COMMENTS ON "Energy"
Each "comments" page has comments, suggestions, etc from friends and readers. To add your comment, email Mary lou and Claire at gulch@iname.com
[CHINA DIESELS: One Man's Experience } [USE SOMETHING OF EVERYTHING FOR BEST RESULTS], [SIZING YOUR GENERATOR] [LARGE POWER GENERATORS]
CHINA DIESELS: one Man's Experience
From:Ken Brydges kenonhlm@mail.island.net
Date: November 19,1998
I see lots of talk on the internet about the China Diesel generator sets as an inexpensive but supposedly reliable and long-lasting source of power for a retreat or Gulch.
I wish to express a personal note of caution to those who may be leaning in the direction of purchasing one of these units. I will relate a bit of my experience with them, which may be an isolated instance, or it may be indicative of a shoddy product.
I spent 25 years making an isolated chunk of oceanfront acreage into a semi-self sufficient homestead. The property was accessible only by boat or floatplane, and the nearest power lines were over 100 miles away over a hefty mountain range. Since I wanted survival with style, and was not willing to give up many of the good things of life like washing machines, music, lights, refrigeration, and so on...a source of power was a necessity.
I started out with a 2000 watt gas generator, but soon found that it gulped gas at a horrific rate for the amount of power it put out, and I also found out that the expected useful life was only 1000 hours, if properly maintained. So I got a used 3000 watt diesel generator (an Onan). It worked fairly well, but it was very old and had not been well cared for. I was in the market for a new generator and read the ads on the China Diesels in the Mother Earth News. Sounded like a real answer to my dreams for reliable, long-lasting power.
So I bought two, an 8 KW generator set and a spare engine. One of the things that sold me was the fact that they came with tools and spare parts for a rebuild kit. The ideal setup for an isolated homesteader who only got to town, by boat, 3 or 4 times a year.
I unpacked the generator set and spare engine all smiles. I went through the spare parts and tool kit with great admiration. Everything seemed to be very heavily built.
My first difficulty was in trying to decipher the instruction manual. It was written in English, but in many cases made no sense. It was obviously drafted by some Chinese who had a short course in English and a small dictionary. It was a giant puzzle, where you had to guess what the words meant, and try to put yourself inside this Chinese mind, and figure out what he was getting at.
After several days of this, (I kept the manual on the kitchen table and every time I sat down, I would try to decipher some more), I got the generator going for the first time. It was a lot noisier than I had expected, and the water in the radiator had to be watched carefully so that it did not run dry.
At 60 hours, the fuel tank broke off, vibrated the steel bracket until it fell off and hung by the fuel line. (This put the tank below the injector pump and so it quit of its own accord.)
At a few hundred hours the generator started smoking and becoming hard to start. A mechanic friend happened by and said that the injector nozzle was plugged. A search through the spare parts box turned up two spare injector nozzles. WOW! I was impressed, not realizing that the six injector nozzles (one with each engine plus two spares for each engine) would last me less than a year...but by then I had taken to wire brushing the ends and putting them back in for a few days running.
I only used the generator for about 6 hours a day. This allowed electricity for laundry, evening lights, music, grind flour and even vacuum occassionally. Also, if not used all at once, the shop tools too.I used the China Diesel most every day, but over the course of the year I had bearings go out, bushings break, engine overheat, and, sorry I don't remember more. But at the end of the year I had canibalized many parts from the second generator and well as using many parts from the two rebuild kits.
I finally gave up. I gave the two engines to my mechanic friend, for nothing, I was glad to see the south end of them going north. I then purchased a Lister, 7 KW, and had no further generator problems.
My mechanic friend said that the engineering was alright on the China Diesels, but the metals that they put into such things as injectors, bearings, bushings,and such were way below the usual specifications you would find in an English or American generators.
In conclusion, as I said, my experience may have just been an isolated instance. Or maybe not. If my continued existance depended upon having a source of power, as it does, why then it might be false economy to buy something because it's cheap. If you DO get a China Diesel, (or any other generator for that matter), check it out...run it...get used to its idiosyncracies...see how much fuel it uses. Check out what equipment you intend to run, what power is drawn, and be sure to have lots of fuel and oil filters as well as spare parts. And good luck!
Ken Brydges
USE SOMETHING OF EVERYTHING FOR BEST RESULTS
From: Priss
Subject: Energy, plus a little...
To: gulch@iname.com
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 13:12:24 -0700 (PDT)
Ms' Wolfe and Seymour,
It's wonderful to have run across your "Gulch" site. While I've been working toward that goal for a while now, I didn't have a name for it. "Gulching". My mom will like that, she handed me Atlas Shrugged when I was 12.
You might want to add "Home Power" magazine to your list of links, http://www.homepower.com/ as if you couldn't guess....
After my investigation into alternative and "renewable" energies, it comes clear that unless one form is overwhelmingly prevelent at your location, like a waterfall or never-ending 30mph wind, energy means using something of everything.
What I like for electricity, because I like electricity, is water (if possible), wind and solar all charging the same bank of batteries. With attention to efficiency, it seems perfectly reasonable to be quite self sufficient especially if one does not have a big-screen television.
I'm lucky, my "gulch" has water, but not in huge volumes, some wind but not all the time, and solar about as much as I could expect without moving to Utah or western Colorado.
What it does have is trees. Enough for wood heat in winter to make up what solar does not do. That is a *huge* chunk of the energy people need. Not want, not like, but NEED. Look at the pyramid of needs and shelter/warmth is down there with oxigen and H2O.
There was also an article in the July Home Power mag about a team of people running an un-modified Diesel engine on veggie oil that has been mixed with lye and methanol (both producable by a small community of intellegent people, I believe) that results in what they call "Bio-Diesel" and glycerine(sp?), a very usefull byproduct for a natural community.
This "Bio-Diesel" burns up to 75% cleaner than dead-dino, and smells good doing it.
So a community, with a bit of farmland in the mix, can not only get "off the grid" electrically, but in producing their own motor fuel as well take another large step away from arbitrary regulation.
There is no one answer here. Strength lies in the freedom to combine our efforts freely to solve problems. Some people trading their methane and methane producing byproducts and systems, techs who build, maintain, whatever solar, wind, water, lumberjacks and builders, farmers and computer nerds, skills in everything is needed. It may be possible for one person to retreat into the hills, but it won't be too much fun.
Peace, may your aim never waver!
Power outages can leave a home without power for lighting, cooking,
refrigeration and pumping water.Portable generators can be bought to provide
substitute power. However, the generator must be properly sized to start
the appliances and equipment you want to run. (Based on information developed
by Clemson Cooperative Extension following Hurricane Hugo. Revised for
Virginia audiences by Virginia Cooperative Extension. )
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/disaster/490-303/490-303.html
Thanks to Kenton Cowdry for the following info!
Send reply to: "Kenton R. Cowdry" <skylar@unicom.net> From: "Kenton R. Cowdry" <skylar@unicom.net> To: "M.L. Seymour" Date sent: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 22:48:41 -0500
Hi, we cross paths again. I have been studying Y2K for about 6 months and following the Libertarian sites much longer. I am glad to see you take the initiative to combine the two. Keep up the good ... no... great work you and Claire are doing.
I have also been busy developing good resources for larger power generation facilities if you have anyone that is interested in self-sufficient power generation for gulches. Our company just secured funding for a firm that is refurbishing a couple of 2.5 megawatt generators for a facility in Jamaica - they're big - a used crankshaft from a machine w/ 18,000 hours is going for $100,000!
It seems there's alot going on out there that the people on the street are not privy to. I suspect it won't be long until people will have to pay a procrastination premium, wait a long time for delivery or go without altogether. I am working on securing sources for diesel generators other than the standard commercial sources like China Diesel or Imperial Diesel (who are both getting quite backlogged with Y2K related orders) and the VERY expensive domestic sources. These will be spec-refurbished high quality units like Lister for less than the China diesel.
By the way, if anyone on the list is interested in inverters, we found a few 4.5 KW / 48 Volt inverters that are from a liquidation transaction. They are top of the line units from Abacus Controls that were custom manufactured for AT&T / Lucent Technologies to provide backup power for microwave repeaters in Argentina at $8110 ea. These are new in the box for $2950 w/ 90 day warranty. Yes, they are Y2K compliant.
Also, I would be happy to assist (as time allows) anyone who has general non-technical questions on diesel power generation for their personal retreats. Don't know much, but have some good resource material. :-)
Thanks again for your work and take care,
K.R.C. E-Mail: skylar@unicom.net
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