New engine driven welder (to me)

[rustyoldford]

Nice and when you want to make some cash and your not using it for welding hook it up to the national grid and sell them some electricity !
i love these projects great stuff

 

[CRS51]

Evening all, thought I'd share a video of the welders first weld in ten years, had to excite it with 12 volts from a battery then we were away !
More photo's to follow,
cheers Chris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u9Ll0F74So&feature=share&list=UU1if7fuN8bdKlVxgCXNEdAQ

 

[HughF]

Awesome... is this actually a lincoln SA-something?

 

[mylesdw]

That's interesting, I have a P6 in a three phase generator

 

[CRS51]

Awesome... is this actually a lincoln SA-something?

Hello Hugh, it's a Quasi Arc from1950/51 as far as we can find out.

That's interesting, I have a P6 in a three phase generator

Hello Myles that looks a fair piece of equipment, are you restoring it ?
Chris.

 

[brightspark]

Nice and when you want to make some cash and your not using it for welding hook it up to the national grid and sell them some electricity !
i love these projects great stuff

mains electricity is subsidised it will cost u more in diesel to generate your own never mind sell it

 

[normspanners]

mains electricity is subsidised it will cost u more in diesel to generate your own never mind sell it

When I worked at the metal yard I set up a (I think it was 1200kva) genny that we got in the scrap from british aerospace ! to run the granulation plant, from the tests we did, taking into consideration we could pipe the coolant to the offices and workshop and utilize the heat, the cost was considerably cheaper than, it was from the electricity company.
There was 2 reasons we didnt (1) the piston went on the engine (because the engine had been allowed to freeze at some point) (2) the electricity company had put in a sub for us and we had to use a certain amount of electricity on a regular basis other wise the tariff would change AND we would have to pay for the sub station. But from what I remember it was 75- 80% of the cost of bought electricity it was very hard to work out because of the varying tariffs, power factor, evening, night, weekend, etc.
I know it was cheaper for us to WASTE electric up to a certain point! to keep the tariff low.

 

[mylesdw]

Hello Myles that looks a fair piece of equipment, are you restoring it ?Chris.

Not exactly a restore. I rebuilt the alternator and fitted electronic regulation but otherwise it looks much the same. It powers the house when needed (not often) and maybe one day I will do a full restore.

Here is the alternator in bits, a seriously heavy bit of kit:

 

[Browser]

Must show these pics to my father in law, he's in his 42nd or 43rd year of employment at Perkins (now Caterpillar) and I'll bet he can remember the P6's

 

[mylesdw]

There's a better P6 picture for him

 

[CRS51]

Hello Myles, what have you used for the current regulation as one of the units that controls the current on the dual welder is missing and just runs at full amps ?

Any help appreciated as it's all new to me !
Cheers Chris.

 

[normspanners]

you could make a movable iron core choke basically a heavy copper coil with a movable ferrite or cast iron core that as it is fully in the coil becomes saturated and reduces the available current .

 

[CRS51]

Evening Norm, thanks for the reply but all that kind of thing is beyond me , I am hoping to learn more as I go along. I will do a google search for the items you say and go from there.I can't get my head around it all I just see 4 heavy cables and 5 lighter duty cables coming up from the generator into the current regulation part but I am not understanding it !
Off to the library next week to see if they have any old books on the subject of electrical current regulation.
Computer searching is ok but I like to read from a book if that makes sense /
cheers Chris.

 

[Robotstar5]

Off to the library next week to see if they have any old books on the subject of electrical current regulation.
Computer searching is ok but I like to read from a book if that makes sense

I'm the same, particularly with technical/reference books as I can flick back to check something instead of trying to remember what I had "clicked" on

 

[mylesdw]

I don't think I can help you too much there. A mains AC generator is (I'm guessing) a very different beast than a welding generator. There is no current regulation other than a trip. The only regulation is the DC voltage to the primary side which in turn sets the output voltage AC. I replaced the old electro-mechanical regulator with a modern electronic one and replaced the DC exciter with a simple flashing circuit but I'm not sure that any of that is relevant to your set-up.

Judging by the pictures the current regulation is just some huge resistors on the output side. There must also be some sort of voltage regulation to the primary windings.

 

[CRS51]

A few more pics of progress, should get some more done now over Christmas.

 

[Jan]

mains electricity is subsidised it will cost u more in diesel to generate your own never mind sell it

Why waste hard cash on diesel when an (older type) diesel engine like this will run happily on filtered waste vegetable oil or even the cheap fresh stuff from Farm Foods? Add up to 10% unleaded in seriously sub-zero conditions or just 5% to keep the viscosity to reasonable levels and you're cooking with gas, innit. Download the 10% off vouchers for FF purchases and you can get it for just under 90P/litre while waste can often be obtained from fast food outlets even cheaper - sometimes for nowt.

However the concept of home heat & light generating units is far from new although the concept of wind or solar power has overshadowed the technology in recent years. But if you're miles off the beaten track and don't fancy the extortionate prices for 'plumbing' in gas or elektrickery then it's still a viable option.

 

[Woody.v8]

Why waste time and money on veg oil when red diesel works out cheaper and wont knacker the pump up?

 

[Jan]

TTBOMK Red costs at least 90P/Litre - the same as Farm Foods veg oil. But properly filtered WVO can be almost free (there's a couple of litres or more in your chip pan) and the addition of 5-10% of unleaded (temperature dependent) will protect the injector pump seals. I've run several cars over tens of thousands of miles on veg (or worse) with no problems in the last decade or so and the only problem I had was one car started to suck air into the fuel system due to it having being fitted with sub-standard of fuel hose. If I had access to an 'old' diesel generator - rather then the petrol one I take camping - I would be seriously considering the construction of a heat & light unit for my home! Screw those cheese-eating surrender monkeys who now own most of our energy suppliers says I!

 

[Woody.v8]

Fair enough.