Many small gasoline engines can be safely modified to run on natural gas or propane with a kit that replaces the carburetor and adds a regulator, providing a reliable alternative fuel source in the event that gasoline is difficult to obtain in an emergency situation. This seat of the pants hack by [HowToLou] is definitively not the safe way to run your generator on natural gas, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where getting the power back on might be a literal matter of life or death, it’s a tip worth keeping in mind.
The basic idea here is that you feed natural gas (though propane should also work) directly into the engine’s intake by way of a hose attached to the air filter box. While cranking the engine, a valve on the gas line is used to manually adjust the air–fuel mixture until it fires up. It’s an extremely simple hack that, in a pinch, you can pull off with the parts on hand. But as you might expect, that simplicity comes at a cost.
There are a few big problems with this approach, but certainly the major one is that there’s nothing to cut off the flow of gas when the engine stops running. So if the generator stalls or you just forget to close the valve after you shut it down, there’s the potential for a very dangerous situation. Additionally, the manual gas valve will be at odds with a generator that automatically throttles up and down based on load. Though to be fair, there are certainly generators out there that simply run the engine flat-out the whole time.
Much like his DIY generator interlock plate that we covered last month, we imagine this project may rub some folks in the wrong way. Admittedly, this isn’t a modification that you should take lightly and certainly not something you’d want to rely on for long-term use. But as the recent situation in Texas has reminded us, drastic times can occasionally call for drastic measures.
I’m not well versed in this, but if you feed natural gas in through the air intake, does that mean that you need to open up the gas tank to make it the new air intake?
I am fairly sure the diameter of the NG feed is not blocking the air intake.
If you are willing to try this hack, it might be worth getting a cheesy regulator for $25 (the proper regulatoris more like $50 on its own, or $140 in a kit)
https://www.amazon.com/Autools-Carburetor-Conversion-Portable-Generator/dp/B089QGGW9C
Yeah, if you know you’re gonna need it, then a proper conversion kit isn’t that expensive.
Was looking for parts for a Honda gx160, and without filtering search results further, I got swamped with such kits.
you’re not covering the air intake; it’s acting like a Throttle Body Injector. you can even get Injector-Gaskets.
I’m not familiar with that generator (My considerably older generator is different), but he is just using the vacuum port on the air filter housing to route the natural gas in. Air will still enter in the normal fashion through the air filter. I assume the vacuum valve on the fuel tank he disconnected is just for drawing fumes from the tank into the combustion cycle.
Yah or crankcase ventilation.
I’ve converted my generator to natural gas (ng) simply because the electrical grid is no longer adequate and rolling black outs are the norm. What I have discovered about ng it’s a very reliable source of energy, and since it’s already a vapor, no carboration is actually required. I definitely recommend a regulator with a safety shut off because no one is going to baby sit a running generator at all times. Natural gas pressure is very low after the meter and is measured in inches of water column (less than 1 psig) burns cleaner and doesn’t degrade the lubrication oil system like gasoline. I’m hoping that long term power interruptions would be less likely, but the facts prove that’s not the case.
well what I did was order a tri fuel carburetor off ebay it has 1 valve 2 switch between propane or nat gas or stut off and turn on gasoline, now downside it will start on propane or gasoline but I can’t get it to start on natural gas, but I start it on gasoline then switch over and it’s fine, I just ran my house in Texas fo 14hrs one day recently
I ran 14 hrs too. My 6500 with half load runs 10 hr. So we had one fill up. And they make more power on gasoline than propane or ng.
I have a 7000watt I ran for 64 hrs straight in Lewisville about 20 min north of dallas. Luckily my house has natural gas and I have a 50’s era gas heater in my living room to keep it warm but the rest of the house I ran off the generator. 2 TV’s with 2 satellite boxes 2 space heaters and about 4 standard house lamps. I also have a Honda iu3000 generator in case I needed a back up, but the one I was using went through 30 gallons of gas in that 64 hrs. I felt bad for the rest of my neighborhood cause people were sitting in their cars to warm up and everything was pitch black except my house that was lit up like a candle. Hopefully we never have to endure this type of catastrophe ever again.
Warm up your house.. share your spare gen with others to run up their heat. They must have their own gasoline, though… Siphon from car or off fuel rail on GMs. That is what I’d do. I have two gens. You could have been a angel in the disaster to your neighbors.
Next up, “How to make a suicide cord” to hook up your natural gas powered generator.
Yes, this is very similar. It can kill you if you’re not extremely careful, but it can also save your life if you’re in a very bad situation.
Dirty Hacks: They can save your life!
Also dirty Hacks: They might be the reason your life needs saving
Such a valid point. This is a hack, but a disaster waiting…
Engine just has to stall from load or poor air/fuel mixture, then it’s left to it’s devices to just vent gas.
Could be done safely, just need a variable meetering device tied to throttle, and a cutout to stop gas supply if the engine stalls.
Just add a valve that’s normally closed to the gas pipe and power the valve from the generator. When the generator stops the gas supply is cut off. It could also be wired into a self restarting circuit with a battery.
As a reminder for uk residents, unless you’re “gas safe” registered, it’s illegal to modify / repair mains gas equipment or otherwise tap into the supply. Not in the spirit of hacking but it keeps the idiots safe and stops you loosing money when your neighbours smell gas.
Shouldn’t be doing it in Canada either, the only half way reasonable way to be doing it in an emergency situation, is if you’ve got an external line for a barbecue professionally installed. Trying to hook up inside your house with a garden hose or something is just gonna end with your house (and half the block) blown up.
Ah now where are all those “safety trolls” when we need them. ;-)
Operating a (fuel powered) generator indoors is no good idea anyway (CO poisoning)
We’re not even allowed BBQ lines in the UK. Everything must be hard plumbed. No quick connections. I’ve inquired. So my LPG generator shall be staying LPG rather then NG. :'(
Totally agree.
Ah, whatever happened to putting a hose on the exhaust and feeding it out the window. :D
I was thinking something like a weighted exhast flap that would pull a pin to release a spring or weight which closed the gas valve and maybe make one heck of a racket too so that if it happens at night you will not sleep through it.
@Cameron20020 said: “Such a valid point. This is a hack, but a disaster [in] waiting… Engine just has to stall from load or poor air/fuel mixture, then it’s left to it’s devices to just vent gas. Could be done safely, just need a variable metering device tied to throttle, and a cutout to stop gas supply if the engine stalls.”
There have been safe professionally manufactured yet fairly inexpensive ($100-$200) off the shelf tri-fuel (gasoline, propane, LPG) generator conversion kits available for ages. Here [1] is just one example. That example says this:
“After proper installation, if the engine stalls, the fuel will STOP FLOWING between the Regulator and the adapter.”
Hacking around with this and spending just $10 is clearly a dumb idea – unless it is a matter of life or death of course.
References:
1. https://centuryfuelproducts.com/generators/conversion-kits
my thoughts exactly.. a proper conversion kits under 100 dollars us
how to tell when fuel/air ratio is good ?
I think it’s very good for emergency fuel but won’t last as on petrol..
If the engine is running, it’s probably close enough. And your first notice that it has stalled will be that the lights go out.
As for the longevity of the engine, NG is a far, far cleaner fuel than gasoline.
The downside here is that you can’t do this with a two-stroke engine because there’s no way to mix the oil in.
I am guessing if you ran the flow of gas across a tube that had one end in the oil, you could either use a steady drip or maybe Bernoulli’s principle to spray oil along with the natural gas. would also work with oil-injected 2-stroke engines.
You’ve already got a bernoulli’s principle fluid feed, the gasoline line to the needle valve or spray bar. So you could try either putting straight oil in the tank and clamping the gas line to reduce flow to a tiny drizzle, or messing with the mixture control screw to back it right off. However, 2 stroke oil might be a bit on the gloopy side, and you might not get the flow minimal enough to avoid eventually oiling out the engine, so you might need to mix it in the last of your gas at say 10:1 instead of 50:1 and backing it right off, with clamped line or adjustment.
However, with modern 2 strokes, synthetic oils and a well run in motor, they are reckoned to survive two tanks of forgetfulness, no oil added, on the residue in the cylinders. Ergo, if you’re rationing your gasoline, rather than have run right out, you could run half time on gasoline mix, half time on natural gas or propane. Possibly adding a bit more than recommended oil to the mix might ease your mind in this situation, but not a whole lot more, you’ll just get it flooding out the exhaust after running for a while if it’s way off.
If you’re completely out of gasoline, got plenty of oil, you can scratch around for kerosene, lamp oil, coleman gas, white spirit or “turpentine substitute”, even diesel, and use that along with the 2 stroke oil, to help thin it out, restricting flow as much as possible. Now all those are very low octane, but natural gas is 130 and the genny probably runs on 90, so as long as you don’t go above 20% fuelling on any of those with the natural supplying 80% it should work. However, this is all a lot of balls to juggle manually. If it’s belching black smoke though, it’s getting too much for sure. It might be worth doing this if you’re completely out of 2 stroke oil too.
It’d be best if you can adjust with the feed shut off completely at first, with it running on natural, then just crack it a little, because if you flood it and backfire out the carb, boom goes your aircleaner when it’s half full of natural gas. If you can score some metal screening, think like Humphrey Davy and give the end of your natural gas line a “safety lamp” cage, but so the fire don’t get in, rather than out.
None of this should you do on “a normal day”, emergency use only.
here in the US natural gas line pressures (residential) are 1/2 psi or less and unless you have a “safe” solvent to dissolve the oil in (gasoline), probably not good conditions to mist or vaporize oil?
Thinking can make like a pressurized vessel to store the oil in. Using low pressure or maybe one of the more cost effective ~$50 3000-6000psi hand pumps to pressurize the vessel and then through some sort of calibration routine, determine what the valve setting is for equivalent or better than operation compared to the fuel/oil mixture.
Drowning the air filter in it might be better than nothing. The modern synthetic types are used at very low ratios in some motors, 200:1, 500:1 so even just getting a “suggestion” of it in there is helpful. However if it’s some 2 decade old basic, 25:1 mix yard tool stuff you dug out the back shed, you need more of it…
Should mention though, that if you’ve got a modern, modern genny with a catalytic convertor, anything other than normal fuelling and specified oils will likely get it plugged up. You can make your own choice whether you wanna spare the air now at risk of killing it, or making it work poorly when you’re back to normal gasoline, or take it off, which could make things loud, but at least it should work as designed again later.
The Honda store told me the propane I was planning on using in my generator was cleaner. They didn’t add that it is also dryer than petrol so needs servicing more regularly.
This whole idea of this hack may save a life but is far more likely to take yours and half a streets worth if it goes wrong. If it’s just yourself in the sticks then it’s up to you.
If you have a backup generator and for what it costs just store extra fuel or buy the proper gas valve and spare propane bottles and you can switch between fuels as desired.
The difficulty is that running rich will foul the spark plug, and running lean will burn the spark plug, so getting the mixture wrong will result in the generator malfunctioning sooner than later.
In practice, if you set the mixture just right, any increase in load will stall the motor, so you have to set it rich so the engine won’t be starved of fuel when it tries to throttle up.
Another thing to think about is there is no upper bore lubrication so you are going to wear your engine real fast.
You wouldn’t do this on a 2 stroke engine for that reason.
Are you suggesting gasoline is a lubricant?
It is, that’s why the valve seats needed to be changed to hardened when the lead was removed from fuel.
More the cooling of the gas evaporating I think keeping the valves cool, IIRC.
Miles. the combustion products of the tetraethyllead in leaded gas was what protected the valves. The gasoline would have been fully vaporized by the carb anyway, no evaporation took place in the cylinders. And, in 2-stroke engines oil is mixed with the fuel, No gas/oil mix, no upper cylinder lube. It wasn’t the gasoline itself.
Its more of a lubricant than a gas however gasoline by itself is not a lubricant. petrol usualy has an aditive to provide lubrication and you can add your own aditive’s.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but this sounds like a good way to make things on fire or asplode at a time when emergency services are tied up elsewhere.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but if you’re at the point where doing this makes sense, emergency services probably aren’t coming to help you.
Agreed! It’s very rare that electricity is needed for saving a life, though I’ll concede that some electrically powered medical equipment can be essential. If someone near you depends on electricity to this extent, please, please, have a way of providing electricity to them in a safer manner than this! Realize, too, that natural gas can be unavailable during certain types of emergencies.
And don’t even think about risking your home and the safety of your neighbors just so you can watch TV or save a refrigerator full of food.
It’s a clever hack, but I’ll mentally file it away in the category of doing a tracheotomy with a ball point pen: something I hope to never need and something I’ll only do if the alternative is certain death.
I am with you regarding the TV, but food can be really valuable in some circumstances. Though I don’t think such a contraption should run unsupervised.
While a proper propane or natural gas conversion isn’t particularly dangerous, this PARTICULAR conversion is very much reserved for those days where, if *this hack* kills you, your day has not actually gotten any worse than it already was. The mere availability of functioning emergency services is a strong indicator that today is NOT the day for this particular hack :)
For example, I would not have recommended this hack even for the recent Texas unpleasantness, unless it was needed to power someone’s oxygen concentrator (or something equally fatal if no hack was attempted).
And separately, in the Texas emergency, merely having available natural gas would often be sufficient to avoid dying from lack of power (in the short term). Rigging a car battery and an inverter to power your furnace controller would be less dangerous than this generator hack, and would have been sufficient to avoid freezing, assuming the natural gas was flowing in your area. Just remember, the power will likely come on suddenly and without warning (and possibly more than once). It’s very important to keep any hacks powering your furnace isolated from the upstream mains circuit….
and don’t try stupid stuff like this unless the alternative is just dying without trying (because that’s even stupider).
This would be a The Martian™ level of hack, and need.
https://www.writoscope.com/bookreviews/the-martian-book-review-brilliant/
A few years ago my scooter had old gasoline in it, and even after siphoning the old gasoline out and replacing it with fresh, the bad fuel remaining in the fuel line would not let the engine run.
I took a propane torch and fed propane into the air intake while cranking the engine. With some adjustments, the engine began to run. After about 5 minutes of idling, I was able to shut off the propane as the old fuel had worked its way out of the system.
Though I am not sure, if this was less hassle than just draining the carburetor bowl, I don’t see this especially unsafe. It was a few minutes of special operation under close supervision.
Fuel injection, no carburetor bowl.
If you really wanna impress me, you gotta go full MacGyver with a pressure cooker, bag of charcoal, chewing gum and a paperclip….. okay you can have a bit of hose too I guess.
Rub people the wrong way as in encourage people screwing around with generators near their homes? Incorrect generator use causing 80% of the carbon monoxide deaths in the USA.
People kill themselves with generators because they are idiots and run the thing in the hallway while they’re watching TV. Has nothing to do with the fuel they are powered by, and certainly no modifications necessary.
Unfortunately, too many end up dead idiots — a corollary to “you can’t fix stupid” but you can kill sadly it.
Of course sad, but: dead idiots – natures way of “fixing stupid”, sometimes also called “Darwin Award”.
the “darwin awards” apparently has to be mentioned every time there is discussion about accidental deaths on the internet, but it hasnt ever been funny or clever
Run on hydrogen.
https://sciencing.com/created-hydrogen-burns-5247283.html
Right! Might even clean up the hydrocarbons in the air a little.
I do not know, how much CO is produced in an engine operated on CH4.
At least natural gas should produce less carbon monoxide than longer chain hydrocarbons, if burnt with enough air. We even burn it in the open air of the kitchen for cooking.
Although the conditions in an engine may be different enough to a cooking range to produce dangerous levels of CO.
In an enclosed space, you’re not operating it on CH4, you’re operating it on CH4, depleted O2 and the CO2 it previously spit out.. then you get carbon monoxide.
Exactly correct… Except by the time it’s running on Depleted O2 you may be passed out or dead, so you would not be running it.🥴😵
The power produced is directly related to the number of bonds broken.
Natgas has lower energy content, thus, you have to burn more of it to get the same energy output, thus, the amount of pollution generated is not hugely different.
CO & CO2 are products of the oxidation of Hydro Carbons.. Surprise they are not the largest Green house Gases. The burning of Hydrocarbon, Nuclear electrictric power and boiling water all create the largest Green house Gas. According to NOOAC govt agency the biggest GHGas is water vapor. @ 3to4 percent.. whereas CO2. Has slightly risen to 0.000468%.. Yes 1000 times less than water vapor. We have to stop our heat sources that create water vapor. NG produces H2O. Plus some CO and CO2. So let’s not worry about a generator heating up the atmosphere a little. Let be Boy Scouts and “BE PREPARED”. SIGNED Scouter Bob.
Don’t forget people dragging their grill inside to heat up the home.
ok at a pinch sure but this guy dies it way safer and imho better he also tests out the output and mentions other options/solutions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO839Sayci0&feature=emb_rel_pause Best of luck
Other issues: most generators literally eat a lot of crankcase oil. I had an 8KW generator (from Costco no less) that required adding oil every 8-12 hours when it was new. Even if I had a “kit” to fix that issue, it also was not rated for continuous use, but when your power goes out for a week (March 2002 ice storm in KCMO) and you’re taking care of your elderly bed-ridden mom (“I’m staying here!”), and standing in line at Costco with their last generator, their are no good choices, right?
Amazing all these FUD about a gas.
Do they know gasoline vehicles can be very easily converted to gas (LPG)?
Yes it is very illegal to tinker with gas (or electricity) in many countries.
But how about being in the middle of nowhere?
This is a fantastic hack and didn’t really know/experienced that it can be done so easily.
There are DIY kits you can buy so this is just a wonderful hack by definition.
And please, please … EVERYBODY will notice the generator has stoped … the noise is gone … the electricity is gone … the smell is gone … then you go outside, shut the gas line, air it, then start all over again.
Remember: if using this and the electricity is gone then the generator has stopped. Act!
Tomorrow I’ll post video instructions about lifting the loo seat before actually using the loo … it seems it might be needed by some.
Cheers
Lots of words to say “babysit generator”. Imagine that.
If you don’t want to “babysit generator”, what stops you from adding NC electromagnetic valve connected to generator output? Or you could use pneumatic NC valve connected to some place with vacuum behind air filter.
I have a reserve generator running on LPG over 10 years. LPG is cheaper than gasoline, and NG is even cheaper than LPG. Both make generator life much longer. Both make start much easier. There are no any real reasons to not use LPG/NG instead of gasoline to feed that home depot generators.
All you need is just drill a small hole in the narrowest place of carburetor, insert a brass tube reaching a center of carburetor and connect outside end to simple gas pressure regulator for stove or heater. That’s all. This modification does not alter gasoline system, so you could still run generator on gasoline too. Pressure regulator perfectly works as air/fuel ratio regulator. Higher rpm, higher vacuum in narrowest place of carburetor, higher flow from pressure regulator. Lower rpm, lover vacuum, lower flow. To get best results you could add a needle valve after pressure regulator, then adjust needle valve for cross section and gas pressure regulator for pressure to get lowest CO/CH/O2 in exhaust under load. That’s all. If you wish, you could add “safety valve” to cut out LPG/NG if generator stops.
PS: Since HAD have a “narrative” censorship anyway, i see no sane reasons why safety trolls shouldn’t be banned here.
Adjusting the valve needs some possibility to measure said values. Or can you do it like adjusting a normal carburetor, for idle and load response?
You could do it without gas analyser too, but it will be longer.
Fully open needle valve, set middle pressure on regulator, try start your engine adjusting pressure if it does not start. When started, give it some time to heat up, then decrease pressure until there will be no mercaptan odor from exhaust (everything burn out). Connect maximum load, check for odor again. Now began to close needle valve until odor disappear. This is initial setting. From this setting you could adjust valve and regulator for smooth and clean running in all load range.
You could also use some lambda sensor from car as a gas analyser. 1V voltage on lambda means that you have too much oxygen in exhaust. Slowly adjust until voltage drop to zero and stop adjusting immidiately at that moment. Adjust back a little to catch a position where voltage appear. This will be best air/fuel ratio setting.
If you have constant load, you could run without needle valve and only adjust pressure to get smooth running on your usual load. However, it is probable that generator will run at not very optimal air/fuel ratio if your load change.
Adding all that stuff kind of moves away from this specific hack. This is a terrible, awful, no good way to use gas when there’s no other choice.
There are proper conversion kits that are perfectly safe, and better yet, nice modern purpose built gas inverter generators with all the fancy high efficiency features one might want. If, as you point out, Propane/NG is so much better, and you have the cash (Hacks often cost more than they seem like they will), you probably just want a dedicated gas generator.
Nobody is safety trolling about gas in general, or even DIY gas, for the small number of people who know how to do that safely. They’re just pointing out that this particular hack, is not safe.
It might work with just one extra piece of tube/hose… depending on regulator you’ve got (Should be one on your natural gas line if it’s a BBQ line) should have a reference port, which is natural air pressure normally, some are just wide open though, no port. So you reference that to vacuum, and you’ve already got a venturi vacuum port on the carby, it sucks the fuel in… so you pull the gas line off the carb, make sure all the fuel is gone out of it, then connect a hose that won’t suck flat, from the gas fitting on carb to the reference port on the regulator.
If you’ve got a junk car or a garage full of parts, you might look at using an evaporative emissions purge solenoid as a temporary emergency cutout. They’re normally closed, open when powered with 12V. Still you want to go give the genny immediate attention or activate manual gas shutoff if it stops, but at least it should minimise the build up of yet to be exploded gas while you’re pulling your pants on etc to go outside.
(Now if you’ve holed your gas tank in the wilderness or killed your fuel pump or something on your injected vehicle, and happen to have a tank full of propane, you want to make sure you’re hooking up venturi vaccum, not manifold vacuum. )
There is nothing wrong or dangerous even in this simple hack.
Typical fuel consumption of LPG for generator is 1-2liter of liquid LPG per hour. LPG gives ~250 liters of gas for liter of liquid phase. You use generator outdoors. Even 250 liters of gas leaked within one hour outdoors is nothing. Even in the worst case (no wind at all, no convection, nothing) all you get if you ignite 250 liters of LPG gas cloud outdoors is just a flash. It will not even scorch your eyebrows or put the dry grass on fire.
And you need to be completely odor blind to miss that strong mercaptane odor for one hour. And even if you got some latest fashionable illness, and “lost the sense of taste and odor” as prescribed, you, suddenly, still could perfectly feel that stinky mercaptane odor.
> There are proper conversion kits
> dedicated gas generator
Here is HACKaday, if I remember correctly. And your “proper conversion kit” is nothing more that pressure regulator, plate with side hole placed between air filter and carburetor, few feets of plastic tube and some nylon ties. But for more money. They even add a yellow sticky label “ATTENTION! Immidiately close LPG tank valve if your generator stops”. And “dedicated gas generator” is just ordinary gasoline generator with above kit installed. And price is doubled. If you are lucky, you will get additional safety valve, but price will be even higher.
> They’re just pointing out that this particular hack, is not safe.
There is nothing safe in that world. And that hack is definitely not even one of the the top 100 of most dangerous ones.
I would assume that the user manual of generators sold in the US mandates constant supervision. Isn’t that the case? I mean, even without this hack it’s a piece of equipment that _could_ cause damage (or death) if something goes wrong and no one notices.
Mandate? Meh more like strongly suggest. Unless it’s mentioned as federal/state law anything written in a manual in the US is only there to instruct in it’s use or to cover the manufacturers butt from liability. 99% of the time generators are turned on, verified as working correctly and essentially forgotten until it’s time to check fuel levels. Even the generators we used while in the military were only periodically checked. Most people place them a healthy distance from their house, in a nearby shed if possible, so fire or something else won’t take the house with it. Add in the fact that there is a high chance it’s cold enough to freeze spit in the air and you’re not likely to catch most people standing next to their generator.
ummm normally off gas solenoid on imput hooked up to the generator output…. done. If the gen shuts down so does the gas… too easy. Of course you could do way better maybe using an Arduino to monitor when the mains fails or recovers and then start/run or shut down and do a switch over with appropriate delays and texts etc. It can all be done but yeah far better todo this ahead of time and have it well tested and not relying on the last Costco gen etc.
On a slightly less dangerous note, I’d be interested in having a generator run on home heating oil.
I live in an area where that’s the primary heating fuel.
I have a diesel generator, one of those light towers you see along road work areas, which I bought at auction many years ago, from which I removed the lights and added a 220V twist lock outlet (6000W). It will burn home heating oil (same as #2 diesel in US). It is tough to find a small diesel generator though…
A half dozen or so years back, all the Horror Freight/Princess Auto type places has small Kubota diesels, 7HP to 30HP which would have been great for remotoring generators with but they seem to have all but disappeared now.
You can still find Chinese clones of those online.
I guess the VW diesel thing few years back made the average insufficiently informed person think “diesel=bad, except for trucks and brodozers”
Heating oil is basically low grade diesel, just get a small diesel generator and it should just work. Extra points for adding heat exchangers to move the heat inside so you can use the generator as your primary heat source.
yesss and recover the engine heat…optionally, grids do fail in summer too.
That’s a pretty good idea.
DIY largish fuelcell anyone? quiet, produces heat, no sump oils to deal with….. just need a PEM membrane and then make an enclosure to cool it and provide oxygen etc. Did I mention it is silent?
Could grab a fuel cell from a used Mirai
but that would mace a car useless. Unless you are going to sell it for parts.
I don’t believe they have a fuelcell, pretty sure they need to be plugged in to charge up. Maybe you mean the battery pack?
I know this sounds stupid, but couldn’t you just put a thermocouple in front of the exhaust port to control the gas flow – just like a water heater or a furnace? You would only need to heat it to get the gas flowing, and if the engine died it would shut the gas off automatically. I mean don’t fire places use that? Seems pretty simple, I suppose if you are going to chance a trip to the burn ward or the morgue it would be better than nothing.
Of course, was also my first thought. But here it is even more easy, as already many people suggested: Use a solenoid valve operated from the output of the generator.
http://www.totem.energy/en/
Thre’s a properly engineered solution.
Conversion kits for car to run on CNG or LPG are available. Modern Euro 5/6 engines have a combined ECU that is aware of methane, so the engine could start on methane. Older carburettor engines had to start on petrol, they also had a choke, so no big problem.
Car kits have a method to sense that the engine is running or not, and then have a couple of electrovalves to shut off the gas. The fuel pump is normally used, and newer models are listening on the CAN bus.
(Cheap) generators probably do not have much of an ECU or CAN bus.
And now you invent the next great hack. Congratulations.
Next hack, running the generator from aluminium foil and drain cleaner. Technically possible. Possibly just as dangerous, [ read fun ]. :D
Pretty sure an accidental version of this is how the generators on Deepwater Horizon overspeeded and broke. The fumes were fueling them through the air intake.
Yes it is. From a blowout, flammable gasses entered the air intake on diesel engines on the drilling floor and they over revved in a runaway and exploded. Even if the engines weren’t involved, with the fast blowout, it would have been possible it would have been ignited as the PAGA was partially disabled, the operators couldn’t act soon enough to shut the Christmas tree and the backup ESD valves on the ocean floor wellheads failed.
You need to take this link down. There is a proper way to contextualize that you are doing something dangerous but is an interesting proof of concept, and then there is this dingus who is advocating doing something dangerous. I am no safety hardliner, but you should not give prominence to outright foolishness.
Hackaday, why did my comment get deleted?
(Was it something I said??)
Natural Gas is lighter than air. Propane is heavier. Remember that when choosing a location to experiment so that leaks don’t accumulate to within the upper and lower explosive limit (mixture ratio with air in order to support combustion).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fuerdi-Dual-Fuel-Carburetor-with-Manual-Choke-LPG-CNG-Conversion-KIT-for-Gasolin-/124432928209?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292
Worried about the generator stalling and unburnt gas building-up?
Just tee the gas hose, you put one branch into the inlet of the generator and light the end of the other branch. Any surplus gas will eventually be consumed in a huge fireball and the enormous bang will let you know you need to restart the generator.
I think old-school LPG conversions used a plate in the inlet airflow to meter gas and shut-off the gas when idling. I guess you could use a solenoid powered from the generator output to switch it off too.
Like most preparedness, the time to do this, “hack,” is to do the hack before you need it, and to do it safely. I don’t have this exact model Harbor Freight Predator generator, however inverter generators similar to it have overload shut-down which kills the engine. With the approach shown, if the unit is left unsupervised and it stalls or trips it’s overload, the. Your left with potentially explosive gas in the area. The answer is to get a proper propane or natural gas conversion kit with plumbing and a proper regulator – they’re available for many popular brands. Or even better, if you don’t already have an emergency generator, shop for a dual fuel generator that comes set up from the manufacturer.
Grammar fix: …, you’re left with …
What about all of the propane and natural gas generators in use by millions of people right now? Look up generac generators.
This dangerous hack makes no sense. Why would anyone with a generator wait for an emergency before being prepared to use nat gas or propane? Nat gas and propane are considerable different BTU content. Conversion kits are about $200 bucks and come with a very important regulator that stops gas flow if the generator engine stops. If you follow this hack, someone must be next to gas valve to regulate gas flow as electric load modulates or stops. Ventilation requirements are different, e.g. propane gas is heavier than air. My conversion uses quick disconnects and rolls out of garage into the backyard.
From Stanson (March 4, 2021 at 1:11 am), above —
“…PS: Since HAD have a “narrative” censorship anyway, i see no sane reasons why safety trolls shouldn’t be banned here.”
What is i”…narrative censorship…”, and how does HAD use it?
Where do I get one?!
First off on feed line it should be a gas valve not a water valve
Why couldn’t you take the regulator off your scuba tank and attach the hose to the l.p. or ng source and put the mouthpiece at the throat of the carb with it covering just enough to get the right air fuel mixture. The scuba valve is an ambient pressure demand valve so the engine would draw what it needed and if it wasn’t drawing at all the valve would be closed. So if you are in your boat and out of gassoline and your engine is blown and the battery is dead, but you have a generator and l.p. gas and your scuba gear, would this work to get your radio going. If the motor was just out of fuel. You wouldn’t need the generator cause you could just put the regulator to the engine and power the radio to call for help. Wait you wouldn’t need the radio because you could just motor back to port. Nope non of this will work because it’s not Coast Guard Approved.
I bought a modded Honda Generator from a place in Maine. It shipped with a regulator and runs on Propane, natural gas or Gasoline. They no longer sell due to epa regs. I have usedultiple times for extended period hooked to house gas. Top notch performance.
I’m a gasfitter
This is extremely dangerous and should be deleted
This can and is possible to work but you need to pump raw gas into the engine before it will start
Potentially causing an explosion
Propane is heavier then air and will stay in holes and basements untill you suck it out of there
Natural gas floats away but it will stay in the ceiling of houses and closed up rooms and sheds causing an explosive condition (bomb)
Gas appliances have several safety devices on them to keep us safe and you are recommending people to bypass and cause absolutely dangerous condition deadly conditions you should be liable for 100% of the damages caused by this
This is absolutely deadly advice…… Never do this
You would be safer cutting off the gas main and just lighting the gas dumping out of it ….. Seriously that’s probably safer then trying to rig a generator
It’s running out of doors or in an airy shed. That’s why you have a 20 ft heavy duty extension cord with a plug that can plug into both the generator and the outside outlet. First open your main breaker. Shut off all nonessential breakers. Operate each appliance and your gas furnace when needed by turning on the appropriate breaker. Surviving a electrical grid shut down can be fun… Our sons friends all arrived, cuz we had power, water, propane, and even dial up internet during the great grid loss in NE USA and Canada. 3 days without electricity. No gasoline stations no coffee shops, no ATMs, no grocery stores. No cable TV. We watched silly Politicians trying to points with the majority of the public who didn’t have any TV. No cell phone after 14 hours. No cordless phones. Dial up in the countryside lasted 2.5 days.