Oops. I forgot to mention that this was a picture taken as it was assembled. The clamps were removed about 6 hours after the picture was taken, and it now just looks like a beige box, with slightly skewed corners.
The bonding method seems to have worked well, it was stable enough to be tilted 20 degrees in order to get it onto a trolley to move it.
Well, in this case the box is a bit small to think in, unless one is a contortionist.
However, it took about half an hour to assemble, and works just fine, is probably reasonably fireproof (untested), and fairly robust.
Is that just visible on rear view photo, the one with the white W on the cowl, to the right of the right hand monting bolt? If it has an oil sump the chances are it's a 4 stroke and this won't need oil in the petrol like a 2 stroke does.
Lots of information in the description, google is your friend. "Wysepower" is the name of a power rental place in Wolverhampton. There are loads of hits for "pincor", you might be able to find a some information about your particular engine. Or if you are confident that this genny hasn't "fallen off the back of a lorry" in it's past maybe you could ask Wysepower for any information they have. Or try uk.rec.engines.stationary.
Looks like it to me, bit of soot around the "button panel" confirms it. Check that it's secure and not blowing around the back anywhere but looking at it it isn't going to be whisper quiet, more lawn mower...
How far away is the nearest house? Friend faced with a similar problem chatted up the owners of the adjoing house and installed a length of suitable SWA cable, via a trench, from the house to his garage. He arranged for a second meter, billed to him, to be installed in the house.
I see. If some couplings could be made up for connecting a car exhaust that would make a big big difference, a box might not even be needed then.
A good start for a box might be to make it out of Fermacell or equivalent or even concrete slabs, with double baffles on the air intake and exhaust. A close fitting stepped lid with a foam or rubber gasket would help stop sound leaking out and flexible mounts on the generator would reduce vibration reaching the box.
If that's not enough, try lining the box and/or baffles with Rockwool slabs to absorb as much sound as possible and prevent it from escaping.
If it is put in a box it's well worth having some sort of thermal trip and a kill switch on the outside, a thermostat and switch in the coil circuit would do it. If the generator is loaded at 1.5kW it will produce about 6kW of heat which could make it overheat in a box. Having an external fuel outside the box would also be well worth having, allowing the fuel supply to be isolated and making refuelling easier.
If you're only using basic woodworking tools one alternative might be to get a cordless drill/jigsaw/circular saw set. You could charge or even run them from a deep cycle battery/inverter. A 12v 100Ah battery would give about 500Wh of usable mains power before needing recharging.
No it's a Briggs and Stratton 4 stroke side valve engine. The oil go's in the bottom and should be level with the filler plug. If you in-case this thing to reduce noise it WILL eventually seize. Side Valve engines seem to run extra hot using unleaded as it is.
If it's 4 stroke it goes some way to explaining why it seems to run so slowly- it fires probably two or three times a second. I don't have anything to compare it to but it seemed slow.
It's difficult to remove the spark plug and turn it manually to check, as another poster suggested, because there's no convenient way of getting at the shaft. I don't feel up to taking it apart because it'd never work again.
I've mailed Wysepower, though I don't hold out much hope. Always worth a try. And that groups looks worth posting to.
Most 50Hz alternators need to spin at 3,000rpm = 50rps or a fourstroke firing 25 times/sec. So 2.5 fires/sec gives 300rpm seems very slow, the plates on alternator and/or engine should give the RPM etc.
Yes, the plate does list 3000 RPM. It didn't sound like that, although it did power up a belt sander I dragged out to test it with.
I've just been to try and do some jigsawing in the garage to see how bad the noise really is in use and I can't get the thing to start now! There's an interesting flap of metal that looks like it used to have a button on it that lets you short out the spark plug. By pushing this near the plug I can confirm the presence of a spark so something is wrong with fuel or air. Maybe the design way of switching this off was to short out the spark plug and stop ignition.
There's no obvious fuel tap. There's a plunger on some pipework on top of the fuel tank that was in when I first started it, and I had to pull it out to stop. It stopped almost immediately when I pulled it out.
I'm starting to think I wasted the money on this and it may be better cutting my losses, getting the 600W £100 quid one from Screwfix and just using low power tools.
Possible, although the nearest Makro is a fair distance away. I'm in Lancaster, it's in Preston. Turns out it IS near the UCI there though, and we sometimes go there anyway because the cinemas here don't do decent hot dogs and tortillas.
Lionsun has what appears to be an 850W continuous for £133 including VAT and delivery. They quote it as 850W and it has the number "1100" painted on the side which suggests they're not doing the trick of quoting the peak rather than sustained load. That would do most of my stuff. the highest power is the SDS drill which I'm unlikely to use in the garage in any case. The normal drill is 850W so this just does it.
Not something to do on the spur of the moment when I'm narked off with kit I may simply not be using correctly though. I've mailed the guy who sold it to me to see if he can help.
I've fiddled about with the plunger thing- pumped it around a hundred times and then started it and it ran. So it seems to be a combination pump and stop valve.
I've just done some sawing in the garage, stopping and starting the generator a couple of times since there's no point having it running if I'm just measuring up rather than cutting, and it was fine. Didn't sound very healthy- misses the occasional bang, and the bangs still seem slow. It's also pretty smoky which is another reason not to have it running if it's not in immediate use. I think I'll leave it a while before trying to do anything about the noise- it may be that it packs up in a few weeks or so and at that point I'll probably replace it rather than trying to fix it.
Thanks for the comments- been some useful info in this thread.
Craig Graham snipped-for-privacy@twolips-translations.co.uk typed
There's an interesting flap of metal that looks like it used to
The *plunger thing* is the choke ! There is not a petrol tap, as the carburettor sits directly on top of the fuel tank with its pick-up going directly into the tank. You do indeed stop it by shorting out the HT to the spark plug.
Probably needs some TLC, these small engines aren't designed to run for hours and hours without any attention. Most need an oil change every 25 hours or so...
Motors need fairly hefty starting currents, ISTR that it is recomended that a generator is rated about twice the rating of any motor connected to it. Not sure how kindly a tiddly will take to starting a big motor, it will certainly complain may even stall.
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