i thought about building a generator, but wanted to know if anyone else actually has built one before... the designs i found on the internet involved a motor and an alternator (and probably a dc->ac converter)...
are they enough to generate big amounts of energy? how loud are they? how about alternative fuels like grease?
...I'd say investing in a professionally built one would save you money in the long run
Ever seen the Planet Mechanics on the Discovery channel? , Those guy's go around building green alternatives for people using whats at hand locally, for example here.
You mean a generator like a small petrol engine hooked to an alternator? Why bother building one of those yourself, those are dirt cheap.
If you build one yourself, you would need a matching engine, alternator, AC inverter and engine controller. In other words, if you really want to use it as an efficient reliable energy source, buy one in the store.
If it's just for proof of concept, you could try to get a car alternator and a +/- 1 hp engine. That 'll do about 500 watts. You still need a 12V -> 230V inverter, and something to control the engine rpm.
...I suppose a good way to control RPM would be to have the throttle hooked up to some sort of solenoid controlled by an amp meter, ie. the more the load demand the more the engine will output.
If it were me though I's steer clear the whole engine+alternator idea tbh, and look into solar if you could pick the panels up cheap.
Everyone is different, and living in different climates/economy's will only allow certain technology's to be used. I'm not sure what Gov. policy with agricultural diesel is and home generators in your area? if it was allowed I suppose an eco friendly Honda diesel setup could turn some good returns, maybe sourced from a scrapyard?
A good way to set up an extra power source for your home would be to use two to four HGV batteries at the correct rating, most of these batteries can sustain a load of ~800 amps for a couple of seconds(cold start) but have a running capacity of considerably less, so you'll need to do your maths to be sure not to overload them.
Be warned, fire hazard is a real threat with these systems so I can't express how important it would be to place monitoring systems and correct certified kill-switches and cut-off's to the batteries and monitor load, heat, and acid level every day.
Imo your only choice is to use a home-made system for lighting as general use power outlets and high amp stuff like showers and cookers/microwaves are too erratic in demand and would place too much load on the battery's. To segregate the lighting from the rest of the house you would need to install a seperate fuse-board beside your current one, a bit of trickery with relay's would be needed in case of a power failure in your new system but I assure you thats the easy bit.
What sort of power requirments are you looking for Blunder?
Sounds like you want a grease powered generator?
I've built simple wind generators based on axial flux type (big magnets and coils of wire) Im building one this summer that should have around a 3m wing diameter.
water generators are simple to construct too if you live with a stream or waterfall in your garden you could (with aprox 10m head) easy run a 5kw generator all year round.
I've dabbled with solar, I have some 12v charging arrays and a batch of individual cells waiting for me to solder them all
i'm not actually planning on doing it any time soon, it was just an idea for me to run my computers "off the grid"... besides, i'd probably have to do this in a house, i bet the neighbours in my building wouldn't want to listen to this thing all day.
as for how much power i would need, i'm not entirely sure... i've never calculated my peak usage. my power bill is in the ballpark of 1500kWh though (for 2 months), if that's any indicator.
i figured if i could build the thing myself with scrap parts it would save me money... i'm cheap like that...
I've connected loads of large deisel generators on building sites and the like, some as big as trucks, most of the modern ones have really, really good sound proofing, you can hear them, but not as loud as you would think.
You would need a UPS and use it to invoke the generator (autostart) because you need a buffer to give the generator time to get up to speed then a changeover switch for exclusive generator power.
If you just want to power your computers in a power cut, depending on how many PCs and other HW you want powered you can work out the demand you will require, a heavy duty UPS could give you 3hrs or more, and with a shed full of scrapheap 12v lorry/golf cart batterys much longer
1500Kwh for 60 days is 25Kwh a day I think thats alot, but you may have electric water heating/cooker etc and it all adds up, I run an energy monitor and my family (me+wife+2kids) uses around 10-15 Kwh a day, less than 10 if I run around after everyone and we sit in the dark at night
Consider green alternatives to conventional generators as the price of electricity is set to keep rising, and with the energy bill passed (here in Europe), suppliers are forced to "buy-back" any extra electricty that customers who use green micro generation can produce, at a substantially higher price (edit: not sure about Canadian laws)
