light plant....

Wanted: a light plant to mount on a small trailer, and run by my JD 1.5 hp hit& miss engine. Go to roughandtumble.org ,click photo album, click JD Day July22, click duel hit&miss powered ice cream maker to see the type of machinery that I make. Thanks.

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im having problems with a 3 hp cushman engine running hot .It is pulling a 2000 watt generator. when i say hot i mean boiling water all down the side of the water hopper. im running it at 514 rpms of the flywheel of about 14 inches to a 2inch pully on a generator . the generator is off a steam cleaner . it is a wico. brand . i think it may or should have a 4 hp motor . it runns good for 1 hour then boils . Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Gerry

Gerry, did you set the generator up yourself, or is it a manufactured light plant? The cushman plant in the book has a radiator that appears to run on a thermo-siphon. Light plants do run hot, most of my plants have some type of extra cooling system, whether it is a radiator or cooling tank. If you set the system up then you might want to go to a larger engine. The rule of thumb is .75KW per horse power, but most older plants seem to run at a two to one ratio. You may be asking too much from the old girl.

You said pulling a 2000 watt generator. Do you mean you are actually pulling 2000 watts from the generator, or is that the name plate rating of the generator. Commercially built small generators today usually use a 3 Hp engine for a 1500 watt rated generator. You are turning the generator at almost 3600 RPM. Is this the rated speed for the generator? I ask this because if the generator has a cooling, fan and the speed is, for an example, double the rated speed, the horsepower requirements for the fan may become a significant part of the capability of the 3 Hp engine driving the generator. This loads the engine before even drawing any power from the generator. Then once you start drawing power from the generator, you can see that overloading the engine becomes a real possibility.

The fact that you say the engine is overheating indicates to me that indeed you have more of a load on the engine than it can handle. I assume that the engine is set up and running properly otherwise.

I would try about a 4" pully and see how it runs. This would about halve the generator RPM's. Check the generator nameplate for the RPM rating also.