anyone ever hurd of Petters diesel engines? From the research i have done they were found on boats. And in genarators from 8k-20k. they are single cylinder diesels. anyone got any info on them? We are looking at buying one for a project/back up power. The guy says that it hasn't run in over 30 years and it will run anything(but he dosen't know the watts). anyone got any info on it?


Coop

 

we have lister-petter diesel engines in a lot of our aerospace ground equipment used in the air force. they are pretty reliable. is the one you have air cooled?

 

Don't have it yet, but it is an air cooled.

Coop

 

My brother has one in his fishing boat.
What's cool about it is to go in reverse you shut down the engine, flip a lever and restart the engine turning the opposite direction.
The little single banger will go all day on a couple of gallons of fuel.
Sorry, but that's all I know about them.

 

Check out www.utterpower.com
Kg

 

at school there was an old hand crank lister 1 banger... it was fun to start without using the decompression lever...

i want to get one of them 2 cylinder replica engines... hmm...

 

I'm in the process of gathering parts from the abovementioned utterpower.com. My cabin/home will be off grid. I'll be using a lister clone single cylinder (6hp@650rpms) and an 1800 rpm 4pole 5kw gen head. The head will be feeding a Trace 3624 inverter as I will have a 24 volt battery bank that will provide power to the house through the inverter. The genny will be used mainly for charging the batteries (the 3624 will convert the 120v ac to 24v dc for charging purposes), but will be setup to run 24/7 in the event that the inverter fails or the battery bank becomes damaged. I've been talking with a guy w/just this setup and he reports running the genny for and hour in the morning and one in the evening to the tune of, get this, 1 gallon of biodiesel per 8 hours runtime at full load! He says his onan 3600 rpm unit burns a gallon per hour (gas)! Even at three bucks a gallon, my electricity costs will hover in the area of 25 bucks a month. I've set aside some property for growing soy, so that's in the works for homebrew, and I may have a bead on some free waste fryer oil which the lister clones have been reported to run very well on...nothing to do with the original post, really, but I thought I'd share

g

 

Yup, buddy of mine has got one of each, an old aircooled original Lister and a watercooled India made Lister clone (listeroid) and those are COOL dual flywheel motors.. The Petter types typically have one heavy flywheel and turned faster(1500rpm) than some of the Lister types(750rpm).
Those things are tougher'n a boot and downright COOL! (Just because a 6hp engine weighs about a thousand pounds doesn't mean it is obsolete, does it? )
Lots of the old shrimp boats down here in Aransas Pass used to run a watercooled Petter diesel gen-set to provide DC power to charge the 32volt battery bank. They used to straight-pipe the exhaust to above the wheelhouse where the exhaust made a unique snapping/popping sound that could be heard all over the harbor...
Like "G" said, they ARE amazingly economical on fuel... Plus, you can probably hand them down to your grandkids even using them day-in, day-out...
Like NICK said, one of these days, I wanna get one of those twin cyl models to play with... They look the absolute coolest...

Good luck, and keep us informed on your progress! (pictures?)

Keith

 

thanks for all of then info guys. I think we are going down to pick it up this weekend will have pics for you all when i get it if i do.

Coop

 

Ok so question to you, how many batteries in your bank, and how often will they need to be replaced? at what cost is that going to run?

 

Check here for more information you ever wanted to know.
I am also on this forum, there are alot of experts here.
Jim
http://www.smokstak.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=6

 

Cool link, Jim! Can't wait to start reading there The gentleman I've been talking with is using 3 golf cart batteries for his setup...but, he also uses a composting/no water toilet setup to give you just a sample of how minimal his operation is. My home will be in the neighborhood of 1200 sq. feet, including basement and I have the 'female factor' to consider, so there will be some additional creature comforts as compared to a bare bones setup. About a dozen 6 volt batteries was recomended for my situation and I'm just now starting to learn about battery life and care, so I can't really answer the battery questions just yet. The bottom line (for me) is that I've been taking a lot of society's convienences (sp ) for granted and would like to take a little more responsibility for my own livelyhood than I have to this point in my life. I don't know how or even if it's gonna work, or to what extent, but I figure the worst that could happein is I could fail miserably and have to start all over again!As for cost, I'm setting aside roughly 4500 bucks to get things going. The import slow speed listeroids can run (so I've been told) anywhere from 800 to well over 1500 for a clean one. The deal is, the Indian quality control is a bit shady, so a cheaper example will have to be completely torn down to remove all casting sand that got painted over, etc. The good news is you can tear down a single cylinder in about 20 minutes with a 12'' crescent wrench! Seems like a lot of work, but that's where my responsibility to the quality of the final product comes in---little bit more hard work, little less swiping the debit/credit card for everything I need in life. I feel like I'm just on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding and implementing these ideas, but for some reason it feels right to give it a go. Getting my old Farmall Super A and, of course, my Cummins really got my mind going in the direction of old stuff that was meant to work hard for generations with minimal fuss and high efficiancy. I take both of those items for granted now, but when I think of how much faithful service I've gotten from them while having virtually no problems and NO PAYMENTS, it makes me think that an old slow speed generator and a bunch of batteries could indeed provide much of the same. I'm not really keen on the end of civilization stuff, but where's the harm in being able to provide every thing I/my family needs through land and resorce management alone. It's not easy 'cause I went to college for 4 years (yippee ) and my parents are mad since I don't wear a tie to work every morning. Ok, I answered more questions than were asked sorry bout that. I hope to break ground and have the log walls up by December...I'll toss a picture in my gallery of the driveway my little super a cut in.

g

 

Here is more information you might need to know.
These are 2 excellent sites with alot of information on off-grid living.

http://www.backwoodssolar.com

http://www.homepower.com
The magazine used to be free to download but now they charge, but you can download the "sample issue" for free.
It is the full issue but it is just the previous one, Lots of good articles {no centerfolds} on how other people do it.
Good Luck. Jim.

 

Well went and looked at it today. The thing is huge! 4 feet long 3 feet high and 2 feet wide. it had only a 110 outlet on it no 220 and only a 30 amp braker. NO gas tank. We cranked it over and over and over. spraying wd40 in it, and couldn't get her running. She wasn't cranking over fast enough to make compression. With out compression it wasn't making enough heat to burn the WD40. Didn't buy it.

thanks for all of the great info and help.

Coop