Portable generators - cast iron cylinder liner or not ?

[hr3]

Generac lists cast iron sleeves in there stand alone systems but i'm not sure about the portable units..

 

[Soundguy]

Soundguy, Your close on the cheap replacements, Hopefully the quality of the electronics is good enought to give you a few years of service....Cheap electronic boards are just that...maybe so and a crap shot at the best...I have the opportunity to buy and replace parts on a regular basis, at work....My choice is for the Brushless..I'm still out on the hunt for the replacement of my own unit? it only takes minutes of reading here, to put doubt in my mind about durability of some of the newer foreign units??

uh.. well.. it's hard to get a gen head that is NOT a foreign unit nowadays.

my northstar is chinese.. from about late 2003 via date code. it is brushless.. works fine.

10-20 ys ago i'd have reservations about offshore electronics.. now? it's wher e95% of it comes from.

I do plenty of electronics work myself. other than a rash of bad capacitors, causing problems on whatever they were installed in.. a few years ago.. most stuff is pretty robust.

 

[Tenn_Blue]

Re the engine - I would be more concerned with the crankshaft bearing/bushing issue than the liner material. Most of the bushing'ed engines let the crank ride on the aluminum case - dirty oil, heat, contamination allows gauling and the crank welds itself to the case = not good. Bearings will take more abuse and last longer in varied service.
As far as liner material, I used to run Kawasaki dirt bikes (chrome lined aluminum cylinders basically) for years without any problems - only becomes an issue when you want to rebuild the cylinder - still can be done, but more $$$ and skill to do it.
If I could get aluminum liner with bearings (instead of bushings), I would be ok with that - understanding that the engine would be a throw away when if wore out.....

As for the generator head, I really don't have much advise here. For a non-portable one, I go for the SL style 1800 rpm models, but they are BIG and HEAVY - not great for portable use.

Guess it depends what you want to do with it. I have a little 2500 watt gen with a 5 hp briggs on it - it is my field use or loaner - has lived a hard life and shows it, but runs and does what I need it to. Use it for field power and non-critical stuff. I also have an expensive Honda generator that we use for power outages and critical stuff. Costs about 3x the cheapy, but it ran for 3 weeks straight back in Florida when we had hurricane damage - don't think the cheapy briggs would have lasted..... I also don't loan the Honda out......

 

[Pilot]

I like synthetic oil for engines run regularly, same with multi-grades. But when you shut it off it doesn't take long for those oils to run down off the cylinders and your next start up is with dry cylinders walls. At some point the same will be true with a single grade, non synthetic oil, but you have a longer time before dry cylinders. I suspect this would be even more important with aluminum cylinders. Use single grade for engines run infrequently.

 

[aczlan]

I like synthetic oil for engines run regularly, same with multi-grades. But when you shut it off it doesn't take long for those oils to run down off the cylinders and your next start up is with dry cylinders walls. At some point the same will be true with a single grade, non synthetic oil, but you have a longer time before dry cylinders. I suspect this would be even more important with aluminum cylinders. Use single grade for engines run infrequently.

Actually from everything I have read, synthetic sticks to the surfaces better and takes longer to completely drain down. As such, you have more residual lubrication and faster full lubrication from the oil pump getting up to pressure faster.

Aaron Z

 

[Soundguy]

Actually from everything I have read, synthetic sticks to the surfaces better and takes longer to completely drain down. As such, you have more residual lubrication and faster full lubrication from the oil pump getting up to pressure faster.

Aaron Z

most manuals I see for newer equipment that USED to spec straight 30w now specs 10 or 5w 30 syn.. or 15w40.. etc.

 

[3930dave]

On board 12v charging - not a $ consideration for me. I'm not at all impressed with what I've seen of discrete modern digitally controlled 12v battery chargers - the ones I've come across either have been flaky, or just way too quick to go into error mode on batteries that had no problems.

When I need to charge a battery, I just need to charge the darn thing - I don't need to babysit another temperamental piece of unstable digital consumer electronics.

I do have an old analog 12v charger that I rely on a lot. If it dies, I'll either rebuild it, or build an analog 12v charger from scratch. Agreed, I can just plug this charger into a generator, when needed.

A 12v output on a generator should not be confused with a tightly regulated DC supply, that is not what it is about. No worries, generally, about the variation Aaron mentioned - properly designed automotive electronics can tolerate/survive greater swings than that.

The convenience factor of having built-in 12vdc charging built in is what is attractive to me. If you are even at the "back 40", the time/effort saved not making a trip for a separate battery charger is what appeals to me. To say nothing of being in the middle of nowhere. If I happen to find a 12v output port on a genny that meets the rest of my criteria, it is just a "Yes!", not a deal-breaker if absent.

I do agree with your comments Soundguy.... I prefer the durable, re-buildable products myself, but as with many things today, the market is flooded with Bic lighter generators too.

Brushless has it's advantages.... But, I'm less than happy about adding complexity to low cost products, esp. for something that I rely on in an emergency. At less than the high end of products, PRC based companies had a habit of getting teams to do component cost reductions but "taking parts out, till the circuit stopped working, then putting the last part back in". I could rant (much) further about games played in the electronic hardware mfg sector, but would end up accomplishing nothing except raising my BP.

The other issue I have here is low temperature operation, what is considered cold in FLA is a nice Spring day here. Many companies don't properly design and test electronics for low temperature operation; I need -40C capability.

At the consumer end of the generator market, most companies downplay or ignore (marketing wise) the cylinder and bearing data. HF, Briggs, and Champion do market their engines separately, so I may be able to get this Mech. data from there. More homework needed.

Generac and Briggs have cast iron liners available in their higher end generator offerings, but those Generacs are probably out of my price range, and the Briggs definitely are.

I have a Briggs 2500w older generator, probably much like yours Tenn_B. Just picked up a Carb Rebuild kit for it (it poured gas out of the air filter when I filled it up the other night). Low hours on it, and mostly just my bad for not running it more often; I did store it properly though. I did appreciate being able to find the Briggs carb parts I needed at my local hardware store. The store is perhaps a bit above average, but this illustrates why I went with Briggs before - easy to get parts.

Where I'm trying to get to is much like you describe Tenn_B - an older "beater" low power gen for certain things, and a newer, higher power gen, that doesn't get loaned.

I really appreciate all the comments guys.

Best Regards, D.

 

[Soundguy]

remember.. a cheap 12v charger can be bought and zip tied to t he genny frame, and just leave it there permanently.....

soundguy

 

[3930dave]

Agreed, those zip ties could address my lousy memory. Storage issue solved.

With the possible exception of Honda, I wouldn't run the gen with that strapped on - vibration would kill most discrete battery chargers pretty quick.

Rgds, D.

 

[schmism]

Brushless has it's advantages.... But, I'm less than happy about adding complexity to low cost products, esp. for something that I rely on in an emergency.

I dont consider something that removes wear parts something that increases complexity, if anything brushless decreases complexity. Why dosen't everyone use that version? because you have to use permanent magnets in the armature (the part in the middle that spins) and permanent magnets are expensive.
brushed versions use winding's to create a electromagnet, the down side to this is 1) brushes that wear 2) brushes create a LOT of noise in your output (not good for electronics and or radios in the vicinity 3) If sat for long periods of time the residual magnetism that the gen head relays on to establish a magnetic field may fade. To get it working again you may have to "flash the field".

So looking at a device that i depend on durring an emergency, i dont want to have to worry about changeing brushes, or brushes wearing out, haveing to flash the field if its sat for a long time, and the electrical noise associated with brushed gen head.

In addition I dont want to worry about bad fuel and gummed up carbs so ill likely look at getting a propane version off the start, or buying a kit to convert my gas version to a propane/NG fuel. Then my fuel never goes bad, I can stock pile it indefintly, I can also use it for cooking and heating. My oil changes go from every 50 hrs (on gas/diesel) to like every 500 hrs with propane/NG.

I was watching reviews for the small inverter style genny's. they were comparing some 2K units. the honda significantly out performed the other 2K units. I think the main diffrence was the honda was listed as a 98CC engine and the other were 89CC ... so engine size counts.

I know most of those issues strike at the heart of the gen set debate, and have little to do with cast iron sleves or which oil to use, but the discussion kinda revolved around features to look for when deciding.... so the above are the features i look for.