Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

I have been toying around with idea on how to make most efficient generator, that can maybe run on hydrogen or petrol for that matter. Was thinking that exhaust gets really hot and all that heat is just wasted. If I can put some kind of heat transformer on the exhaust to boil water with it. Then take steam and power a small air motor maybe or use that hot water for heating a room in the house, while charging battery bank. I just now got some time and little money to build something like that.
I’m going to try and make small home build generator and fabricate exhaust/boiler out of copper pipes. Bout little Briggs & Stratton 6hp motor on ebay for 50$ should be here some time next week.
Does any one have any suggestions on where to start looking for an cheap air motor and any of you guys have experience with electrolysis process. What parts to use to make electrodes and stuff like that?
Any input welcome
Will post some pics when I get the engine mounted and heat exchanger build.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

I think you need some more research. Although Combustion engine can run on hydrogen, key components must change. Where would you get the H2? Or store it? Go on on this one at this time.

Heat exchanger is good, but you should sort of use a water-jacket motor, not an air cooled in that case. Then it's your basic auto heater core, radiator or whatever. You can use passive flow, not a pump.

As to electrolysis, sure, it's simple. I don't know how to do it well, because if I could make H2 from water, I couldn't compress it or store it. It's a dead energy loser. Big time. If you had a surplus of free energy, like from a windmill, then perhaps it might be worthwhile, but hardly then. Non-distilled water also won't work because the plates will mineralize. So you need a pure distilled water, closed system, H2-O2 separator, high-pro compressor, ultra-tight H2 tank...and then what do you do with it?

Let me tell you something, mate: petrol is dirt cheap at $.50 a cup. Do you have any idea how much work you can do with a cup of petrol?

But let's say you're set on this. Okay, go read Utterpower.com and Otherpower.com until you need specs and many of your questions will be answered and problems solved.

Bon Chance!

TS

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

i thought simpletons answer made lots of sense but you may like to have a look at steam power as a backup to solar and wind power i wouldnot
like to be running my whole house on wood fired steam power but it would be very handy as a back up.

http://www.thelibertyman.com/Steam_44/steam_44.html

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You probably right about hydrogen, but I think you miss understood me about heat exchanger. I plan on using wasted exhaust energy. If I combine coolant and �boiler water� engine probably will overheat. For now I just want to see what I can get out of 6hp motors exhaust. Sense only about 25% of energy going in to making crank spin. Most of that 75% left over goes in to exhaust so I should be able to get some work out of it.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Solar would be your best bet. Wind turbine might be better or worse, depending on your location.

Both are noise and maintenance free (for the most part), there's no fuel to store, and the system should have deep cycle batteries to get you through any downtime. Both systems are also commercially available and installable.

For home heating, get a nice big wood-burning stove.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Guys, I think you completely missing the point. A lot of us have small generators that would be used during SHTF for a while and I'm just trying to come up with the way to make them more efficient and get as much energy out of that gallon of gas as possible during operation. And it's a lot cheaper then buying solar panels right now.
Any way I'll report back when i get something going.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You may think it's cheaper now, but wait until TSHTF, and try to get a steady supply of gas. Not to mention all the noise that genset would make, which would draw attention.

Solar pays for itself in ~10 years (depending on the setup), and is truly self sufficient.

As for making a genset more efficient, the best way would be to water-cool the exhaust manifold and then use that cooling water as a heat source with a radiator (cogeneration). You don't want to get too fancy, IMO simplicity will pay dividends.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Thought about running the exhaust pipe through the dirt under my foundation. Would feel good in the winter to have warm floors.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

A friend and myself have pondered your exact suggestion. We are modeling and perhaps on the brink of a prototype. We want to take a small diesel engine, (single cylinder or small 2 cylinder) water cooled.
Use a hydronic tank to capture the obvious engine cooling, but the lions share of the heat from an engine (essentially an engine is a furnace with a small mechanical output) is wasted in the exhaust. Our model takes the exhaust gasses, and this exhaust goes through some type of plate to plate or shell and tube heat exchanger with water circulating, and this water circulates and dumps into say a 500gal tank. Same model is used in many solar water heat systems. The water becomes your "flywheel" for BTU's if you need more, just add another tank or a bigger tank.
So in the system you are using an alternator for charging batteries, using biodiesel or sy 50/50 diesel and veggie oil, waste cooking oil etc. Using the motor to generate electric on demand or intermittently, meanwhile you are salvaging 60 to 70 percent of the wasted "heat" from the combustion process and storing the btu's in water, to be later circulated through a simple fan coil and the heat dumped to your space.
We have spent many hours looking for a water cooled Briggs motor that can be set up on Natural Gas too, which is still the cheapest normal fuel per therm.

Will update as we progress. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Efficient
 

Rye, please keep us posted.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Rye that's what I was talking about. But i want to use heated water to power air motor maybe and drive small alternator.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You can run it on alcohol, propane, HHO. I don't think it be to laud by the time it goes out of the water heater.

Did you read my first post?

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

I recommend some older posts by a gentleman named
" Halophyte"
Regards,
Haystackneedle

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

If you want to get serious about Hydrogen for power, take a look at the thread below. :coolbeer:

Hydrogen for added energy storage

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Hoot,
Strange as this may sound, the Romans heated their homes with fires that pumped the heat under the floors. So the idea that you are proposing is at LEAST 2000 years old, perhaps older. GOOD CALL HOOT!!

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Where will you be getting enough alcohol and propane to run the engine as permanent power gen? I'm just curious. You do know that the engine will have to be modified to run on either of those, right? Sure, you could muffle the exhaust, but it will still be audible.

It seems like the Lister CS engine is maybe what you are looking for: simple, easy to maintain, relatively quiet, and will run on anything between diesel and vegetable oil. The only problem is that nobody makes a generator "set" with one, you will have to mate them with your own design. http://www.otherpower.com/fuking.html

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Generator----> Charger-----> Deep Cycle Battery Bank -----> Inverter


Yes you will need a good charger as most 12V outlets on generators are "trickle" (4-8A) chargers at best.

I run a B&D 40 Amp charger leading to two parallel DCBs. I can run a light, small fan, small water pump, 12V Engel freezer fridge, and radios for 24 hrs on 1.5 hrs of genset time per day, and have moderate power to spare. (conserve and you can run for a couple of days)

Try to keep your appliances 12V and not AC if you can. Not running the inverter makes a big difference. Also, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM CHEAP GENERATORS!!! (dirty, unstable AC sine waves - WILL fry sensitive electronics) Newer Hondas and Yamahas with inverters are the best and WELL WORTH IT even if you buy used.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You can make your own alcohol ( a.k.a. moonshine ). It won't be hard to convert engine to run on it. For propane it's even easier, take off the carb and run small ( 1/16 inch ) SS line right next to intake valve and regulate how much fuel it's burning by needle valve.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

:rolleyes_m: Maybe you could just build your own steam engine :>)

Link:

http://www.btinternet.com/~jhpart/steam2.htm

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Awesome link, thanks mate

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Good luck man. I just don't see it working if TSHTF. There are all kinds of issues when you switch fuels, depending on the engine, and distilling alcohol to a high enough percentage to run a car could be a problem, not to mention where you will get your yeast from if TSHTF? Where will this propane come from?

Your ideas sound fun as a hobby if you have all the resources you need, but I think you need to reevaluate if you think this will be long term emergency quality power.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Okay, let's take up your proposal, which will certainly work. Even good engines are under the 90% efficiency, and are basically petroleum furnaces. It's a good idea to get mechanical energy out of a furnace if you can, but wasting the heat is foolish.

Again, however, this is not ideal. Gas motors of that sort have a relatively short service-life--like tested at less than 2 weeks continuous. They run at 3600rpm, and have small oil-pans and heat dispersing. Ethanol is very hard to make correctly and the equip is both large and the cost of the gear could by hundreds of gallons directly. You have a 10:1 loss from the mash and must dispose of it. Then the run will be in the 90% range so you have to take out the 10% water. It's hydroscopic so in time the water will be reabsorbed from the air. Then it's 67% the energy density of gasoline, so you need 1/3 larger tanks. or refill 1/3 more often. Bad math at every step. Ouch.

Ok, so you already have one. Yes, you can run the exhaust wherever, because any decent pipe will have the flow necessary, like 3-4" pvc or whatever. Would you have it INSIDE or have it OUTSIDE and run the exhaust in then out? You need to also pipe fresh air IN to not asphyxiate yourself. The engine will be very loud at 3600rpm as a lot of the noise will be going right through the cast-iron walls. The engine is air-cooled, so a lot of the heat is lost through the block as well.

Put in a box to capture the block heat and dim the noise, you're in danger of overheating and now need a fan to move the air and keep the motor in the 90f range. A thermal switch? Electric? Another few parts to buy and break? At the outflow, you can have the final exhaust in a garbage can of gravel, etc, like F1Rocketboy did. http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html

So you know what I mean when I say if you have a WATER cooled engine, with LOW rpm, you can run it inside, use a passive thermal-flow house or car radiator without losing additional heat in an air>water>use conversion, and save yourself a LOT of trouble, as well as quieting the engine.

Then, if you move from gas to diesel/oil, you can burn your fuel with no real conversion beyond filtering, which is more 30% energy dense than gasoline, or 60% more energy-dense than alcohol. You now need storage tanks 60% smaller, or runs 60% longer. As human-grown and consumed, this fuel will always be available. Using a Lister, you have a service life of 70 years instead of 2 weeks to 3 months. It is also far quieter and has the least breakable, least service parts of any common engine. It has no ignition, a hand-start and is EMP-proof as well.

As a plus, they are also the most efficient combustion engine out there, which is why they are used for irrigation and other marginal causes.

Are you SURE you want to try a 3600rpm, air-cooled, gasoline/alcohol engine? Because you could just use what's been best for +70 years and is generally agreed as the best bet on these things.

They're cheap, too: http://cgi.ebay.com/Slow-Turning-Lis...QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Metro-Lister-CS-...QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-diesel-engin...QQcmdZViewItem

His store: http://stores.ebay.com/PowerfulSolutions
Includes oilseed presses to make vegetable fuel

Never ordered from him, but associated with the Utterpower folks and liked the look of it. Mods can delete the links if they like, it's just a 5 min tour of eBay search as "Lister, diesel"

I'm all for experimentation, but I wouldn't go through the effort starting so far afield. Get on the paper first, then fine tune. It'll end up saving you money you can use for other things like storage batteries.

Other than that, go for fully-passive solutions like PV solar, passive solar house heat, or russian wood stoves. Anything with moving parts is asking for trouble.

Again, good luck. hope the links help get you where you're headed.

TS

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

getting yeasts is fairly easy wild yeast can be used but the better way would be to keep a live culture sourdough makers in europe have i guess kept cultures alive for 100 years simple trick to this would be to use the culture
on a regular basis say weekly and each time use a small amount of leftover
to start a new batch of inoculant.

if everybody thinks this is hard maybee i should also sell live yeasts post shtf
to people wanting to make bread and booze.

i have run straight alcohol in small briggs and stratton engine with no mods
only need to use a little ether or petrol to start engine it does reduce power
noticeably but seems to work fine. ran many hours probably 10 in total and
could not see any damage or problems caused.

also many times in my younger days when i ran out of fuel i would buy a gallon of metho/denatured alcohol from the local hardware or corner store rather than walk to the petrol station even ran a old toyota on kero once
to get me to a petrol station.

No i would not try that now with modern vehicals and pollution controlls.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Yes, wild yeasts can be used, but with mixed results. For distilling fuel grade alcohol, you will want to have really good yeast (turbo yeast) and of course you will need copious amounts of water, fuel for the still, a LOT of time involved, etc, etc, and the end result might be very poor quality fuel that a modern engine will run like crap on, if at all. For a short duration that may be fine, but as a permanent power solution, it sounds poor compared to the alternatives of a diesel lister and a lot of fuel, a wind turbine, or a PV solar setup.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

If you're running an internal combustion engine it makes sense to capture exhaust heat in water. You can use it for heating your home, bathing or depending on how you have it rigged you can get enough heat to distill drinking water.

Longterm I feel external combustion has a lot more promise because external combustion engines are not picky about fuel as long as it burns hot enough. I'm working on my own projects around this but you can buy a 5hp steam engine kit from here.

http://www.tinypower.com/store2.php?...on=show_detail

I come from moonshine country... it ain't hard to make lots of alchohol. I still remember the location of a few old stills back in the swamp. heh!

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

distilling fuel grade alcohol has little to do with the yeasts used haveing a "turbo yeast" just make better yields or a more efficient process Im assuming the turbo yeast you refer to can ferment beyond the 10 or 12%
alc per volume common with wine and bakers yeasts.personally i tend to go
for less efficient but more common,reliable and simple methods.

i do agree with haveing lots of solar,wind and hydro if it suits your area
a much better choice for power consumtion than burning of any fuel.
because it is true that to produce ethanol on a backyard post shtf basis
i would need copious amounts of firewood to run the process.

i was reading in the nat geographic the other day on yields of fuel crops
they were talking about algae as being able to produce ethanol at many
many time what sugar cane can

sugar cane 600 to 800 gallons ethanol per acre
corn 300 gallons ethanol per acre
soy beans 60 gallons oil per acre

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

yeah, turbo yeast has alcohol tolerance to at least 17%. You can buy it by mail order, I believe.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Exhaust doesn't have to be just for heating space you can power small steam engine, air motor, sterling engine and lots of other stuff. Think about it. If 6hp motor only uses 30% ( at very best ) of gasolines power and lets say 30% goes in to radiator or air and 40% out of exhaust then you should be able to get another 5hp out of it. With power produced by exhaust you can maybe run small hydrogen generator and then run your main engine on hydrogen/gasoline or start on gas and then switch to hydrogen once the generator up to speed.
It's not hard at all to make engine run on any fuel.
I'm planing on making my own gen set out of car alternator for now, run it under 3/4 load and see what kind of temp exhaust gets. Then try and size my boiler, find out how much stem it's making per unit time and figure out what I'm going to run of steam.
Any way thanks for all the input guys/gals, vary much appreciated.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

One of the most important criteria for a "good" survival generator is DECIBELS.

As in, "low."

If someone can hear your generator, that means they know you have fuel...and probably other supplies. You may have plenty of guns & ammo, but do you really want to expend half of it fending off people attracted solely due to combustion engine noise?

Solars panels and battery racks will meet nearly all the needs which generators can provide. With absolutely no noise, unless you short something. :D

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You're talking about using the waste heat produced by the engine. But what about using the exhaust as fuel? Combustion is rarely 100%--if it were we wouldn't have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. What most people don't realize is that CO, the product of incomplete combustion, is itself a fuel! Look up "Wood gas", and you'll see how cars can be converted to run on wood. Most of the wood gas used to power the motor is CO.

With a second air intake you could perhaps run a second motor off your exhaust. The best part is that you can still run the exhaust pipe through some sort of heat exchanger to capture those BTUs; a cooler, denser exhaust/air mix will improve the efficiency of the second burn.

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

You are more that welcome to try Unclad Lad. It's not a bad idea

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

Big deal! It's been used plenty of times. In Korea, they call it undol heating and it's been used for centuries. You're trying to re-invent the wheel!:rolleyes_m:

Re: Efficient generator for WSHTF?
 

There is a guy in Lancaster, Pa who has a rather large metal fabricating shop. 60 X 150 or perhaps 180 or so. 20 foot ceilings. Huge stampers and presses among various metal fabricating tools. He runs his shop hydraulic and air driven machinery with a 11 liter cummins engine. He has a heat exchanger on both the radiator and the exhaust which runs through a water jacket. He then has another heat exchanger to warm the infloor pex pipe. The one cummins heats the whole shop even in the coldest part of winter. He said when outside temp was 0, they still had 55 degrees inside. Of course there is some heat generated by the hydraulics, but that also is a by-product of the fuel oil burned in the cummins.

It was a pricey setup though.