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Author Topic: Changfa engine?  (Read 60127 times)

Veggiefuel

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #90 on: December 23, 2008, 04:00:02 AM »
rcavictim,

I bought the engine(s) from China because my company was bringing a container load of goods to Canada. Freight was almost nothing, and the engine prices were much less than the Princess Auto sale price (really !). I virtually live at Princess Auto so I am aware of the deal they offered.
The main objective was to bring over my Changfa's. I just added the Launtop engines for fun and curiosity. Both turned out to be wonderful little jewels and the whole thing has turned into a great hobby. I just love diesels.

Stan,
Sounds great. Are you off-grid with your setup?, or operating a standby system ?

Cheers,
Veggie
GM90 engines, Changfa's, Voltmaster Generators, Pellet Mills - www.energymachines.ca

Stan

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #91 on: December 23, 2008, 04:29:29 AM »
Nope, not offgrid, I live in town.  Just a hobby, with potential real life benefits.  Since I started rebuilding Penelope we haven't had a single power outage.  Best insurance I ever bought  ;D
Stan

Veggiefuel

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #92 on: December 23, 2008, 05:23:34 AM »
rcavictim,

Further to our discussion on air cooled Chinese diesels (and for anyone else who's interested), here is a bit more information on my generator project.

Go to the website below and scroll down the home page until you see the link to the "Launtop 4kw Generator project".

www.logicworks.ca

Cheers,
Veggie
GM90 engines, Changfa's, Voltmaster Generators, Pellet Mills - www.energymachines.ca

Veggiefuel

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #93 on: December 23, 2008, 05:31:59 AM »
PS: So far this thread has had 1737 views and 102 replies.

That's a lot of interest in Changfa engines. This is great !

Does this not qualify for a CHANGFA section on the forum ??

How about some of you hero members putting some pressure on the forum moderator ??  :)

Veggie
« Last Edit: December 23, 2008, 05:34:26 AM by Veggiefuel »
GM90 engines, Changfa's, Voltmaster Generators, Pellet Mills - www.energymachines.ca

rcavictim

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #94 on: December 23, 2008, 10:58:42 AM »

I run about 25 amps at 3.5 volts out of it into a four turn heating coil (about 12" of #12 gauge nichrome wire) wrapped tightly around the lower half of the injector body and insulated/held in place with stove cement.  I salvaged the nichrome wire from a ceramic high wattage industrial motor starting resistor. 


I like the idea of heating the injector body itself rather than the fuel line. Nichrome wire is easy to salvage from an old hot water tank heating element.
How did you insulate between the injector body and the nichrome wire ?
Where does one get 'stove cement' ? Is it just refractory like you get for wood stove that you mix with water to a heavy paste ?
How did you do the transition between nichrome and your copper power cable ?

Jens

The beauty of working with 3 or 4 volts is you don't get a shock hazard or much of a spark and little insulation is required.  The stove cement comes in a prepared paste from the hardware store.  It is the Sodium Borosilicate stuff used to install firebrick, etc.  You could also use muffler cement. To insulate the nichrome I had a bunch of tiny ceramic beads strung the length of the wire but most got broken navigating the tight clearance between the injector body and the two mounting studs.  Form/prepare the wire on the injector removed from the engine.  You could just use the cement without the beads.  I formed eyelet loops at the ends of the nichrome and bolted the copper #10 flex wires with small brass machine screws, nuts and flatwashers.  You can forget solder here.  The upper end of the heating wire does a single loop around the input stem which sticks out the side of the injector body at 90 degrees before it terminates.  This helps secure the element from rotating or moving and adds a little heat where you also need it. The heater is wound onto the injector between the input port and where it meets the head, NOT up away from the engine near the back of the injector at the overflow exit port.

I initially used about 8 parallel strands of finer nichrome wire from a radiant heater snaked through the ceramic beads.  It was much more flexible and I did not break the beads but some fuel drops got into the heater and quickly eroded the wire leading to open circuits and a heater failure in rather short order (first day).  The #12 single strand has been going strong for many hours with no signs of fatigue.

As a bonus, you will find that this heater helps prep the engine for cold weather starts on regular diesel, even though some experts will tell you that this is nearly impossible.  Of course you'd need to arrange a storage battery just for this purpose if you are setting it up to start without mains available.  Once running the 120 volt generator AC powers the heater transformer.  If you already have a 12 volt storage battery for cranking you could wire a DIY series resistor made from the same nichrome to limit the wattage to this injector heater, but the battery better be a big one since you want to run the heater for about 5 minutes before it will do much good as a cold start aid.  That series R might as well be installed inside the metal intake manifold so it gets hot and gives the engine a shot of hot air rather than wasting this energy entirely.
-DIY 1.5L NA VW diesel genset - 9 kW 3-phase. Co-gen, dual  fuel
- 1966, Petter PJ-1, 5 kW air cooled diesel standby lighting plant
-DIY JD175A, minimum fuel research genset.
-Changfa 1115
-6 HP Launtop air cooled diesel
-Want Lister 6/1
-Large DIY VAWT nearing completion

rcavictim

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #95 on: December 23, 2008, 11:01:57 AM »
rcavictim,

Further to our discussion on air cooled Chinese diesels (and for anyone else who's interested), here is a bit more information on my generator project.

Go to the website below and scroll down the home page until you see the link to the "Launtop 4kw Generator project".

www.logicworks.ca

Cheers,
Veggie

Veggie,

Really clean, attractive job there!  I like the oil drain valve and belt guard.

Did you import your Changfa 195 also as part of this 'free shipping' opportunity?
-DIY 1.5L NA VW diesel genset - 9 kW 3-phase. Co-gen, dual  fuel
- 1966, Petter PJ-1, 5 kW air cooled diesel standby lighting plant
-DIY JD175A, minimum fuel research genset.
-Changfa 1115
-6 HP Launtop air cooled diesel
-Want Lister 6/1
-Large DIY VAWT nearing completion

rcavictim

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #96 on: December 23, 2008, 03:43:04 PM »

I run about 25 amps at 3.5 volts out of it into a four turn heating coil (about 12" of #12 gauge nichrome wire) wrapped tightly around the lower half of the injector body and insulated/held in place with stove cement.  I salvaged the nichrome wire from a ceramic high wattage industrial motor starting resistor. 


I like the idea of heating the injector body itself rather than the fuel line. Nichrome wire is easy to salvage from an old hot water tank heating element.
How did you insulate between the injector body and the nichrome wire ?
Where does one get 'stove cement' ? Is it just refractory like you get for wood stove that you mix with water to a heavy paste ?
How did you do the transition between nichrome and your copper power cable ?

Jens

The beauty of working with 3 or 4 volts is you don't get a shock hazard or much of a spark and little insulation is required.  The stove cement comes in a prepared paste from the hardware store.  It is the Sodium Borosilicate stuff used to install firebrick, etc. 

I was more concerned with the wire turns shorting out against the injector metal body (and themselves). I would have assumed you need some heat resistant yet heat conductive core to wind the wire onto.
Interesting .... some experimentation will be in order .....
Thanks !

Jens

Jens, 

The nichrome wire is very stiff and springy.  Even despite best efforts to wind it tight around the injector body it will relax creating an air gap.  This is your electrical insulation.  A 1/32, 1/16 to 3/32 inch gap around the wire is fine.  It runs a dull red/orange operating so not to worry about the heat getting to the injector.  Don't do all the cement work at one time.  You should spoon in small amounts of cement to hold it in this floating position and then let it cure to tack it into position. You can energize the element to low power to help cure the cement but don't go crazy or you will weld the internals of the injector and it will stick.  I wouldn't even take it to the temperature of boiling water at this stage if off the engine.  My JD engine manual warns to cool down the engine by idling and not just kill it after running hard because the hot injector can sieze.  Actually I'd advise after winding and creating eyelets to re-install the injector so that your cement job does not cause any fit problems.  It is pretty tight in there.

-DIY 1.5L NA VW diesel genset - 9 kW 3-phase. Co-gen, dual  fuel
- 1966, Petter PJ-1, 5 kW air cooled diesel standby lighting plant
-DIY JD175A, minimum fuel research genset.
-Changfa 1115
-6 HP Launtop air cooled diesel
-Want Lister 6/1
-Large DIY VAWT nearing completion

Veggiefuel

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #97 on: December 23, 2008, 04:23:20 PM »
Hi guys,

I bought two injection line heaters from Fattywagons.
They come as a kit with connector terminals, silicone tape, and insulted wires.
I asked them the custom make 2 wires at 14" each (for my two Changfa's).
They were most helpful.
I think the whole thing cost me $50

Look here... http://www.fattywagons.com/fwproducts.htm

Cheers,
Veggie
GM90 engines, Changfa's, Voltmaster Generators, Pellet Mills - www.energymachines.ca

rdbates1

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #98 on: December 15, 2019, 04:26:05 AM »
I realize that this is ancient thread but Bob G you mentioned that you have a ton of info about using an S195 for cogen.  I have one that I will be running 24/7 on wmo driving a 3.8 kw dc generator powering grid tie inverters and an ac generator which will act as backup power and will run the 2hp pool pump to keep load on the engine.  I'd be very interested in what you have for exhaust heat exchangers and if there is a way to sync the ac generator with the ac mains that would meet code rather than the grid tie inverter.

Ian M

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #99 on: December 29, 2019, 04:36:34 PM »
Just out of interest how much fuel would it take to generate  kwh of electric, my electric supplier is installing meters that allows you to input into the system (for solar panels) they pay the same as you buy the electric for, I do not think  I would be able to use grid tie system direct from generator but would need to turn to battery then back to 240v, I bet that if I check the contract I can only input from solar power, I will have a look and see

Ian M

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #100 on: December 30, 2019, 10:28:46 PM »
You are right same output as heating oil I had not thought about it like that, with losses I would not make anything on it, I would use solar but surrounded by trees I know I would still get some power out but would be a lot down, all depends what I can get the panels for might have another look at it, it would be good to cut energy costs

Ian M

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Re: Changfa engine?
« Reply #101 on: December 31, 2019, 09:16:59 AM »
The French system is good because you can input into the grid when the sun shines and take out when not, you also get a off peak night rate which means you can sell a Kw to them for .14€ and buy a night one back for about .09€ I have electric and wood heating so I can use wood to keep power down, if I could cut yearly bills in half that would be great, I am a electrician, and am happy to work on a roof so a DIY installation should be no problem, I just need to find good low cost panels