I have been considering the same thing after being out of power for 13
days following our recent natural disaster here in Canada. Generators
can sure be handy if you're interested in having heat in the house!
You can use a motor from a belt-driven machine that you already own,
such as from a rototiller or snowblower, and run a belt from it to a
generator section, which you can buy separately. The trick is that you
have to have the motor run at the right speed, to provide the right
voltage out of the generator. (Not hard, just measure the voltage and
vary the throttle till it's at 120.)
The other thing is that the gas motor has to be up to the job. For a 2
kW generator, you can get away with about a 4 hp motor; for 5 kW,
you'd need about 8 hp.
As for the generator, you could normally drive an electric motor and
have it put out electricity, but in this case the electric motor you'd
need would be quite big - 2 kW is about 2 3/4 hp, 5 kW is close to 7
hp, so they aren't the sort of things that are ususally just lying
around.
Regards,
Jim Wallace
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Generators
Author: Non-HP-ponyxprs (ponyxprs@redcreek.net) at HP-USA,mimegw5
Date: 04/02/98 9:17 PM
Is their any way to make a cheep, but functional generator that
wouldn't cost as much or almost as much as a premade one
John
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