Re: Experience with "cheap" portable diesel gensets?

On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:27:31 GMT, Theo
<spamtheobroma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Looking for home backup power, and don't want to store a lot of gasoline
on site. A portable diesel genset that could run off heating oil would
be ideal. 3 kW ought to handle everything critical here, and under 200
lbs would make it easy to move.

There seem to be a lot more small diesel gensets around in the last
couple of years, some in the $1000-1500 range. Haven't seen a lot of
complaints on Usenet. Any comments on how good these are for home
backup? Any good FAQs or review sites?

I've built several custom diesel generators for customers but I don't
have much experience with cheap ready-made ones. But I do have some
thoughts.

If you're going to run it for any length of time, avoid the air cooled
ones. They run hotter and make more noise than the water cooled
versions. A lightweight aircooled diesel engine may have a design
life of a few hundred hours. A heavy watercooled one will last for
thousands of hours between minor rebuilds.

Choose low speed whenever possible, both for longevity and noise.

If you're going to run on fuel oil - fuel without all the additives
that make diesel diesel, you'll probably want to look at third world
low speed engines. These aren't critically dependent on the lubricity
and anti-corrosive additives that modern engines are. The injector
pumps and injectors themselves are the main concerns. Third world
engines are designed to run on just about anything that can be
liquefied and will burn.

Here is a very interesting article about a standby generator built
around a Listeroid third world diesel and an equally ancient design
alternator. I fully agree with all his reasons for going that route.

http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html

The major thing I'd have done differently would have been to have
completely stripped the engine, checked it over and "blueprinted" it
as much as possible before having run it. That was standard procedure
for motorcycles before the japs brought some quality control to the
arena. That would have caught most all the problems he experienced.

If you google for "lister generator" you can find a number of other
low speed generator projects.

One other comment. For standby power during infrequent power outages,
I'd much prefer a propane powered spark engine. Propane avoids all
the hassles of fuel storage. A propane engine burns clean and lasts a
long time. Again I'd go with a low speed water cooled design. Propane
can get expensive if you're going to use the generator very much but
for standby it can't be beaten.

Or natural gas if you have that available, though I'd also want some
propane available in case a widespread disaster like a hurricane shut
down the gas network.

John

.

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