More Generator stuff

 Continuing on this thread of small generators, particularly the ChiCom
special, I wrote up some testing that I did last night.

http://www.johndearmond.com/2008/12/24/the-generator-that-could/

Enjoy.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com  <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
It isn't Global Warming.... It's Jerry Falwell arriving in hell.

 

Thanks, much more interested in the unit now.

 Follow up set a.e.h

Neon John wrote:


Good stuff, I keep one of these (yamahah motorbike derived??) 2 stroke
gensets in my 4x4, it's no longer as easy to start as yours but it gets
there in the end.

I have a friend going to Rwanda to help with a school there. No electrcity
so she intends to buy a generator there and has opted for the Honda
inverter.

I feel they might be better off with the cheap 2 stroke and running dc for
battery charging, led ultra brights and laptop rather than attempting to
mimic a grid supplied system. Fuel consumption will be an issue though.

AJH

 

the trick is in holding the choke lever all the way shut.  "Choke" on these
things doesn't quite shut the butterfly all the way.  Mine is a pull-monster
too if I don't do that.  I've been meaning to fix that little problem by
welding up the old notch and machining a new one but holding the thing shut
works so well that I've never gotten a round tuit.


You are absolutely correct with one exception.  Even with an EU, continuous
operation will eat her up on fuel costs compared to a
battery/charger/generator system. Substitute 12 volt CFLs (or even 120 volt
CFLs operated from an inverter) over the LEDs:

http://www.neon-john.net/Neon/Misc/misc_home.htm  first article.

She needs to learn from the off-grid folks, none of whom except maybe those
few with a large enough hydro plant, do it any other way than with a battery
system and inverter for 120 volt applications.  

As I've mentioned before, that little 2-stroke is almost perfectly matched to
a PD Intellipower 60 amp charger.  Using that architecture, the generator is
either wide open or off with no fuel wasting idling or almost idling under
light load.

One other consideration.  She's likely to get bad/dirty fuel in a place like
that.  Compare the ease of removing the carb (float bowl at least) on the
2-stroke for cleaning with the EU.  Getting the EU carb off involves major
plastic surgery :-)

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com  <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
Serenity: That feeling of knowing that your secretary will never tell either of
your wives.

 Neon John wrote:


Fine but my understanding is that her students have no home lighting either,
I was advocating also charging some gel batteries or nimh cells so that
they might take a led reading light home.

We have 12V CFLs here in UK which are nominally 11W and use ordinary mini ES
thread fittings but I wonder what will be available in Rwanda. These would
function as per your test with a gel battery.


I missed that, do you have an article number?

Agreed, also the 2t is fairly fool proof once the fuel is mixed.

AJH