From the video of after the engine was shut down, I think a good portion of your smoke is the cheap paint burning off the exhaust. I would guess that running at 1/2 or 3/4 load for about 30 mins would clear up the smoke.

It would be interesting to run the small engine 24/7 at 1500rpm in waste oil, charging the batteries stably at 500w, to have enough energy and clean combustion. nice video

After doing the math you were making 2250 and 757watts per horsepower x 3hp = 2271. Works out to about 99%. Also that looked like it was rolling coal not smoking necessarily. Adding some kind of boost could yield more power, it might no be burning all the fuel.

Great video again! Thank you! Keep em coming, we will be here watching! Always like seeing all the numbers. Fuel used vs kwh produced would be interesting!

Electric start, and automatic control for low days would be neat.

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

I agree!

Hi! I repost my comment, because it was deleted several times. I have the same kind of project with a generator that has the big 418cc engine. I want to convert it to dual fuel (diesel for start in cold weather and vegetable oil). I have made some measurements on the consumption and here is what I got: - Consumption increases from about 0.5 l/h without load to about 1.2 l/h on 3.2kw. - Consumption relative to produced kwh decreases from 0.75 l/kwh under 1kw to 0.4 l/kwh under 3.2kw. - Efficiency increases from 13% under 1kw to 25% under 3.2kw (assuming 1l diesel = 10.11 kwh of heating energy) So we can get about double kwh for the same amount of fuel if we charge the batteries fast instead of slowly.

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

That’s good data, makes since and is a good indicator of where the most efficient operating speed can be found for a given load. I had tons of people say just above idle thing low rpm is more efficient, but your numbers indicate they like some rpm. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the conversion. Also may benefit if you find a way to pre heat the cylinder head

@kleetus92

Ай бұрын

@@Mikebuildss To know that answer you really need to torque curve from the manufacturer... they know what it is and should be able to send it to you.,.. since they're all chinese clones anyway, i'm pretty sure that if you find it from brand X, brand Y will probably be so close you couldn't tell anyway. As a guess I'd suspect it would be in the 50 to 75% speed range - ish area. Needs to be fast enough it can cool itself, but not so fast it's just plowing through.

@foxtizzo

Ай бұрын

​@@Mikebuildss Well I don't have the data about the relationship between rpm and efficiency: My generator has to run at 3000rpm to keep the 50hz. The voltage is regulated by the AVR of the generator, and the rpm is regulated by a mechanical device inside the engine. The only thing my data says is that at 3000rpm 3.2kw is more efficient than 1kw... Maybe if you only want 1kw it would be more efficient to run the engine at 2000rpm instead of 3000... I'll stay in contact, thanks!

@ReubenHorner

29 күн бұрын

@@Mikebuildss I am not so sure about RPM, but it will be most efficent at maximum load (or just before the exhaust smoke is visible)

So if you're going to test the unit for max power capacity, you should probably read the exhaust temperature, and the cylinder head temperature. As long as the engine is able to maintain enough speed to properly cool itself, it should be fine. Now on the exhaust side, you probably don't want to go much more than 1300F at max load, assuming everything else is maintaining a reasonable temperature. While that number sounds high, that is significantly less than a gasoline engine's exhaust temp. Some thing you could also do that I personally wanted to try was to a little bit of water injection at max power to keep the exhaust temp down and see if that eats too much power... you need to be careful with the water flow rate, because if you shoot too much water in, it is incompressible and will remove the head, piston or rod. But a spray from something like a garden mister would be perfectly fine. Heck even a pump up sprayer would be ok if you have it set to the finest droplets you can get out of it. You could even use wiper fluid as the methanol would give you some power back, but I'd just go with water initially to keep it simple. You are also still slipping the belt as I'm sure you can hear. 10 gauge wire should be good for 20 amps continuously at I believe 70 degree C rise. You can get more through it but it will run hotter... the wire temperature rating should be printed on the wire. So if you're shoving 50 amps through it, I'd expect it to get to like 85-90 degrees C. You can always just parallel the wires to double your capacity, then the temperature rise will be way less. Oh, and if you're going to run at that level for a while I'd recommend some kind of fan or forced air cooling for the rectifiers before they overheat and melt. They typically want to stay at less than 125C at the internal junction, so at the heatsink, less than 100C would be reasonable... and you're likely not going to get that without air across the heatsink.

@TheSzalkowski

Ай бұрын

If any part of that engine is aluminum he needs to keep the EGTs at 1100F max. Agree with the rest of what you wrote. I have a 5KW diesel generator and it starts to smoke like that when I overload it.

@UnknownIdaho

29 күн бұрын

Good tips. All this is important on a homebuilt system with an air cooled engine. Our bus uses a Kubota 3 cylinder derated to 1800 rpm and about 12 hp but is nice and cool and quiet while still making up to 8kw on about a 1/2 gallon of diesel an hour. Our usual load is about half that and about 1/4 a gallon per hour. We plan to supplement with solar soon. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mYGOlLmIktPJZ9Y.html

@UnknownIdaho

29 күн бұрын

This is a really cool test. Our bus uses a Kubota 3 cylinder derated to 1800 rpm and about 12 hp but is nice and cool and quiet while still making up to 8kw on about a 1/2 gallon of diesel an hour. Our usual load is about half that and about 1/4 a gallon per hour. But it cost a LOT more. We plan to supplement with solar soon. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mYGOlLmIktPJZ9Y.html

Now make a diesel electric vehicle with an engine and generator like this!

@Mikebuildss

24 күн бұрын

@@cadespencer6320 I like that idea!

@cadespencer6320

16 күн бұрын

@@Mikebuildss will you do it then?

My truck needs a 300.00 belt tensioner. I threatened to make one myself as well.

@Mikebuildss

29 күн бұрын

At least try, worst case scenario it doesn’t work and youll have to buy one anyways

Hi I am glad to find your video I have been working on a Hub motor generator set up for a while now I just can not find out how to do the electrical set up I was looking for how you set yours up but did not find it yet could you share how you did the rectifiers and wiring please thanks.

@Mikebuildss

4 күн бұрын

I may make a separate video in detail, but it’s simple just use a 3 phase rectifier from Amazon, connect the 3 phase wires to one side of the rectifier and you’ll get dc voyage from the other, the voltage is dependent on the rpm.

Enjoyed watching, thanks. Real sweet kitty you got there, I love the kind that chatter/talk to their owners.

May just need some run in, also I say cap it at like 1800-2000 watts and see just how long it can run on a tank of fuel (pushing it too hard w/o some sort of force air might cause exhaust gas temps to go up...unlike gas engines, MORE air for diesels cause the exhaust temps to go down) I wonder if you could get a serpentine belt pulley rather than a v-belt pulley on that engine what is the longest sustained run on that engine have you done? Keep em coming!!!!

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

It definitely needs a better drive setup, not long mainly due to the noise, but I want to bring it somewhere remote and do a more long term test with it, will definitely keep posting updates!

Nice work

3hp is right at 2230W so you're definitely running the engine way past 100%. If it had more air and enough cooling you could definitely eliminate the smoke! Very cool though. Motor isn't very efficient when compared to other options but not bad for being free. I know David Poz was able to get over 4kw with an alternator!

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

Yes sir I saw the same video it was awesome, maybe needs a turbo but would probably melt the piston

@THESNAKE8

Ай бұрын

@@Mikebuildssunfortunately, I’m not sure if there is a turbo small enough for this engine, but being as it is a compression ignition engine, it would not melt the piston with the addition of forced induction, quite the opposite actually, diesel/compression ignition engines LOVE to run lean in comparison to spark ignition, which results in a much lower exhaust gas temperature. It’d be a tall task to do, but an AMR300 supercharger may be more practical to provide additional air to the engine.

@noahdement9271

27 күн бұрын

@@THESNAKE8I just purchased an AMR300 for this purpose. Excited to see how it does with an intercooler. Also thinking about a pressurized oil system so the sc oil could be run through a cooler.

@THESNAKE8

27 күн бұрын

@@noahdement9271 hellll yeah! That’ll be cool

Great video

@Mikebuildss

10 күн бұрын

Thanks!

If I remenber right, one horsepower is about 750 watts, so 2200 watts would be about three horsepower or 2.2 kw.

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

That’s pretty good efficiency! And the belt was still slightly slipping

@inothome

Ай бұрын

Pretty close (close enough), the actual calculation is 1HP = 746W.

You need a mini Turbocharger to get a clean smoke and a bit more power. Or you run it whit vegetable oil.

@Mikebuildss

29 күн бұрын

I want to try that soon!

Is Rato Engines are reliable like honda engines i have a rato engine which generate 4.2 killowat and it is 212 cc

@Mikebuildss

10 күн бұрын

I’m sure they’re good just keep up on maintenance

What is the generator head that your using? Is that out of a washing machine?

@Mikebuildss

Ай бұрын

It’s a Chinese electric scooter hub motor, it has 2 3phase windings

Take her remote, let her rip!

Try and strap a inverter on it to ac voltage and see what that can do

Rollin' coal. Yeah, head somewhere remote and let it sing for a bit. Warm it up first then once oil and everything is warm send it.

how quiet will it get if you put a muffler on it?

@Mikebuildss

10 күн бұрын

I thinks it’s more of the diesel knocking sound that makes it loud, the actual exhaust tone isn’t much louder then a normal gas engine this size

Cat is star of the show, or at least, that’s what I think it says! kzread.info/head/PL4OU3RsvieFsbO70Xc7wiVmRXlCTlg4UH

My guess is you're pulling more than 4hp from the engine to make that much power. You might melt down the engine running it that hard.

keep it at 1000 to 1500 max ore the engine wil burn up 😅

@Mikebuildss

29 күн бұрын

I’ll find the limits!

@oscarverwey

29 күн бұрын

@Mikebuildss I'm sure you will , those experiments are always nice to do , looking forward to the next video, the thing with diesel engines is when smoke comes out of the exhaust. There is an elevated temperature there, and this will burn up the valve and damage the piston