Mini Diesel Genset/DC charger

[Daddy Tanuki]

Basically that's what I did with an old gas riding mower I had when the deck rusted out. This is a 24volt bus alternator I ordered for that so regulator tweaking might work for that. I think the mower had a 15 hp engine on it.

View attachment 218156
View attachment 218157

did you run that as a 24 volt or a 48 volt?

 

[Crowz]

did you run that as a 24 volt or a 48 volt?

24 volt. That is at my older house. I wanted a way to charge the 24 volt lead acid batteries there without having to use the gas generator to run an ac 24volt battery charger.

Since I had to replace that riding mower because a replacement deck cost more than a new mower at the time I couldn't see letting that old mower go to waste. Plus it was easier to drive that thing around as needed vs pushing the generator around

Worked great. Converting it to 48v probably wouldn't be that hard. Back then everyone was 12v or 24v.

 

[jordand]

I've got a 175amp alt on a 1 cyl kubota engine. Water cooled, lived under my cockpit floor behind my main engine. Bit of a bear to get to to work on, but runs great. It basically runs at max RPM, may switch it to use a variable speed controller like they have on airplanes(push/pull/twist for fine adjustment). Bugger vibrates like no other but she was cheap, pushes out 110amp continuous without any troubles. It does seem like that 110amps is the sweet spot for the engine before its bogged down. Eventually I'll upgrade to lithium and will futz with the output a bit more to refine it.

Would highly recommend belt driven alts on an engine regardless if its on a boat or not. Works great, simple and easy to work on and maintain.

 

[MeSteve]

My only concern, is the same as the pandas…. They under power the engine and overwork it leading to reliability issues