I love finding small channels like this, truly a gem

Designing/building stuff with two separated components makes perfect sense! If either component of “direct coupled” equipment fails it invariably leads to total replacement! Nice work 👍

Gasoline engines mate well with 2-pole alternators to generate power at 3600 rpm. Diesel engines mate well with 4-pole alternators to generate at 1800 rpm.

thank you for sharing my two biggest beefs with your build is the small bolts and no washers and the 3,600 engine speed. i would not run anything at 3,600 but trade for a 4 pole head or pulley it down. been off grid 15 years and use a lambardini with a dc motor/generator via a solar charger. as backup.

I would make the actual mounting of the two main components on a solid substrate ( if weight were no issue, say a half inch steel plate.) with the required offsets added to perform any required alignment. Then I would use rubber isolation mounts to attach to the current welded square tube frame. Two things, the vibration harmonics you currently have will dramatically be reduced. Not 100 percent that’s for sure, but the longevity of all components will be drastically improved especially the lovejoy coupling. Make it more rigid and try to balance out as much tangent vibrations as realistically possible.

Nicely done! The voltage and engine RPM barely even blinked when you applied load. Should give you a long reliable service life

I have an old Onan generator from an RV. The original motor has seen better days, but when it runs it still pus out steady 120v. This video gives me great ideas for motor replacement, and my wife anxiety, lmfao.Great video. Stay safe.

Great build, the performance of the governor is amazing!

For the coupling I would use a car part called Guibo, or Hardy disc. (German ) It is placed in any car between the Gearbox and the Kardan, it is made of rubber and some short metal tubes. Its cheap.

AWESOME setup! Just what I was looking for :) I love how clean it looks, with no wires running all over the place, etc..

Nicely done. It’s noisy AF! Next project for me would have to be a sound isolation generator shed.

Looks good. I would say the next thing for it is designing an enclosure with decent sound dampening material and air ventilation in two halves for cooling, one for the engine and the other for gen head as it sounds incredibly loud on camera.

I'd be very tempted to use a belt over a love joy. Solves all the alignment challenges. Puts you into common parts that can be found most anywhere. Allows you to rotate the generator so the entire machine is operated from the same side. I'd probably fab it up with an automotive style spring tensioner so I never have to fuss with correct tension. Cool project. Not sure if the fuel consumption is significantly different than say a Honda or Subaru.

Wow I built something very similar, with a northern tool 4500 watt head, and the lovejoys for direct drive. I used old hockey pucks drilled out as vibration dampeners. I also got the electric starter for the engine, you still have to use the decompression lever to get it started.

I would like to do this during winter months, got plenty of engines and generators to work with Like the H design and coupler Keep us up to date Thanks 😊

Great job on the alignment! Especially considering the very tight tolerances. 👍

Wow, I am really impressed with the Prime mover. It started on the very first pull. Very Nice video

The coupling will hammer itself to death with the pulses of the engine vs the inertia of the generator. It wont last long, maybe 100 hours at best. Use vee belts with 200mm pulleys they will absorb the pulses and last.

If you had an 1,800 RPM 4 pole generator, you could run the engine at 1,800 RPM for longer life and lower noise.

Have you tried running on alternative fuels such as biodiesel, waste motor oil, fryer oil etc?

Nice work you can build a canopy around it with cooling fan to make it a bit quiet 🤫 that what I will do

The joint you would really benefit from, is the 'rubber plate universal', like Mercedes used on the driveshafts of their old 400-SEL class cars. The plate looks like a 'sidewall cutout' from a radial car tire, and can tolerate angles and mis-alignment, as well as quell a LOT of vibration (which is NOT good for electric motor bearings). Also, that 3,600 RPM on a diesel...OUCH! Lot to be said for 2,400-rpm and pulley drive ratios! That engine is clearly HUGE compared to the motor...and while the 3/5ths rule works with gas engines (3 hp electric motor requires a 5-hp gas engine to drive it), this is not usually the case with diesels, due to their increased torque range...you can almost go 1:1 ratio with diesels...so 4700 watt motor (6.3 hp) shouldn't take more than 6.5 diesel hp to drive it...in other words, you could downsize your diesel, or more-likely, upside your gen head. Lastly, you could go with a conventional air-compressor service 208v single phase motor...maybe 10-hp, and with a simple fuse box, rig up both 110v and 220v circuits with breakers...add in a belt to drive a 100-amp 12v alternator, and a starter circuit, and you've got an 'all-power' rig that could be lifted with an engine hoist, or set up with rollers to roll around, or even pallet pockets to lift it with a fork lift... Good start, but that 'metal union' is massive overkill for something this small...hope you don't come to regret it, due to it's precision and 'vibration transferrance'.

Some form of spring isolation is used even in the commercial portable generators. This should definitely have a cushy isolation spring between the metal frame and the ground.

Very cool. I’m currently researching make my own diesel gen for my rv. Came across this video which really peaks my interest and let’s me know it can be done. Subscribed. Thanks

In my view belt drive would be better because most vibration is torsional and transversally-mounted engine would have better vibration insulation

1800 RPM would have been a better generator speed. Some modern units use a DC generator into a pure sine wave inverter and the motor can slow down a lot at zero power draw.

How well would it work if it was belt driven with a little larger pully on the generator side so you could slow the rpm down on the engine ?

Great work! I would recommend some sort of inverter and battery buffer between your house. Many things in the house have goofy electronics that don't like generator sign wave. Had to replace the spark module in my gas stove because I was testing out the generator on the house.

Nice job, but if I used that generator on my block with its LOUD noise, my neighbors would go crazy - Any way to quiet it down ?

Why didn't you use the belt drive ? You could have run at a lower rpm and save fuel and not work the engine as hard the only reason I would use a diesel was longevity and at lower rpm it's less noisy

Hello, very impressive! I have been thinking of getting one of the 418cc diesels myself and making a combo air compressor plus generator. My question is, what sort of speed control did you employ to keep the output at 60Hz? One would think that the shop vac and chop saw would have slowed the engine down.

how does the motor deal with the fluctuating load ? I suggest putting slight out handles on one side and holes on the other to snap in removable wheels. You could build a box for sound insulation and put a couple cooling fans in for redundancy. How about a belt off the coupling to an a/c dompressor modified to for compressed air.

nice clean and neat build

#gwseymour imagine having a cabin in the woods and putting that little beast in a generator shed and having it wired to your cabin with either remote or push button start and having an in ground well and have it hooked to a battery bank and breaker box and have a water heater inside and have a 50-100gal fuel tank to hook up to the generator you'd have it made

Awesome build. Have you put a decibel meter on it to see how loud it is? I couldn't hear any of the other equipment over the sound of the generator. I have an off-grid property and would love to do something like this there but am concerned about the noise.

Have you run this many hours to verify the coupling and over speed operation?

Throw a firecracker in the tank and close the lid. Boom. Fixed. Lol. Thanks for sharing

This is the best small diesel generator build I have seen. I may build a 3.5kw version using a 5 HP version of the same type of engine (smaller displacement) that I already have purchased. Using a belt drive the frame would not have to be as ridged and could also allow for more compact unit if needed. Great job?

It would be interesting to see what it's brake specific fuel consumption is, and just how many kilowatt hours it can generate per gallon of diesel fuel. It should be much more efficient, than a commercially available gasoline generator of the same power rating.

Just the ability to operate your wells water pump with a generator that can run off fuel you can make, will be worth its weight in gold in an emergency or a shtf situation

This is identical to the one that Aurora Generators sells!

Very nice build, thanks for posting.

Those love joy couplings arent good steel it will fly apart on you if your gonna continue to use put a steel shroud around it so the shrapnel doesnt potentially injure someone And yes those lovejoy couplings have flown a part on alternator generator set ups theyre was a video here on youtube about that too

You might consider some kind of deflector to keep the engine heat off of the generator.

Thank you! I have been looking for a generator build that I can use on a skoolie (school bus turned motor home) So that the generator can run off the primary fuel tank. Do you think this would be able to fully power a motorhome? namely a desktop PC, Fridge and mini-split AC? I know it would be best for such an application to run with a belt instead, but am concerned about having enough output. Should I upgrade the parts?

Could you replace the gas motor on a complete generator with that diesel engine? Something I would want to do.

would that engine have the power to turn 2 of those generators?

Pretty neat

What are your thoughts on the same engine powering a Winco 7200 with the same load? Please. Fantastic job on this Sir!!!

hey if i cannot find alternator like that. is it possible to use tractor pto generator? you know . The generator that attached to rear of tractor.

Awesome video, upvoted and shared! 👍🏽👍🏾👍👍🏼👍🏿

Nice video! Could you post some info about the diesel engine? Where you bought it and such. And also, would a regular electric motor work in a build as such?

Can you make this auto start when the battery drops a certain voltage, or maybe remote start?

Can you link the generator and motor so we can get an idea of what the project will cost?

what is the wattage of the power head? I am very curious as to how it is working. We live remote in Alaska and this would be amazing to have to keep our batteries topped in winter.

What did you use to regulate engine speed to ensure the consistent 3,600 RPM to the generator?

Will this run on fryer oil? I was thinking you can use shims to line the shafts up. I'm a manufacturing tech. Thanks I appreciate educational videos like this.

Any idea of cost per kWh of power produced using diesel?

I want to know how long it will run under load on one gallon of fuel

I added cast iron wheels to my generator frame.

I think what people are asking is what is the THD of the generator's output. A great generator is less than 6%. Most generators are way over that. This means the power is not as clean as it could/should be which results in additional losses.

Kinda want to use an old car to power a pto generator. Is this possible?

Great now you can make your own bio diesel 😊

How compact is it? I’m curious to know what the weight is and how easily it can be moved around.

It has been a couple of years, how is this holding up? Also how well does it hold frequency with a few thousand watt load?

I wonder how well one of these would take to an rhb31 turbo and what kind of kw it could reliably put out. If it would be enough to run my house which uses 12.5 kw.

Wouldn't a steering shaft rag joint work as a engine/generator coupler?

I’m thinking I might make one my self I have a mep 016d and the generator side is bad so I might just couple it to a 5KW generator head. The MEP 016D uses a Yanmar engine pretty much the same engine you have right there except that’s a clone of one, I built a lot larger diesel generator with a Kabota D 1105, but my biggest struggle was The coupling, One day when I get back to it I think I’m gonna buy what’s called a torsional coupling.

I'm thinking of doing the belt or possibly chain thing. I have a 5000w with the 178f (l70 clone) engine and I have a spare 186fa (l100 clone) if I run it at 2700 and the generator at 3600 the torque on the output end of the drive should be the same as the smaller one running balls out

Not, such a big deal. I built a 14 kw 25 years ago using the Love Joy coupling system because they are very high grade products and offer the ability to couple different sized shafts (they aren't cheap). Used a car axle to build the frame on because it was both mobile and acted as a vibration damper.

I think not having wheels will make it harder to steal. They'd really have to sweat for it as it sits now.

How is your generator holding up? cool build,

really cool share bruh!!.. wonder if a harley twin cam motor and a 22 kw would be a good project?! just larger scale. larry

Nice job Seymour

very nice video, thanks for sharing.

Hi there love the build. I was thinking getting one of these engine to replace a worn out 23 horse gas engine. I have a 15kw generator. Won’t be heavy loads much, just a well pump to fill pressure vessel. Lights, internet and fridge. I wonder if the engine has enough torque to turn the generator?

I hope somebody knows the answer to this, the governor that is mentioned to maintain constant rpm/ frequency under load......Is this a feature built into the diesel engine, a feature provided by the generator head, or is there some other module you have to source in order to accomplish this?

hi, I would like to make a generator. I have a 4-stroke 3hp grass cutter engine available ..which electric motor do you recommend using? how many watts can I squeeze out?

You can run it at 3,000rpm and get 50hz and run pretty much everything and save some fuel, turn it up to 60hz for full power.

I bought a couple of these engines a couple of years ago and they've been sitting in the barn waiting for me to do something with them. This looks like what I had in mind for one of them. My question is, do these engines come with a governor?

Nice build, but... it's LOUD! I hope you don't have close neighbours or run it in a campsite or anchorage.

Have you thought of trying your steam turbine with this generator or would there not he enough power?

How long will it run on 1 litre of diesel?

How's this thing holding up a few years later?

I’d like to do something exactly like this, but use waste oil in it. Where in from we have more waste oil then we know what to do with. Perhaps cut it with some diesel and basically next to nothing cost for fuel, and sorta free electricity.

Can you please list a link to the generator head you used.

Why not a U-joint coupling?

Hello there, I just have a question: When you connect your generator to any load do you need to ground your neutral, and also, do you provide body earth? Thanks, and by the way you made a good generator

Hello! Can you please provide an update for the engine? I recently took mine apart, same make and model after running it with a gas and used engine oil mix, big no no for the injector. Also yours arrived in great shape compared to mine that UPS delivered, which has a bent pull cord, dented shaft. Cheers.

on wath thing can we find small diesel engine? here in europa its super rare to find small diesel usualy its 4 cyl 2 liter ... it could work as generator always at idle but its very unpractical to move XD

What a perfection

The problem is trying to find these small diesel generators with out going to amazon or ebay, local sources are better.

How did you mount that engine? Mine would dance all over….very smooth

I want to do this same build and try to make a diesel/electric golf cart

Based on my past experience….I’d go v belts based on diesel ‘s vibration ….way less challenging…

How much would you charge me but me an exact replica of this?

Source for engine & head?

Does it still run?

what size is the generator head?

If you had used belts and pulleys, how would have you done it?