New Listeroid

[Martin Gray]

I just returned from a 10hr. round trip drive, to pick up my new toy.

A GM90 listeroid diesel engine. It will be used for back up power, also the coolant lines

will attach into my wood boiler water lines. Which will make use of waste hot water.

The engine will run on surplus waste vegi oil. (WVO)

My truck in the picture has been running on WVO for two years now.

I'll update as the project progresses.

Martin.

[Rob Beckers]

Nice!
Many happy hours of put-put-put-put... :)

What alternator are you hooking up to this?

-RoB-

[Ralph Day]

I once followed links to a listeriod forum. It might be a good idea to track that down. Some of the threads dealt with the vagaries of India built castings, tolerances etc.

Hope it goes well. One old sailor I met said they used to change the oil on the units while they were running. They ran refrigeration loads 24/7/365 on a cargo ship. O'l reliable.

Rlaph

[Martin Gray]

Rob, No decision on the alternator yet. The reason I bought this listeriod now is,
Canada is following the American's lead again and are in the process of banning the importation of these diesels. So I thought it's now or never.

Ralph, Yes, I've also read about issues with some India built listeriods.
Hope it's a good one.

Martin.

[Rob Beckers]

A guy on another forum recommended tearing any listeroid apart, then rebuilding it carefully, before running it for the first time. If I remember his comments correctly, they're good engines if you buy them at a decent price (his other comment was that prices have become unreasonable due to the rule changes that ban them), but they're generally put together shoddily. Hence the need for a tear-down/rebuild before doing damage by running them. They should be very easy to take apart.

-RoB-

[Martin Gray]

I tore down, cleaned then reassembled my new listeroid. It was very clean with no casting sand to be found.
I ran it for a short time, still on the crate without the coolant lines hooked up.
Just wanted to see it run before the permanent install.

The fuel valve was open when I started to crank it over, so it was a little flooded at first.
That is why there is so much black smoke at start up.

(the humming sound in the background is my centrifuge cleaning waste vegi oil.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_rv_xlT-p4

[Martin Gray]

My Listeroid is now mounted on an I-beam frame I built. It's bolted down to the concrete floor using hockey pucks to cut down on vibrations.
The exhaust is piped threw the wall to the outside where the muffler is.

In the video you can see the coolant lines from the engine hooked into the wood boiler heating hoses. The wood boiler runs between 155*F & 180*F so with a 190*F thermostat it will still cool the listeroid and send waste heat into the heating system.

The next step is finding a 5kw gen head to mount to it.

The shop is looking more like a toy box than a work shop.:D

Martin.


YouTube - GM90 Listeroid mounted & running

[Martin Gray]

Hi All, Here's the newest update on my backup generating system, if there is any interest.

The engine is now hooked up to a 5KW generator. Belt driven with a 6 rib flat V belt.

I mounted a 100 litre tank on the wall to gravity feed the lister vegi oil. The vegi gets

heated by four wraps of steel line around the exhaust pipe. It gets started on diesel then

switched to vegi after the engine gets up to operating temperature.

Here is a short video & description running on vegi oil and powering the shop.

Martin.
YouTube - Listeroid running on Vegi Oil

[Ralph Day]

Hi Martin
Do you shutdown on diesel too, to prevent any solidifying of veg oil in the system between run times? What sort of preparation of the oil is required before using it in the system (must be some water and particulates in the restaurant recycling).

Ralph

[Martin Gray]

Hey Ralph,
Yes I do shut it down on diesel too. I switch to diesel about 10 min. before shutdown.

To prep the Vegi oil for fuel,
1) I run it through a 200 micron barrel filter,
2) heat the 200 litre barrel to settle out any water,
3) after a few days of settling, its put threw a 100 micron filter,
4) and right into a 200 litre centrifuge tank
5) the heated oil is left to circulate through the centrifuge for 6 hours
then it's done.
It's quite a simple process, after the setup is built.
The centrifuge also pressure steams (or evaporates) any emulsified water remaining in the oil.

Martin.

[Ralph Day]

Martin,
Are you limited to 5kw alternator with your Listeroid or can you up the size if you need to? The difference in size is quite noticable. My Nissan 3cyl is about 20hp and runs a 10kw alternator (wire-able in many configurations, up to 17kw in 3phase 408vac). What's the hp rating on the Lister?

[Martin Gray]

Ralph

My listeroid is a 10hp unit at 1,000rpm, that is 7.35kw.
I'm running it at 750rpm which brings the power output to about 5-6 kw.
Yes it's a large engine for the output, but they are designed to run non-stop for days-months at a time. And many years of service.
For more output and not to much more space, a twin cylinder can be had. (example 20-2)
20hp & 2 cyl.
Also running on waste vegi oil makes it very economical and carbon neutral.
Earth Friendly:cool:

Martin.

[Dale Sheler]

Martin, that listeroid runs beautifully, the balance must be very close, from what I understand balance can be pretty hit and miss.
We can still get roids here in the states, there is an outfit that imports them in pieces as air compressor parts, which in effect they are:) They sell you a kit which you assemble into a running engine, a roid is probably going to be my next project.
I make bio diesel, I've got a 350 gallon processor so fuel would be no problem for me, might I ask where you got your engine from?
The listerforum and the smokestack have a lot of info on the original Lister CS engines and the roids but it doesn't look like you need any help with that smooth running gem.

[Martin Gray]

Dale,

Thanks for the kind words.
My listeroid came from www.woodnstuff.ca south east of Ottawa, Canada.

I don't know how many more John will be importing, since the EPA ban will be effecting us in Canada also. :mad:

Martin.

[Dale Sheler]

It's just so sad, your listeroid running on veg oil is about as clean and green as it gets, but some idiot beauracrats decide they are too dirty, they are basically throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I've watched your video about ten times, my big worry is when I get one all I'll want to do is just sit there and watch it run.:)