Changfa 195 CHP powerplant

[Veggiefuel]

Hi Guys,

Been busy lately building my Changfa 195 CHP powerplant.
I now have the engine/generator finished.
I wanted a very compact system so I mounted the generator head on top of the engine.
The footprint for the system is not much different than the bare engine.
I machined the flywheel to accept a flat poly-vee belt for driving the gen head.

The system is sheaved to run the engine at 1300 rpm and develop 3kw of power to charge a battery bank while the cooling system heats a 100 gallon water tank to store heat. When the tank reaches 180f, heat will be dumped to a fan/coil to heat the building. If the building is already warm, the hot air will be dumped outdoors.

I would really like to recover the exhaust heat also. If anyone has ideas on where to get (or how to build) an inexpensive heat exchanger, please let me know.
Alternatively, I could wrap an exhaust pipe extension with copper tubing and insulate it (although not the most efficient way of collecting heat.)

Here's a few pictures of the power plant which will be powered by WVO or biodiesel....








Cheers,
Veggie

[Doug]

Years ago I knew a shift boss who had a shot gun hidden underground to clear hung ore passes. He would just puch the gun up the under the brow and pull the trigger witha string and drag the gun out fast. The shot did nothing but the con cussion often made things drop with no need for explosives

Now if expand on that to a heat exchanger and a blank shot shell 

[Veggiefuel]

What about this idea....

Being that "contact area" is one of the most important factors in heat transfer, how about using a "Y" exhaust pipe connector to divide the exhaust into 2 smaller pipes (say 1" each) and winding copper tubing around each pipe. At the end of the exchanger, bring the 2 pipes back into one exhaust pipe.
Then wrap the 1" tubes with petrochemical high temp insulation.
May give good transfer with very little carbon buildup.
Any comments or other ideas ?

Veggie

[panaceabeachbum]

Thats a nice looking setup , Is the boss your tensioning bolt is screwed into where a lifting eye screws in? Just curious is the casting strong enough to support the concentrated load in such a small area?  I like the idea of the small foot print

[Veggiefuel]

Good question...
When that boss/bolt is used to lift the engine, it's subjected to 380 pounds of engine weight.
I'm assuming that it's subjected to less load when supporting 1/3 of the generator plus the belt tension.
I used a grade 8 threaded rod for added strength. The gen head only weighs 60 lbs.
Time will tell.

Cheers,
Veggie

[panaceabeachbum]

After seeing your pics and thinking about my new gen shed layout I think I might do a similar build  to save on floor space

[Veggiefuel]

After seeing your pics and thinking about my new gen shed layout I think I might do a similar build  to save on floor space

You will need a lightweight generator head.
Here is the maker of the one I used. Model is AB50.

http://www.voltmasteramerica.com/products/AB.htm

It runs at 3600 rpm. On my unit,  using the flywheel as the drive pulley and a 6" pulley on the head gave me the speed I needed.

Good luck,
Veggie