Increased efficiency

[slowspeed1953]

Ive been reading the forum for a while now and decided to post.

I plan to use a 6/1 to charge batteries and hense it will be my only source of power so every little bit of saved fuel translates to quite a huge savings over the long haul.

I understand that listeroids get very good fuel economy is it possible to decrease the medium/maximun load fuel usage even further?

Best wishes

[mobile_bob]

what are you using for the generator head? an alternator?
bob g

[slowspeed1953]

I plan on using a large pm generator/starter ala SOM.

[mobile_bob]

then my assumption would be you are going to generate 120? then use a battery charger?

the reason for my asking is while the listeroid can be improved so some extent, the real improvment in
efficiency is in the charging end of the apparatus

if for instance you were to use an alternator, such as a truck or automotive unit with its oem regulator, significant improvments in efficiency can be had removing the regulator and installing a marine charge controller, such as

http://www.balmar.net/page67-ars5.html

these controller greatly inhance the charging regime, and reduce run time on your engine, which burns less fuel.

i am not sure whether or not the controller could control you motor/generator to do chargeing directly from the motor/generator.

need a bit more info about what you plan to do, and what motor/generator you are using,and whether or not you plan to use a smart charger  or what you have in mind.

done right i think you could see a 50% increase in overall efficiency, far easier than getting even 5% increase in efficiency from the engine alone.

follow?

bob g

[mobile_bob]

i reread your responce, and the use of a large PM gen/motor while being able to start the engine
is not going to be easy to control for voltage and current in battery charging in my opinion, and i don't think
the marine controller will be of any use with that unit.

interested tho in hearing what your plan is
what kind of batteries? voltage, amp/hr rating etc.

bob g

[Doug]

I made a regulator for the Leice Neville up at my campabout 15 years ago. The idea was the same but I used a little current feedback to keep the charge level down when the batteries were weakest but adjustable voltage to keep the current high enough to speed charging. I thought nothing of it untill I showed it to some friends from Malaysia ( Diesel mechanics teachers here in Canada do upgrading ). One of them took the prototype I built back with him. I don't know what became of it from there but I suspect Tengue used it as a teaching aid.

Doug

I supose a PWM voltage controller could be faily easy to build and give the same sort of results for PM dc motor/generator.

[slowspeed1953]

Doug, how did the controller adjust charge rate? Could you also use it for equalizing? My battery bank will be 48 volt@ 1500ah

Best wishes

[Doug]

I used a shunt resistor and measured the voltage drop across it. This reference voltage provided the feed back. Yes this could give you a steady low current variable voltage for an equalization charge.
The charge controller on the K1050E Kiruna truck does something like this. When recondition charge is selected it force feeds the battery banks 10 amps for about 30 hours. The proceedure I use for this is to tottaly kill ( as rapidly as possible to blow off the Cadnium wiskers between the plates ) the NiCD battery banks, water the batteries and start the charge.
Lead acid will require a different program probably a lower current to a fully charged bank. On the Battery motors the charge station also had recondtion feature. I can't remeber what I did on those but I think it was just a controlled over charge when the SG between batteries getting out of wack.

Doug

[Andre Blanchard]

i reread your responce, and the use of a large PM gen/motor while being able to start the engine
is not going to be easy to control for voltage and current in battery charging in my opinion, and i don't think
the marine controller will be of any use with that unit.

interested tho in hearing what your plan is
what kind of batteries? voltage, amp/hr rating etc.

bob g

For best efficiency the PM generator should be operating at 80 to 90 percent of its rating.

Control is not that hard, I have used a single cylinder Wisconsin with a PM motor to charge 24 volt lead battery banks and it works well at least for me.

To start with the PM motor was sized such that the engine could not put enough power into the motor/generator to over heat the generator with a 24 volt battery connected, at least one that was not completely discharged.
Set the governor so that open circuit voltage on the generator is just a little above the end of charge voltage (bulk charge), this is mostly to keep the engine from over speeding if a fuse blows.  With an efficient PM motor the voltage will be controlled very closely with RPM even under changing load current.

Now when you connect the battery the engine will bog down and will be running wide open throttle.  The engine speed will slowly increase with the increasing battery voltage and the current will drop slightly (constant power).   If the resulting current is too much then the battery pack is too small to be efficiently charged with the engine or the battery was discharged way more then it should have been for good cycle life.
Once the bulk (constant current or in this setup constant power) stage of charging target voltage is reached shut the engine off, this can be done manually or with a voltage relay.

If you are going for efficiency do not even think of doing the absorption (constant voltage) stage of charging with the same engine generator that you do the bulk stage with, use a much smaller genset or better yet a small PV panel.

And the third stage or float charging with any genset is just dumb.

[mobile_bob]

Doug:

your idea of a pwm controller for the output of a pm generator would be spot on what he needs

now if you controlled the pwm by means of the programable 3 or 4 step marine controllers such as the balmar unit
you would have a very good system.

with their soft ramping, between steps, would sure help the drivetrain and reduce emmisions (smoke)

that would be a cool setup, and probably very efficient

slowspeed,, do a search on lead acid deep cycle charging regimes. there is a ton of good info out there.
for instance you can charge from 50% to approx 80% SOC at fairly high rates of charge, which cuts run times

the last 20% you have to taper off, and charge times get very long, so having a large bank that you don't top off but maybe once a week make for a very efficient system.

also you might consider a smaller unit to do the long run times to go from 80% to 100% state of charge and the equalization charge which also can take a very long run time to accomplish.

there is a ton of good charge info on the marine sites, these guys know how to get the most out for the least in or most efficeintly in my opinion

bob g

[Doug]

Its not actualy my idea Bob:
The Kiruna truck uses an ABB 3 phase powered PWM dc motor drive to charge the Batteries. Its slaved to PLC that controlls the truck and varries it charge rate according to the needs of th DC bus and batteries. When the hydrohlic pumps cylce to charge the Accumulators the PWM drive doesn't have the capacity to run the service motor so the PLC tapers the drive down and lets the batteries provide some of the power. When running off the trolley the main traction motors heavily tax the batteries and heat them so when the truck reconnects to the line the charge rate also has to be adjusted untill the batteries in the apperatice box cool ( no cooling take place off trolley because this would require too much power ). The whole system is very clever providng as much power as the batteries can absorb without over heating, providing power to run the service motor and 24 volt system ( via alternator driven off the service motor ) and then floating the batteries at about 98% charge while driveing from location to location in trolley. The idea is to reduce cycle time not increased efficiency. Waiting to cool down over heated batteries, waiting for a charge or dropping dead half way between the main haulage ramp and a loading chute costs money
The rest of the truck is a rolling cluster f**k...

Doug

[slowspeed1953]

Thanks all for the replys Ive moved the generator thread over to the generator section.

Now back to my original question is there a way to reduce fuel consumption of a IDI 6/1 at medium/maximum load conditions?

As I will be running my setup daily to bi-daily even small reductions in fuel consumption will make a profound differance in my pocket book.

Beast Wishes

[GuyFawkes]

Thanks all for the replys Ive moved the generator thread over to the generator section.

Now back to my original question is there a way to reduce fuel consumption of a IDI 6/1 at medium/maximum load conditions?

As I will be running my setup daily to bi-daily even small reductions in fuel consumption will make a profound differance in my pocket book.

Beast Wishes

four hours per gallon pedal to the metal, eleven or twelve hours to the gallon at lighter loads, small reductions in fuel consumption won't be noticeable, big ones impossible.

efficiency is where it's at, generate DC to charge DC accumulators.

[slowspeed1953]

Thanks all for the replys Ive moved the generator thread over to the generator section.

Now back to my original question is there a way to reduce fuel consumption of a IDI 6/1 at medium/maximum load conditions?

As I will be running my setup daily to bi-daily even small reductions in fuel consumption will make a profound differance in my pocket book.

Beast Wishes

four hours per gallon pedal to the metal, eleven or twelve hours to the gallon at lighter loads, small reductions in fuel consumption won't be noticeable, big ones impossible.

efficiency is where it's at, generate DC to charge DC accumulators.

Guy from your number of posts you must really now lister/listeroids really well.

I was just thinking if I was using a 6/1 as my only source of power it could be run as much as 16+/- hours per day that figures out (thanks for the data) to 120+/- gal/month of diesel, in my neck of the woods approaching $3.50/Gal thats $420+/- a month in fuel costs certainly not chump change (at least not to my pocket book.

Is there is no way to reduce fuel consumption at all? Just 10% less consumption would save $42/ month $504/year

Thats a whole lot of beans and rice where I come from.

Best wishes

[GuyFawkes]

Thanks all for the replys Ive moved the generator thread over to the generator section.

Now back to my original question is there a way to reduce fuel consumption of a IDI 6/1 at medium/maximum load conditions?

As I will be running my setup daily to bi-daily even small reductions in fuel consumption will make a profound differance in my pocket book.

Beast Wishes

four hours per gallon pedal to the metal, eleven or twelve hours to the gallon at lighter loads, small reductions in fuel consumption won't be noticeable, big ones impossible.

efficiency is where it's at, generate DC to charge DC accumulators.

Guy from your number of posts you must really now lister/listeroids really well.

I was just thinking if I was using a 6/1 as my only source of power it could be run as much as 16+/- hours per day that figures out (thanks for the data) to 120+/- gal/month of diesel, in my neck of the woods approaching $3.50/Gal thats $420+/- a month in fuel costs certainly not chump change (at least not to my pocket book.

Is there is no way to reduce fuel consumption at all? Just 10% less consumption would save $42/ month $504/year

Thats a whole lot of beans and rice where I come from.

Best wishes

don't use 120 gallons of pump diesel then, use 60 gallons of pump diesel and 60 gallons of waste oil.....

you are *assuming* you are going to be running 16 hours a day pedal to the metal, I find that not merely unlikely, but extremely remote as a possibility, say average 1/4 rack opening over 16 hours per day and your down 75% on your fuel bill right there.