Ok here we are again then.....
Lot of head scratching been going on. We came to the conclusion that the big dumb forklift charger was killing the poor generator so out it went! In the place it was mounted we put a heated lard-melting shelf for keeping a tub of lard runny in readiness for filling the main tank. The ally plate has two small 25w heating elements bolted to it - keeps the lard about 60-70 degrees C.
You can see the pickup lance ready for insertion and under the shelf a Facet fuel pump for transferring the runny lard into the proper tank below. We made a big insulated 'crash helmet' to pop over the top to keep it toasty.
Meanwhile...... back at the 'how to charge the s*ddin battery' dept - i found a pair of these luvly 48 volt switch mode power supply/charger units on Egay for £60! Bargain. These can chuck out up to 35-40 amps each..... seen here tickling 50amps or so in. Brilliant!
Sooo.. we tinkered about with the max power output presets to get all we sensibly could from the genny and set it to auto run from low voltage signal from the inverter.....
On coming back from work the following evening the generator was running and had clearly been going for some time as everything was mad hot! It was also far from happy....
Seems we had set the maximum load too high. One charger was dropping in and out as the genny couldnt keep the voltage up under the excessive demand. the gen itself was cycling in a most unhappy way - voltage dropping out and banging back up again all the time. We turned it off quicksharp and left it to cool for a bit. On starting up again the voltage would not strike - only eventually doing so weedily if the engine was revved like mad - doh!
We tried flashing the alternator in case the magnetism had been lost and it did get a bit better but the voltage would not rise above 190 or so.
Only one thing for it i suppose - take everything to bits!
I took the rotor to a clever armature rewinding chappy who tested it and declared one half of its windings shorted to the rotor. B*gger!!
Estimate for rewind around £400. Double b*gger!!
Plans now being thrown around to mount our nice Kubota engine on a frame and lash it to a different gen/alternator...... watch this space.
As if thats not enough - in all the 'excitement' a tub of lard was forgotten about and left in the Lardinator for 3 days at nuclear temperatures. There could only be one possible plastic tub-melting outcome........
LARD
l
IS
EVIL!
TRIPLE B*GGER!!!
Our Chernobyl shed is trying to live up to its name.........
