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Fischer Panda generator


GBW

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I have one of these restricted to fresh water cooling.  It seems from the manual, that the sea water cooling version uses the same innards plus a self contained heat exchanger.  I have tried to purchase same from Fischer Panda without success.  Another option would be to instal an external heat exchanger (which might have some side benefits - like water heating).

 

Anybody any experience of this conversion please?

 

Although the UK agent has been very helpful, he cannot solve my problem.

 

This was the source;- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325336127309

The fourth photo shows a sleeve on the right which, I believe, accepts the cylindrical heat exchanger.

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53 minutes ago, GBW said:

I have one of these restricted to fresh water cooling.  It seems from the manual, that the sea water cooling version uses the same innards plus a self contained heat exchanger.  I have tried to purchase same from Fischer Panda without success.  Another option would be to instal an external heat exchanger (which might have some side benefits - like water heating).

 

Anybody any experience of this conversion please?

 

Although the UK agent has been very helpful, he cannot solve my problem.

 

This was the source;- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325336127309

The fourth photo shows a sleeve on the right which, I believe, accepts the cylindrical heat exchanger.

 

What photos? Are they something from the Ebay add you linked to? Because I can't see anything that looks like a heat exchanger housing there.

 

Not sure why it is in the BMC section, I don't think it uses a BMC engine.

 

Apart from space I don't see why you could not fit an  external heat exchanger as long as it was up to the job.

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No reason why you should not fit an external heat exchanger. That is all a skin tank is  and many boat engines are happily cooled by a skin tank.

It will need enough rated capacity for at least the equivalent of the engine's maximum output. i.e.  a 10kW engine needs a 10 kW rated heat exchanger.

 

You will need to check that both the engine coolant circulating pump and the heater exchanger coolant circulating pump are up to their job.

 

If you use a skin tank type the area will need to be about 50%  greater than is usually allowed for a propulsion engine, because the genny will need to be usable at full power when the boat is stationary and that reduces the effectiveness of heat transfer from the tank to the surroundings when compared with a main engine which has water flowing past the tanks.

 

N

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Just now, BEngo said:

No reason why you should not fit an external heat exchanger. That is all a skin tank is  and many boat engines are happily cooled by a skin tank.

It will need enough rated capacity for at least the equivalent of the engine's maximum output. i.e.  a 10kW engine needs a 10 kW rated heat exchanger.

 

You will need to check that both the engine coolant circulating pump and the heater exchanger coolant circulating pump are up to their job.

 

If you use a skin tank type the area will need to be about 50%  greater than is usually allowed for a propulsion engine, because the genny will need to be usable at full power when the boat is stationary and that reduces the effectiveness of heat transfer from the tank to the surroundings when compared with a main engine which has water flowing past the tanks.

 

N

 

Or maybe bigger still, depending where the skin tank is. For example Beta Marine not only recommend a bigger area tank (like you said) but recommend you fit one this big on each side if the generator is going to be run while stationary, to allow for circulating water flow outside being blocked by the canal bank or bottom.

 

For propulsion engines 4bhp/ft2 is normally recommended, for a BetaGen 10 (6kW continuous) the recommended area is 4.4ft2 which would be 17hp for propulsion, but the engine in the generator would only be outputting about 10bhp which would need 2.5ft2 for propulsion, so generator tank area is 75% bigger -- and with one tank each side, 250% bigger (8.8ft2 total).

 

https://betamarine.co.uk/generating-set-keel-cooling-calculator-tank-design/

 

The boat Finesse is building for me only has one skin tank, but IIRC it's pretty big, not far off the "double-size" Beta recommendation which comes out at about 1.5ft2/kW -- excuse the mixed units... 😉

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Thanks for that. Useful.

 

To share some practical experience:

 

My 6  kVA lombardini powered genny  unit shares a vertical skin tank with the 22 hp  Kelvin.  I cant remember the tank size but it is about 6 x 2 ft on the inside of the port swim and about  12 m of 1 in. pipe on the other side.  The Kelvin will go all day at full chat, getting cold to cool water at inlet and I have never managed to get the lombardini to trip its overheat alarm though it doesn't do 6 kVA very often or for long.  I have not tried genny + engine together,  because they also share an exhaust, but do not expect they would be well cooled.

 

N

 

 

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2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

What photos? Are they something from the Ebay add you linked to? Because I can't see anything that looks like a heat exchanger housing there.

 

Not sure why it is in the BMC section, I don't think it uses a BMC engine.

 

Apart from space I don't see why you could not fit an  external heat exchanger as long as it was up to the job.

The photos in the beat listing show the complete generator including the innards.

 

My apologies for posting in the wrong section - which would be best?

 

I nave to confess that the boat is sea going (although it has spent time on the canals) and the heat exchanger would be sea water cooled if external.

Edited by GBW
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14 minutes ago, GBW said:

The photos in the beat listing show the complete generator including the innards.

 

My apologies for posting in the wrong section - which would be best?

 

I nave to confess that the boat is sea going (although it has spent time on the canals) and the heat exchanger would be sea water cooled if external.

 

No problem except it gets confusing. Next time probably the Maintenance or the Equipment section.

 

Using seawater there should be no worries about the cooling skin tanks being in still water or up against the bank as there would be for a typical canal boat.

 

I don't know much about those generators but there is a strong chance that the heat exchanger would be a core in a water jacketed manifold. That is unlikely to be made by either the engine manufacturer or the generator manufacturers. So if you can identify the maker of the manifold (could be Bowman) they may well be able to supply the core. Then the problem will be organising the raw seawater pump. All heat exchanger cooled engines use two pumps, an engine pumplike a car plus a raw water pump. The engine probably has a blanking plate where a raw water pump can be mounted but as engine water pumps can't prime you may find that they use a raw water pump to circulate the fresh water. If so adding an engine water pump may complicate things a bit.

 

On other thing. Heat exchanger engines are often described as fresh water cooled because the engine cooling is by fresh water, the raw water, be it fresh or salt cools the heat exchanger so if you are going by a description it may already be as you want.

 

Photos of the actual generator engine will help identify what you have.

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