 93 watts continious. 24\7  over a 30 day period?
sounds low, I would never guess that low of minimum continious use.
I know there is sombody out there laughing at my math, what did I miss.? a few decimals. or 77 KWH per day average.
I need to know how to read a meter cause I got one for the Listeroid setup to measure how much I make and use, (and therefore saved) It will measure only what goes to the house not what is consumed by the unit to sustain itself. ie 120v oil pump, fuel processing pump, Garage heat exhaust fan, domestic hot water recirc pump will come off the genset prior to the meter.
Bob
Listeroid 6/1 in progress
Alllis Chalmers 60KW 3 ph
Changfaoid 12KW w/  auto shutdowns, modern AVR and panel
2nd Changfaoid 12KW Marine conversion w/ full auto shutdown and remote panel
Changfaoid 7.7 hp driving 5kw alternater /inverter,
other diesel gensets bought fixed and sold

carlb23

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2008, 10:03:08 PM »
Carl,
Having  a blockage here in my head, are you manually closing the rack, or does it close itself and meter small amount of fuel because rpm and centrifical force is created by the narural gas combustion,
Yes the rack closes due to the increased speed by the introduction of the natural gas

In other words if you started on diesel and began to add gas ,the rack would close and apply less and less diesel ( as you apply more and more gas)until you didn't have enough  diesel to start the fire and then you back off on the Natural gas/
exactly

Maybe I could do this with propane, an hour or so every 40 hours run on hydralic oil to clean out the coke.? I don't plan on running WMO or transmission oil  but you never know,  Pulling the head is no problem at all, but I don't want to lock up the rings, and really don't want  to burn something that makes me feel I have to pull the piston to clean the rings out.   Now I'm thinking to much, haven't even powered the house yet, just heat guns and 500 watt lights (2800 watts total) in the shop on diesel. not burned oil yet, those systems not yet complete.

My save money on my power bill scheme won't work unless I run virtually free fuel.
That's how I sold this deal to my bettter half, breakeven is somewhere out in the next decade. maybe 2012 or so. Although with the fuel adjustment charge on the  power bill it's pretty hefty.
77 KWH  in a month with all the taxes ,fuel charge and all was $320. That's $4.15 per kilo watt hour with my math. Can that be right??
77 hours of using 1000 watts. in 30 days.?
720 hours in 30 days,
 so I only averaged 93 watts continious. 24\7  over a 30 day period?

I suspect that our energy cost per kw is average and we pay  15 cents per kwh.  You need to go back and look at your bill they will show you exactly how much energy you are using in kwh.

sounds low, I would never guess that low of minimum continious use.
I know there is sombody out there laughing at my math, what did I miss.? a few decimals. or 77 KWH per day average.
I need to know how to read a meter cause I got one for the Listeroid setup to measure how much I make and use, (and therefore saved) It will measure only what goes to the house not what is consumed by the unit to sustain itself. ie 120v oil pump, fuel processing pump, Garage heat exhaust fan, domestic hot water recirc pump will come off the genset prior to the meter.
Bob

Jim Mc

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #10 on: October 31, 2008, 01:41:02 AM »
...
77 KWH  in a month with all the taxes ,fuel charge and all was $320. That's $4.15 per kilo watt hour with my math. Can that be right??
77 hours of using 1000 watts. in 30 days.?
720 hours in 30 days,
 so I only averaged 93 watts continious. 24\7  over a 30 day period?
sounds low, I would never guess that low of minimum continious use.
I know there is sombody out there laughing at my math, what did I miss.? a few decimals. or 77 KWH per day average.
I need to know how to read a meter cause I got one for the Listeroid setup to measure how much I make and use, (and therefore saved) It will measure only what goes to the house not what is consumed by the unit to sustain itself. ie 120v oil pump, fuel processing pump, Garage heat exhaust fan, domestic hot water recirc pump will come off the genset prior to the meter.
Bob

Something's askew here.  I don't understand exactly what the 77 kWh number is.  If that's the average per day usage, then in a month you'd use 30 times that or 2310 kWh.  $320 for 2310 kWh works out to about $0.14 per kWh.  And if 77 kWh is the per day usage, your average load is 77/24, or a tad over 3 kW.

Petersbpus

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Re: Power Failure
« Reply #11 on: October 31, 2008, 02:52:53 AM »
per day usage  makes more sense! Knew something wasn't adding up. and 3KW is just what will be available
Listeroid 6/1 in progress
Alllis Chalmers 60KW 3 ph
Changfaoid 12KW w/  auto shutdowns, modern AVR and panel
2nd Changfaoid 12KW Marine conversion w/ full auto shutdown and remote panel
Changfaoid 7.7 hp driving 5kw alternater /inverter,
other diesel gensets bought fixed and sold