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Built in (Vintage) diesel generator


wiltshirewonderer

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Has anybody got a narrowboat with an inbuilt vintage diesel generator? On my last boat I was spoilt and had a 1938 Lister CS 6/1 stapped to a 180A alternator for battery charging duties.

 

My current narrowboat has a vintage lump for propulsion that really doesn't like being run under low load for battery charging. I've got an inverter generator but I'm not a massive fan (The messing around settign it up outside in the rain, the high frequency buzzineg noise, petrol storage etc.).

 

I'm in the process of rebuilding and pondering extending the engine room by a couple of feet to incorporate a slow(ish) revving vintage diesel - one where spare parts aren't an issue. 

 

Has anyone else got a setup like this? How has it worked out? What is the base engine? I've seen the odd bost for sale with this setup in the past but the photos and descriptions have been next to useless.....

 

 

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We used an alternator on a lawnmower 4 stroke engine as the charger for a narrow gauge electric railway engine as a kiddies ride.

 

It would run quietly all day on a gallon and chuck out 60 amps.

Even a small diesel engine just driving an alternator for charging will be overkill and noisy.

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I use a 30 year old Lombardini on a 230v alternator.  Is that vintage??

Have also seen a Petter PAZ 1 driving a big alternator for battery charging.  Nice set up with a huge engine pulley and a good belt wrap.

N

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34 minutes ago, BEngo said:

Have also seen a Petter PAZ 1 driving a big alternator for battery charging.  Nice set up with a huge engine pulley and a good belt wrap.

N

 

 

I had no idea there was such a small and cute little single cylinder diesel. At 1.7hp and not a not bigger than a suitcase genny, it looks perfect for squeezing into the corner of an engine room with an alternator.

 

Or I was wondering about putting one under the tug deck. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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for small single cylinder diesels we always used to look for old cement mixers or old temporary traffic light trailers.

 

the traffic light trailers used to already have a 110v ac output on them (which if you wired it through one of the 110v transformers for power tools backwards would give you somewhere near 240v)

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4 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

for small single cylinder diesels we always used to look for old cement mixers or old temporary traffic light trailers.

 

the traffic light trailers used to already have a 110v ac output on them (which if you wired it through one of the 110v transformers for power tools backwards would give you somewhere near 240v)

 

Of course. I always imagined they were single cylinder petrol engines but diesel would make more sense. I'm not sure why but I imagined tiny diesels would be difficult to make. Maybe they are just difficult to silence!

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Of course. I always imagined they were single cylinder petrol engines but diesel would make more sense. I'm not sure why but I imagined tiny diesels would be difficult to make. Maybe they are just difficult to silence!

from memory they were mainly small air cooled listers, hand start (crank the handle and drop the decompressor lever on the top) usually the same engine in either but the traffic light trailers were quite heavily silenced so they could be used overnight in residential areas

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2 hours ago, BEngo said:

I use a 30 year old Lombardini on a 230v alternator.  Is that vintage??

Have also seen a Petter PAZ 1 driving a big alternator for battery charging.  Nice set up with a huge engine pulley and a good belt wrap.

N

Aaaaaah, I think that (The PAZ1) is what I saw on one of those brokerage boats. I wouldn't even need to extend the engine room with something that compact. Noisy bugger though!

3 hours ago, mark99 said:

I saw a lovely boat with a single cyclinder Lister next to the main Lister doing as you say. Very well kept too as the owner is a mechanic.

 

Keen to know more! I had my CS 6/1 running at about 350 RPM (With a 180A large form factor alternator strapped to it) so putting out about 3HP. Beautiful, quiet and easy to maintain. Too big for the new boat though.... 

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5 hours ago, mark99 said:

I saw a lovely boat with a single cyclinder Lister next to the main Lister doing as you say. Very well kept too as the owner is a mechanic.

 

4 hours ago, dave moore said:

Are you thinking of Richard Milligan’s Orion tug with this set up in the engine ‘ole, Mark? Tasty.

Indeed it is a beautiful boat and great fun to skipper. I had the (very) great pleasure of spending a couple of weeks on it about a month ago.

The JP4 is hand start only and nearly killed me getting it started from cold! JP1 gennie has a brilliant conversion via a flywheel on the gennie alternator to electric start it.

20181108_133103.jpg

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3 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

 

I had no idea there was such a small and cute little single cylinder diesel. At 1.7hp and not a not bigger than a suitcase genny, it looks perfect for squeezing into the corner of an engine room with an alternator.

 

Or I was wondering about putting one under the tug deck. 

 

 

 

 

My D.C. Genset is a Farymann 300 CC Water Cooled Diesel with Electric Start.1200 RPM gives a steady 50 Amps at 12 -14.5 Volts.

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8 minutes ago, PaulJ said:

 

Indeed it is a beautiful boat and great fun to skipper. I had the (very) great pleasure of spending a couple of weeks on it about a month ago.

The JP4 is hand start only and nearly killed me getting it started from cold! JP1 gennie has a brilliant conversion via a flywheel on the gennie alternator to electric start it.

20181108_133103.jpg

Wow! JP1 and CS /1's are about the same size. Wish I could justify an engine room that big. With a JP4 I'm guessing he pulls water skiers along with ease?!

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5 hours ago, dave moore said:

Are you thinking of Richard Milligan’s Orion tug with this set up in the engine ‘ole, Mark? Tasty.

Yes indeed. IIRC Richard has / had a third Lister on board too with 4 legs.  ;)

Edited by mark99
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