I have a gas engine I think came out of a small skid loader, approx 22hp. I was wondering if I could use it to make my own generator, and if so, how? I have looked at 5kw generators and they use smaller engines, so I figure I should be able to have ~15kw or so.


Thanks for the help,

Nick

 

22hp is about right for 15kw, look around for a shaft driven generator head(northern tool for one source). generator head must match engine rpm( 1800 or 3600). you can belt or direct drive(couple) generator. the engine govenor must be tight and able to respond to generator loads with little or no change in rpm as gen voltage and cycles are result of gen rpm.
Clark

 

remember to get the proper equipment for your application. If you want DC power, then yes get a generator. But if you want AC, I would recommend an alternator. Alternators make AC, Generators make DC. If you get the generator and want AC power, then you have to buy and wire in a sufficient sized inverter to switch it over too AC power. Can be more of a pain in the bum than you want.

 

The upside of using a gen-inverter system is that the frequency is less likely to change with a droop in engine speed. With the alternator your engine speed has to be bang on to hold 60 hz.

 

Nick, are you talking about building a genset for your house? or portable?
Just for comparison shopping, look on EBAY and do a search on "generator".
There's a bewildering array of generators and gensets out there.. . LOTS of gas , quite a few diesel , some Nat/LP gas. 3600rpm ,1800rpm , Lots of chinese made stuff out there.

If you are talking about finding a 2 bearing generator (looks like an electric motor) or a single bearing model like what directly bolts to an engine's bellhousing(much harder to find), do an E-bay search for "generator end" etc.
Those blue painted Chinese ST style units are pretty cheap and rugged. They're conventional brush type generators, but there's nothing really wrong with that.

K.

 

I was looking to build on that could be portable and used as backup power at home in case of emergency to power: sump pump, well pump, refrigerator, and maybe a light or two.

Nick

 

a few years back a friend of mine had a generator which the motor went bad, the power producing side had two bearings, (one each side) so he took and made a way to attatch a pulley, figured out the ratios and proper RPM for this ford 4 cyl. motor to drive it, i think it was from an escort, but what he did was take two cyl's out of the thing, ran it off a techumseh carburator and a fabed intake, he wanted to get 8 hrs from one gallon of fuel, i remember him testing it under load for days trying to get the best efficiency out of it, the best he could do was about 1.5 gallons/8 hrs. was'nt good enough for him, but the thing just sat there at idle, like 600 RPM quiet as could be..............