Turn a gas lawnmower (and car alternator) into a generator.

Here is a cool website with step by step instructions and photos on how to turn your gas lawnmower into a generator with the help of a car alternator.

Make sure you click on the link at the bottom of each page to see the complete instructions. (THERE ARE 4 PAGES OF PHOTOS AND TIPS)


http://www.webpal.org/webpal/b_reco...electricity/lawnmower/generator/generator.htm

Has anyone built one of these ? I have been thinking of making one myself.
Back in the 80s I saw one built from an old chevy generator with a voltage regulater mounted on a cart. It was used to charge the battery of a drag car
that has the alternator removed to cut weight and motor drag. It used a motor salvaged from an old roto tiller. It worked fine as I remember. I also thought about rigging up a mount to run an alternator from the P.T.O. of my tractor. (It is 1958 with a 6 volt system.) I might stop by the junk yard and look around for an alternator from a bus or ambulance. I think the mower engine would not burn
much gas for the amount of power it could produce. I see old mowers set out for the trash a lot near work.

I haven't looked at the site AIF referenced, yet, but I built one several years ago, for starting cold heavy equipment.

Used a horizontal shaft B/S 5hp from an old tiller, mounted on a hand truck (light dolly) & the local alternator repair shop fixed me a 40 amp self exciting Delco alternator. One wire from the alternator to battery. Worked well, even on the boat when bay fishing.

I originally used an 80amp alternator, but it put quite a drag on the old motor.

Here is another one.

http://theepicenter.com/tow02077.html

I built one today. I just threw it together on a pallet to check if things would work out alright. I made things out of junk for the first run thru. It looked like a reject from "Green Acres" when I was done. The charger seems to work fine. I got a lot of ideas and enjoyed putting it together. I was given a 5 H.P. engine last week. It was from an old tiller. A new set of points and some tinkering got if working again. The chevy alternator and some scrap metal from work did the rest. I plan to run it some tomorrow to test it out better. When I am ready to
clean it up I have a metal two wheel cart to mount everything on for keeps.

I have built one of these using a 78 amp G.M. alternator. It will charge fine and I can start and stop the charge current with a switch. So far I have not been able to adjust the charging current with the dimmer control as shown it the epicenter plans.The rheostat has no effect beyond what the open or closed switch would have. Has anyone built one of these and encountered a simular problem?

You guys probably should move this to the main thread as a prep item. Only gear heads will find it here.

David

Bob, most of the newer Delco alternators have a built in voltage regulator, will slow the charge or stop the charge themselves. As long as your engine has no problems handling the load of "full charge" I don't see an advantage to having the rheostat. I think, on the article AIF referenced, it was only for reducing the charge rate, lessening the load on the engine at full alternator output.

I didn't think about a rheostat when I built mine years ago. The motor had problems handling the aternator drag at 80 amps, thus I had it redone to maximum 40 amp output, and the old motor performed well with the lesser drag. As the batteries charged, & the alternator load decreased, you could actually hear the increase speed on the old B&S engine.

I aquired a Tecumpse 5hp tiller motor last week, thinking on building another one.

I have switched to a 61 amp unit with a 3 inch engine pully. This seems to work better than the 78 amp and 5 inch pully. Six hours run time so far. It seems to do a good job. I plan to start making the plate to mount all this stuff on my cart this week if things go as planned. Noise and fuel use seem better than my 5000 watt rig.

Ok, now please tell me how much work would be required to switch this home-made generator into a home-made welding machine.

TIA!

I dont know how feasable it would be, but you could probably add one of these. A bit expensive, but it would work.

I have my generator mostly complete now. It seems to work ok. The engine uses
quite a bit of oil as can be expected for a free engine ( no suprise here ).
I ran it today about 1 hour with an older Redi Line motor/generator attached to supply 120 votls A.C. . The load was 60 amps D.C. when powering my drill press and a flourescent light. The alternator stayed warm but did not seem to over heat.

My alternator turns counter clock wise and I have been looking for a reverse fan for a G.M. s.i. 10 61 amp unit. If you know of a source for these please post.

I have not been able to control the chargeing amperage with the headlight switch as shown it the epicenter plans. I believe it is an issue with the type of internal voltage regulater in the delco. I would like to hear from anyone who has been successful with this setup or could provide me with a part nubber/ supplier of a regulater that would perform as described.

I am going to look for a better muffler this week as my machine is very
noisy right now. My engine has both a 3/4 pipe thread on the exhaust port and a two bolt pattern flange. I plan to look for some kind of tractor muffler that could be coupled to the engine. It still needs some finishing on the cart that it is mounted to for a battery tray. I feel is is near fully operational now. I have an inverter and some lights connected to an old battery tonight that I plan to recharge with my machine tomorrow.
I plan to get quite a bit of run time on the unit before I disasemble it for painting then I will try to post a photo of it.

Here is a photo of my charger. I am still tinkering with it and have added a shelf under the cart since this was taken. I thhink I will try to paint it thhhhis weekend.

I don't know your area, Bob, but you'd be a good fella to have near WTSHTF.

Setup looks great, even without paint.

I used my generator Saturday for a fix up project. This was the first real job I had used if for. It powered my drill, sawzall and a grinder for around 45 minutes.
I used a rediline motor-generator for my A.C. Things worked out ok with it.
I still want to get a good sized inverter to mount on this machine permanently.
My wife was a bit surprised the thing really worked.

Man, I'd really like to try to make one of these things. I'm only lacking a couple essentials: A motor, an alternator, welding equipment, and a workshop!! LOL

I heard something long ago, and really don't know if it's true or just BS, so perhaps ya'll can respond (after your guffaws, if necessary) and let me know if the BS meter should have been pegged. That is, an electric motor (such as a washing machine motor) while taking electricity to run, can actually gen electricity when run in reverse.

Is that true or total bs? If true, could that be used in a similar config with a small gas motor to gen electricity?

Thanks.

Tristan, I know some older 12v motors could generate 12v dc, & I think I've read somewhere that specific 120v motors can do the same. But I don't know which type.

So this will add a bump, perhaps someone else can direct us.

I have seen an article about using a washing machine motor as a generator.
It looked interesting. I have never seen it done myself.
I think I have the link saved on my computer at work. I will try to check on it soon. I will be on a jobsite tomorrow. Check otherpower.com or green trust. it might have been on one of them.

Since my last post I have remounted my alternator to reverse the rotation. The unit was running to hot to suite me. I had to change pulley size to a 5 inch to get enough air flow for good cooling. The 63 amp unit was tending to stall my engine and was replaced with a 40 amp alternator.

I did some test running this weekend and put 7 1/2 hours on it. So far things seem to be working out well. The 40 amp really limits the power output but will be just right to charge my bank of four deep cycles.

For what it is worth I ran four hours today at 1/3 throttle drawing about 30 amps into an inverter load. The engine could handle it well and did not use quite a full tank of gas.
I am going to look around for a larger engine to build a more powerful
unit as my max power output is around 400 watts. It is not enough to run much with.

I made one of these a couple of years ago with a Tecumseh 5.5 HP engine and a GM 61A S10 alternator. I used a piece of 5" chanel iron I had laying around for the base.

Be careful what you use for pulleys as the automotive ones use a different angle on the V than industrial. On my setup I used a 5" pulley I had on the engine and a 4" on the alternator. With this gearing it is a bit hard to get started on a big load, however once started it runs fine at about 1800 RPM.

I was charging 4 L-16 deep cycle batteries that were running my inverter. One of the problems with automotive alternators is that they are very inefficient. One evidence of this is the heat they give off.

The purpose of this generator was to reduce the cost of running the 6.3 KW propane generator I had at the time, it succeeded at this but I would like to find a 12V PM Motor I could use as a generator instead.

no matter the voltage, if the motor has permanent magnets it will produce electricity on it's own. if it has coils these need to be energized with a battery before they will produce power.

Tristan said:

Man, I'd really like to try to make one of these things. I'm only lacking a couple essentials: A motor, an alternator, welding equipment, and a workshop!! LOL

I heard something long ago, and really don't know if it's true or just BS, so perhaps ya'll can respond (after your guffaws, if necessary) and let me know if the BS meter should have been pegged. That is, an electric motor (such as a washing machine motor) while taking electricity to run, can actually gen electricity when run in reverse.

Is that true or total bs? If true, could that be used in a similar config with a small gas motor to gen electricity?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

TRUE:
http://www.qsl.net/ns8o/welcome.html

Cheers,
Psychonautbuddy

if you can find the right size pulleys to work, use automotive flat belt pulleys. they are MUCH more efficient.

Cheap stuff

The last couple of years have been major alternator school for me, as I set up our Bug out Bus and two little diesel trucks with inverters, various alternators and battery combos. By my lights, in addition to performance, you need availability and reliability.
These last two criterion keep bringing me back to the older Delco si series alternators, with their built-in regulators. They are tough, common and simple. The world's cheapest and most common alternator is the Delco 10si. This entered service in the early '70s and was common in vehicles through the early to mid '80s. Cheap? They're used a lot by hotrodders and on industrial equipment, too. I just bought a remanufactured one at O'Reillys for $21!!! 10si alternators will litter scrapyards throughout your grandkids' lives.
Also look at the 12si. This is a later, higher performance unit which shares a lot of parts interchangeability with the 10.
I put a 100 amp 27si on the Bug out Bus and have a 180 amp 22si on my diesel P'up as an auxilliary generator.
Remember that you're looking at about a 10-to-1 conversion ratio when you convert 12vdc into 115vac through an inverter. The 100 amps in the bus' alternator sounds impressive 'til you remember that after conversion - and taking into account line losses, inverters losses, etc., you're looking at less than 10 amps @ 115vac. I probably get around 140-150 amps from the 22si at fast idle, but this too translates into less 115vac than is available from a single household outlet.
Well worth doing and I lived off of alternator-generated, inverter power for many weeks after Katrina, but don't expect to be able to be extravagant with power. I have since built a listeroid-powered genny asnd am working on a second, smaller diesel genny. Still keeping all my inverter stuff though!

Best regards
Doc

I have been watching "Jericho" it got me thinking about E.M.P.

My engine uses points ignition so no problem there. The alternator has

rectifier diodes and a solid state regulater. This rig might get useless

pretty quick in a E.M.P. environment. An older generator with an electro-

mechanical regulator should just keep going.

I picked up a used 100 amp Dodge alternator recently and am looking

around for another used engine for the next project.

hmmm i wonder how a 14hp vert shaft b&s would work at this.

I just did some rough numbers. 1000 watts @ 12 volts = 83.3 amps
With a gasoline engine you need about 2 hp / 1000 watts ( a little less with a modern ohv engine ). So roughly 40 amps / hp to figure what you can drive with an engine. A little more alternator wouldn't hurt since a regulated alternator will not always run at full load.

Of course any combination will work but you might as well not waste fuel. Or you could add an air compressor (refrigerant compressor) to have compressed air from an overly large engine.
Shadow