Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Does any one know where i can find a small diesel motor? Something less than (or close to) 50cc and preferably 4 stroke. So far the only thing i have found is RC plane engines which are 2 stroke and need to run on a diesel/ether mix

I am currently looking at making a small 10ft caravan self powered with a 12v system (with one or two 240v inverters for small appliances) The idea is the fridge, freezer and stove run of lpg cylinder whilst one or two deep cycle batteries are charged by solar and wind (300-500w worth of panels) i want to hook up the motor to a small 30-40amp alternator as an auxilary charging unit.

The reason i am looking for the diesel is i am guessing they will run for longer per litre and it let me run it as a duel fuel on vegetable oil. If use something like a motorbike fuel switch to start it on diesel till it warms up then switch to vegestable oil. I figure if i plumb the vegie fuel tank to snake around the motor and exhaust it be at the right vicosity for the pump

I like to keep it as small and light as possible
Most diesel generators i have seen have 400cc plus and weigh 55kgs.

We looked for age for a small diesel because we compete in a 24hour economy race call the RACV Energy Breakthrough in Victoria. The smalled diesel we could find was the Yanmar 220cc. These motors are still donks weighing about 25kg or something similar.

I don't think you'll find anything under 220cc in diesel.

What about something running on LPG? At least it can share fuel from the BBQ bottles.

By the time you go and buy it all, and set it up, you may as well go buy a DECENT small generator. Im not talking about the elcheapo Bunnings or Supercrap ones.
I have a small Honda generator, runs 100-1 2 stroke fuel, 700ml gets me around 5 hrs running. Quiet as, we used to have it running under our camper, and we could still live normally inside. Weighs probably about 8-10 kg. It supplies either 250 or 450 watts of sine wave inverted power depending on the switch position selected, as well as 12v power. I can quite safely run a laptop or other electronic devices straight off it with no problems, although I do use a surge protector, (we run the rear projection TV and set top box at home off it during power outages).
Only drawback is price, it was just under $1000 a few years ago, but I really think it was a great investment, even though it it only gets used a couple of times a year these days, and I wont be getting rid of it.

You won't get much from a diesel that size.
Diesels without a turbo get about 70Nm/litre. So you'd have a whole 3.5Nm which at 3000rpm (for 50Hz) gives you about 1kw of shaft power, you'd get maybe 700w of electricity from it.

You can get that from an invertor on a 12v battery.

Slunnie wrote: we compete in a 24hour economy race call the RACV Energy Breakthrough in Victoria.

Which team? my daughter rides in the St Margerets HPV team, lots of fun
Peter.

droopypete wrote:

Slunnie wrote: we compete in a 24hour economy race call the RACV Energy Breakthrough in Victoria.

Which team? my daughter rides in the St Margerets HPV team, lots of fun
Peter.

I've just moved school, but was with The Kings School in NSW in Hybrids. We run 2 cars, a 2 seater Diesel/Electric called Diesel Demon, and a single seater Petrol/Electric called Lethal Injection (from Haltech engine management on a Honda GX50). An absolutely awesome event isn't it, the kids (and oldies)just love it! Just stunning the backing it gets from the competitors. Last year we won (Lethal Injection) by 70 laps I think it was over the 24 hours and set a new course record

HPV's! They're kamikazis! Psycho lot, but the seem to have sooooo much fun. There's a lot of ticker on that track!

have these.

http://www.waspdiesel.com/generators.html


Your major problem will be DB at places, as diesel motor bang quite a bit.

The inverter ones are pretty good, worth the cash, I've seen a Honda 10i run a 450ltr fridge, B/W CRT TV, little CRT colour TV, a 30inch LCD TV, and running a charger for a battery.

and that wasn't really pushing it apprantly, they throttle up and down so there's as little fuel usage, only goes up when it actually needed.
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How does it throttle up?
The rev's control the Hz's. So increasing the rev's will inrease the frequency.
If you increase the load on a generator/alternater it will eventualy stall the motor.

The newer Honda gen sets are all much the same. Mine has 2 throttle settings, one outputs 250 watts, and the other 450 watts. Because it is sine wave inverter, it doesnt matter which setting it is on, it still outputs a safe, clean 50hz of power.

We are talking about newer technology here, not the old clunker style gen sets that produce dirty power.

Chucky wrote:How does it throttle up?
The rev's control the Hz's. So increasing the rev's will inrease the frequency.
If you increase the load on a generator/alternater it will eventualy stall the motor.

the generator controller governs the throttle to maintain revs at the specified rpm to meet the power drawn by the load.

Chucky wrote:How does it throttle up?
The rev's control the Hz's. So increasing the rev's will inrease the frequency.
If you increase the load on a generator/alternater it will eventualy stall the motor.

It uses an alt to feed an invertor .. not like old skool gen sets that had to run at a governed speed to make the waveform.

Depending on how you were to set up the charging system, if you have a battery (car) thats fairly low on power, if you were to charge it off an altenator you'd need 3HP minimum. Thats how much an alternator will suck while at maximum output in a "normal" car. Obviously this will be different if your using deep cycle units and a lower amp alternator. Just something for you to concider.

Coxy

BundyRumandCoke wrote:The newer Honda gen sets are all much the same. Mine has 2 throttle settings, one outputs 250 watts, and the other 450 watts. Because it is sine wave inverter, it doesnt matter which setting it is on, it still outputs a safe, clean 50hz of power.

We are talking about newer technology here, not the old clunker style gen sets that produce dirty power.

Cheers
I didn't know they went through a inverter.

I'm fairly sure Yamaha make some fancy pants inverter ones too. Not sure how their price stacks up, or if they are proper Jap gear though.

These all suck for 12V battery charging. 240V - great, battery charging - suck. If you want to charge batteries you want 40-80AMPS, and that needs an alternator based unit like the Christie, or the cheap chinese copies.

The best the honda pushes out is 6A@12V.
Paul

Wouldn't low amp/trickle charging be the go for big deep cycle batteries???

You would be better to use a 240v battery charger off the gennie, there are high output ones around and much better than using the 12v side of the gennie.

Re. both the above - do you want to run it for hours and hours?

14V alternator at 60-80A is a hell of a lot faster than a charger.

Paul

me3@neuralfibre.com wrote:Re. both the above - do you want to run it for hours and hours?

14V alternator at 60-80A is a hell of a lot faster than a charger.

Paul

Thats if you have a good battery that will stand up to those kind of charge rates ... most "regular" batteries will cook at more than about 10A.

love_mud wrote:

me3@neuralfibre.com wrote:Re. both the above - do you want to run it for hours and hours?

14V alternator at 60-80A is a hell of a lot faster than a charger.

Paul

Thats if you have a good battery that will stand up to those kind of charge rates ... most "regular" batteries will cook at more than about 10A.

Hmm, I don't agree with the above. N70 Wet Cell for $99 from Repco from flat with an 80A alternator at 14.3V will taper charge from 50+ amps initially down to 4 or less when near fully charged. AGM will swallow more than that at 3-4x the cost.
Nothing special about a $99 battery.
Alternators are constant voltage charging as opposed to constant current.
Deep cycle however would reflect your statements above.

Paul

love_mud wrote: Thats if you have a good battery that will stand up to those kind of charge rates ... most "regular" batteries will cook at more than about 10A.

I can attest to a NS70 batteries audibly bubbling when subjected to a 15 amp charge.

240v chargers are no good, i need something that doesn't require a powerpoint.

Trickle charging is ok, it's meant to be a supplementary system, If it runs for 5-6 hours during the day

A small diesel would probably still be torquier than its petrol conterpart so i could put a big pulley on the motor to make the alternator spin faster

Santos wrote:240v chargers are no good, i need something that doesn't require a powerpoint.

Trickle charging is ok, it's meant to be a supplementary system, If it runs for 5-6 hours during the day

A small diesel would probably still be torquier than its petrol conterpart so i could put a big pulley on the motor to make the alternator spin faster

I would take a look at some small wind turbine's ... can be had pretty cheap, and work in even a failry light breeze .. will add power whenever there is wind, no noise, very little maintainence, and supplment some solar panels.

me3@neuralfibre.com wrote:

love_mud wrote:

me3@neuralfibre.com wrote:Re. both the above - do you want to run it for hours and hours?

14V alternator at 60-80A is a hell of a lot faster than a charger.

Paul

Thats if you have a good battery that will stand up to those kind of charge rates ... most "regular" batteries will cook at more than about 10A.

Hmm, I don't agree with the above. N70 Wet Cell for $99 from Repco from flat with an 80A alternator at 14.3V will taper charge from 50+ amps initially down to 4 or less when near fully charged. AGM will swallow more than that at 3-4x the cost.
Nothing special about a $99 battery.
Alternators are constant voltage charging as opposed to constant current.
Deep cycle however would reflect your statements above.

Paul

How many times do you reckon it would stand up to that ? The thermal cycling wears the plates and sloughs off material .. not ideal for a system like is being discussed here. As the long term power draw would signify a few deep cycle batteries.

love_mud wrote:

Santos wrote:240v chargers are no good, i need something that doesn't require a powerpoint.

Trickle charging is ok, it's meant to be a supplementary system, If it runs for 5-6 hours during the day

A small diesel would probably still be torquier than its petrol conterpart so i could put a big pulley on the motor to make the alternator spin faster

I would take a look at some small wind turbine's ... can be had pretty cheap, and work in even a failry light breeze .. will add power whenever there is wind, no noise, very little maintainence, and supplment some solar panels.

solar AND wind will be the main system, this is more along the lines of a week of rain

Santos wrote:

love_mud wrote:

Santos wrote:240v chargers are no good, i need something that doesn't require a powerpoint.

Trickle charging is ok, it's meant to be a supplementary system, If it runs for 5-6 hours during the day

A small diesel would probably still be torquier than its petrol conterpart so i could put a big pulley on the motor to make the alternator spin faster

I would take a look at some small wind turbine's ... can be had pretty cheap, and work in even a failry light breeze .. will add power whenever there is wind, no noise, very little maintainence, and supplment some solar panels.

solar AND wind will be the main system, this is more along the lines of a week of rain

Can still be quite windy when it rains :O) .. and a pretty decent UV index as well.

I would seriously look at a simple yachting genset (yachting sites may be helpful here) something very reliable and quite common ( as I am assuming as you cant get 240v you may be a fair way from civilisation.) You dont want to be stuffing about with custom and potentially quite rare hardware. Or if it is only for backup purposes .. would you use the vehicles electrical power to supplment your living quarters .. ?

You need one of those OLD single cylinder pump motors.

Bazzle

The Smallest diesels I know of are:

Yanmar - 211cc Direct injection 3.8-4.7HP
http://www.yanmar.com.au/industrial/la_ ... series.htm

Kubota OC60 - 276cc Indirect Injection 5.6-7.2HP
Haltech use these in their Icepacks. They buy heaps of them, so could probably do you a good price. Being indirect injection they are quite quiet.
http://www.frontierpower.ca/kubota/actvseries.htm

I havent seen a smaller diesel that is commercially available.