Homemade DIY DC 12v Generator Battery Charger, slow running Honda GX160 gasoline engine, low voltage

[@maryeldracher5443]

You are a great teacher. We're about to build an off grid power system and enjoyed the video and simplicity of connecting components. We didn't realize the battery could start the gas engine using the DC motor instead of having a dedicated starter motor...didn't think of that bonus. Also, didn't understand that a DC generator is simply a DC motor. This tip will help us to find the basic components more easily. John

[@philliphall5198]

I used a 5 hp bs and it has been a great help changing tractor battery

[@MACLADILLY]

Great to find your video on here. I'm off grid in rural Ireland and was thinking about such a generator, I already have a couple of dc motors from treadmills to use. Thanks for posting it here.

[@KRYTEN451]

What I'd like to see is someone rigging the generator to one of those old Lister diesel engines. That would be brilliant off grid system. I tried to get my hands on one a few years back but came up short.

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Hi Kryten451, thanks for posting. I've actually done just that, I've just not yet go around to making a video about it! I will do so soon :)

[@KRYTEN451]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles Wow, that would be the incomparable feat. Cannot wait!

[@adamloera8526]

Really enjoyed the video! I really would have loved to see you test the actual output of the DC generator. All in all very well done thank you.

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks very much for your kind comment Adam, glad you enjoyed it. Looking back now, can't believe how tired I was. I've actually ended up using this generator quite a lot so this last week I've been remaking it with a more powerful dynamo and stronger chassis. I will make a video on that too and I'll be sure to do some power tests for you.

[@nautilus1872]

Fantastic job, easy to watch video, loved the motor starting the engine. Been thinking, and preparing for a Lister CS 6hp running two PMG's into battery banks for remote shed, low noise, low fuel consumption , low maintenance. Needs to be self starting and stooping.

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thank you Nautilus 1, really glad you liked the video. I'm still using mine all the time, It will run for hours and hours on little fuel. A Lister CS would do a lovely job for power generation, although the automatic start and stop might give you a few challenges. I'm sure it could be done though! The Lister CS is a lovely engine, providing that it's set up right and looked after.

[@lewiemcneely9143]

Thanks, Miles and I had one with a 2-cycle motor years ago. It got gone as things do. Hope all is well at the mine and your place to. God bless!

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Cheers Lewie, nice to have you here and I appreciate the comment. Funnily enough I have an old 2 stroke one that I aquired ages ago, for charging 24v batteries. The engine looks like it's from India. I've not really looked at it yet, and not tried to run it, I thought I'd do a short video on it when I do. I'll get around to it at some point!

[@lewiemcneely9143]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles I'll watch!

[@user-td5th1lz7e]

I am building one of these generators with an electric lawnmower, PMG. I am going to use a high-voltage disconnect on the battery for over charging when it disconnects my concerns are will it hurt the PMG running with no load or overheat it

[@crazycrab8578]

I wish they would make some think like this, just a 12v Geny, I do not need 240v, as every think in my Tramper Van is 12v or below, good job, ome day I will make somethink like this, got to get a 40amps alternator , one with just 2 wires on

[@Townsonbck]

Pretty cool! Building one myself now to put into my 60 amp DC to Dc charger to charge my 200 AMP HR. Lithium solar generator for the multiple rainy days. I think this will work great. Thanks for the Video. 👍🏻

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks for the nice comments Townson, good luck building your own. Maybe make a video of it? Miles

[@dptp9lf]

great idea! I want this for an apu in my truck. Charge a battery set that runs a 2000 w inverter, run a 12 v aircompressor etc. Looks very feasible to me am i missing anything. I love the idea of using the motor/generator to start the gas engine...

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks for watching Lyle. No I doubt you're missing anything It's all pretty simple and I think I've shown everything about it, worth making one if you're looking to do all that stuff.

[@goldbunny1973]

Ive been wondering if it'd be possible - rather than fuel/cost efficient - to charge an ebike battery (of any configuration) using a 2-stroke petrol engine such as are used to make 80cc motorised bikes because you could then have an ebike with extended range without requiring road tax/insurance as the power drive is fully electric which is legal on UK roads..

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Hello Gold Bunny, yes I suppose you could, but I think it would still be quite a cumbersome thing to carry around? You could probably carry three extra batteries for the same weight, and a charger. I have been musing about the possibility of making a super-small pocket generator from a remote-control model aircraft engine, which might be another solution to range-extending an eBike. I've a long list of "Things to make" though! Never enough hours in the day :)

[@goldbunny1973]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles That's really what I was thinking too, but I also like the ide of being stopped by cops and letting them know I'm not running an untaxed uninsured petrol motorbike I'm riding an ebike fully legally re-charged on the go by a mobile petrol generator : )

[@user-td5th1lz7e]

Tell us more about the generator motor where did you get it? Where can you get it in the US? What kind of equipment does it come in? is it permanent magnet or brushes 24 V or 12 V

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Hey there P, thanks for watching and commenting. The motor is out of a 90's Flymo (floating lawn mower) and it's permanent magnet. I think it's probably 24v but that doesn't really matter so much. Just put 24v DC motor into eBay, loads of stuff will come up. You just want something with two wires so it's permanent magnet, literally any of them will make electricity if you spin them. The bigger the motor, the more it's going to make. Alternatively you can use an alternator like out of a car or a truck, although these are rarely permanent magnet as standard, so they need a battery connection to work. you wouldn't be able to run devices like inverters directly off a standard alternator. But Alternators are very good at generating and old scrapper ones are cheap as chips.

[@philliphall5198]

I have a generator with 2 , 110 outlet on it on the old 72 Chevy service truck, I used it tell 1995 and still working, I used a bungee cord to keep it tight and put belt on when needed, had alt on left side of engine

[@user-td5th1lz7e]

I am building one of these generators with the electric lawnmower motor. My concerns are if I use a battery over voltage disconnect would it hurt the PMG running with no load on it? Would it overheat or damage the motor when it disconnects from the battery?

[@smallcityhomesteaders1600]

Very cool. Nice portable design. Can that dynamo put amps out at fairly continuous duty? I used a Dual-Core PMA for mine but it's used for charging my battery bank. Check it out if ya got a few minutes.

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Hey there Small City Homesteaders, thanks for checking in. Yes it seems happy to run under load for a while, it gets warm but not really hot. I tried to start my car directly off it without a battery and it did actually turn it over, but it was extremely hot after just a couple of seconds so I won't try that again. I'll try to get some actual useful performance measurements but it's not going to measure up to a PMA.

[@smallcityhomesteaders1600]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles still, very cool! I love seeing different builds. Impressive that it could crank your car over. I've thought about building a smaller, more portable unit with a 40-50cc 4-stroke and either a small PMA or a dynamo. Would be handy for exactly that...jumpstarting and such. I did build a 20" pedal bike with a permanent magnet motor from a treadmill. It works but at full steam I can only crank about 280 watts out of it and not for long. I have a new respect for the amount of torque generated by the blades of my wind turbines. Amazing the energy required to convert a bit of electricity eh!?

[@1981dasimpson]

did the engine have a governor or was it not a self rpm govern engine i like the idea of using the battery to start then charge

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks for watching and commenting David, nice to hear from you. Yes it has a governor, albeit a crude one. There is an adjuster screw where you can set what speed you want it to run at, from about 850 rpm minimum and what seems to be around 4500 rpm maximum. The governor then uses centrifugal force to open and close the butterfly valve in the carb to adjust the fuel coming in to deliver that rpm. Or very approximately anyway. It does mean that if the load goes up, the throttle opens up more to try to keep the rpm the same. Although only within certain bounds, in practice the throttle position doesn't seem to alter much at all between drawing 0 amps or 40 amps. Just for a laugh (!) I did try starting my car just off this (no battery), amazingly it did actually crank the engine (a 2.5L diesel) and the throttle certainly opened up then! But it would have been drawing hundreds of amps at that point. I didn't want to do it for more than a few seconds, it would burn it out very quickly.

[@1981dasimpson]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles i did wounder if the fans would produce enough force to altere the sail style governor i looked up the motors as i been thinking about a small engine gen for charging batteries for times of black outs more so lately with all this covid-19 stuff only engine i have laying about is a 2 stroke strimmer engine not ideal but when needs must

[@1981dasimpson]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles the last gen i had did have a 12v battery charge take off but was so low a current was not worth even running ended up modding that to a car alternator instead but like you mentioned the rpm had to be high to work thus been a waste low rpm motors ant easy to come across

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

@@1981dasimpson Well a two stroke strimmer engine would work, so long as you can mate it to either a DC motor or PMA or something (ideally a 24v unit for making 12v). You would need to be able to tweak the running speed to get the voltage about 14.4 - 15.0 volts. Would certainly work though!

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

@@1981dasimpson Yeah a lot of generators, especially Chinese ones, have a 12v take-off but in my experience they tend to be a bit rubbish. It's only there because it's got to generate 12v anyway to power the field (as it's a brushed alternator) and it provides the surplus from that as a 12v supply. Thing is, they won't give many amps (5-8?) and all the ones I have actually output exactly 12v, which is useless for charging batteries. It'll get a very flat battery to about 1/2 full but won't go any higher. Needs to be at least 13.8v or ideally 14.4.

[@philliphall5198]

With 6 1/2 pulley on engine also

[@helistorm98]

I won't argue that this works, would be stupid if i do But wouldn't an alternator be better? Is made specifically for charging batteries I know alternators require an initial current to work, but same as this setup

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks for your comment Helistorm98. In short - Yes! Any car/truck alternator would theoretically do. But this was a bit of a scrap-yard challenge for me, I don't have an alternator to use, just wanted to use what I had really. An alternator could be pushed harder for more output sure, although there are some benefits to a DC motor like this, firstly it doesn't need a battery to generate a field (so can drive inverters etc directly) and secondly you can use it as a starter motor. These are minor benefits though, if I was starting from scratch with all parts bought new, specifically for charging batteries, I would go with an alternator. Also the starter motor thing, on something like this it's really no big deal, it's easy to pull start. However, supposing you use this as a top-up system for off-grid solar/wind/hydro, you could place the generator in a box outside your house and actually start and stop the engine remotely from inside, without having to go outside, open the box and pull the cord.

[@mobileempire5522]

@@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles Thanks for taking the time to explain.

[@swhit]

The other advantage of this setup is the low engine run speed. But you could probably just gear the pulleys to run the alternator at whatever speed you want (they are more efficient and powerful at higher speed).

[@mobileempire5522]

@@swhit I just read somewhere that running a alternator at low rpm will cause it to overheat , running it at around at least 3000 rpm will keep it cooler

[@johnglez6271]

Very cool but this is not a DYI video, there is no instructions or where to get parts, all I got out of this video was that you have skill and that you can put shit together 🤣

[@danielmeecham464]

Well Done!

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Thanks Daniel, really appreciated. I've reworked this generator into something better, please consider having a look: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZK7Z2SqrJJmapY

[@m.s8803]

👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@guywhoknows]

That's not a good way to make this. Your motor puts out 24v (rated) You don't have voltage or current regulation. The winding on the motor dictates the current. You can use a Lucas voltage regulator, there not costly, but regulates both voltage and current. You can often get a AC ripple so I would add a bridge and a diode so that you can control the flow. The motor is 5.5kw, so you can make up to that much power. Modern Dyno/alternators produce around 50amps (typically 46) older, around 12. And down to about 3. Safe charge varies with different batteries. This regards both voltage and current. Around 5 amps won't damage your plates. 14.4 is a good medium voltage. But you must be able to maintain a 13.2/7 float. As the current drops in the battery.

[@TheAmazingAdventuresOfMiles]

Stop Press: I've since rebuilt this generator into an even better version, please do check it out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZK7Z2SqrJJmapY

[@franknally3390]

M