Small workshop generator

[woodieallen]

It depends on your power usage, but I get by with a 4kw inverter, a 420w solar panel, and a 24v 100ah Lifepo4 battery. I was using two 130ah lead acid batteries, but learned my lesson the hard way.
However, I don't spend all day out there

Jeepers....I just looked up the price of that battery ! You must be looking at what £1000? £1500? of kit there, John.

 

[John Brown]

Jeepers....I just looked up the price of that battery ! You must be looking at what £1000? £1500? of kit there, John.

Solar panel was about £170, IIRC, MPPT charger was about £80, inverter was £300 from FB marketplace, battery was £429. So about 1k. Makes no sense at all, financially.

 

[mike*]

Agreed on the no financial sense at all point. You can pay a lot more for an off the shelf unit. I keep trying to justify by saying it's only £50 / month over three years, no petrol, no noise, no fumes, lights the garage as well as powers tools and I can also use it on camping trips Not sure I've convinced myself yet, so keep running out the extension.

 

[John Brown]

My original two lead acid batteries cost me £75 each, so when they failed, and I stumped up £429 for the Lifepo4, you could say that was throwing good money after bad, but I have to say that it's like chalk and cheese, the useable capacity of lead acid is a fraction of the nominal capacity. So far, I'm very impressed with the Lifepo4.

 

[Trevor Molyneux]

Did the person advising you of this also tell you to empty your car each day ?


The key with 'utility' engines - two or four-stroke - is IMO to use E5. It's to do with the additives or lack of (not sure which way round). Not damp in the air unless over a very long period of time.

E5 and E10 petrol contains 5 and 10% ethanol respectively. Ethanol and water are fully miscible at all concentrations so the introduction of ethanol to petrol makes it hygroscopic (water absorbing) which pre-E5 and E10 were not. So, the more headspace you have in the tank the greater the amount of water vapour present and that will dissolve in the ethanol. The more ethanol present the greater the amount of water that can be dissolved before the predominantly hydrocarbon part limits it. If you are unlucky enough to get it saturated in water (cannot dissolve any further water) because of the hydrocarbon limitation, you could find it separates out when it cools leaving a hazy petrol and possibly liquid water on the bottom of the tank in the worst case scenario.
Addition of ethanol to petrol was a mistake in my opinion but it is not a problem on its own since atmospheric moisture can freely dissolve in ethanol so it is never going to drop out of solution. Burning ethanol produces less energy than burning hydrocarbons so you need more E5 and especially E10 petrol for the same output as pre-ethanol petrol. I don't remember the price coming down to account for the loss of energy we buy each time we fill up. If we use less electricity (energy) we pay less but not for petrol (also just energy).

 

[Chris Puttick]

Just a heads up
Petrol does not keep/stay fresh like it used to. I had a whole heap of problems
I was advised to only have as much as I use in a day.....
Petrol apparently absorbs water from damp air (dont ask me how)

BMW Motorrad sell an additive that helps keep petrol fresh (there's a lot of BMW bike owners max out at 1.5k a year and most of that in one summer trip, so BMW have plenty of experience of fuel being stored for a long time )

 

[woodieallen]

E5 and E10 petrol contains 5 and 10% ethanol respectively. Ethanol and water are fully miscible at all concentrations so the introduction of ethanol to petrol makes it hygroscopic (water absorbing) which pre-E5 and E10 were not. So, the more headspace you have in the tank the greater the amount of water vapour present and that will dissolve in the ethanol. The more ethanol present the greater the amount of water that can be dissolved before the predominantly hydrocarbon part limits it. If you are unlucky enough to get it saturated in water (cannot dissolve any further water) because of the hydrocarbon limitation, you could find it separates out when it cools leaving a hazy petrol and possibly liquid water on the bottom of the tank in the worst case scenario.
Addition of ethanol to petrol was a mistake in my opinion but it is not a problem on its own since atmospheric moisture can freely dissolve in ethanol so it is never going to drop out of solution. Burning ethanol produces less energy than burning hydrocarbons so you need more E5 and especially E10 petrol for the same output as pre-ethanol petrol. I don't remember the price coming down to account for the loss of energy we buy each time we fill up. If we use less electricity (energy) we pay less but not for petrol (also just energy).

Many thanks for the detailed description.

The OP stated that

Petrol does not keep/stay fresh like it used to. I had a whole heap of problems
I was advised to only have as much as I use in a day.....
Petrol apparently absorbs water from damp air (dont ask me how)

Your post explains why water is absorbed. However I think the question has to be 'by how much'. If it really mucks up engines if left in the tank for too long .....what is 'too long?' .....then surely we'd be forever topping up the petrol in our cars to minimise the amount of water vapour. In reality, I think it has more to do with the ethanol mucking up the seals in the carburetors on some engines. Ergo E5 = less ethanol which must be a good thing.

 

[Katomi woodsmith]

I was storing petrol for months or even a year,
Now I have 5 L max even that I have to change the filter due to water
On the plus side it’s only for the gen set not the car so a “breakdown” is more annoying than a serious problem

 

[imageel]

Many thanks for the detailed description.

The OP stated that

Petrol does not keep/stay fresh like it used to. I had a whole heap of problems
I was advised to only have as much as I use in a day.....
Petrol apparently absorbs water from damp air (dont ask me how)

Your post explains why water is absorbed. However I think the question has to be 'by how much'. If it really mucks up engines if left in the tank for too long .....what is 'too long?' .....then surely we'd be forever topping up the petrol in our cars to minimise the amount of water vapour. In reality, I think it has more to do with the ethanol mucking up the seals in the carburetors on some engines. Ergo E5 = less ethanol which must be a good thing.

I'm no chemist nor do I know much about the additives ethanol aside in regular fuel however... -
I've owned a Honda Izy lawnmower bought new maybe 10y ago and after a couple of winters it developed an issue whereby after warming up and coming off automatic choke the engine would constantly hunt, but still work.
My days of tinkering with engines are long past and I took it to a local lawn mower service place for repair and one week later picked it up after parting with >50% the cost of the original mower and it ran fine, until after the following winter...
The 'shop had fixed it by cooking the carburettor in a solvent filled ultrasonic bath and I deduce that these models are prone to blocked idle jets because they have such small ~160cc engines and are reasonably fuel efficient and hence the idle jets are tiny.
Some searches online show this is a common problem and usually resolved by thorough cleaning with carburettor cleaner and aided by the use of a fuel additive - Briggs & Stratton make a commonly available one, that diminishes the tendency of the ethanol to separate out of the fuel if left undisturbed for months..
Subsequently I have used this in the mower and have had no further carburation issues.

There are also lots of info on the web as to how to remove the ethanol from fuel, I deduce by owners of historic vehicles that cannot run on E10 fuel, bizarrely this is done by adding water to the fuel and agitating it since the ethanol has a greater affinity to water than petrol and will dissolve out into it.
Since water is denser than petrol it ends up at the bottom of the container, and some techniques use water soluble dyes to aid visually eye-balling the separated fraction.
Gawd knows what else is leached out in this process nor what affect this has on the octane of the residual fuel but it seems to be a popular pastime for some folk....
wrt solubility, E10 means 10% of the fuel is ethanol and ballpark petrol absorbs water at ~1% by volume....

 

[woodieallen]

I've been using Aspen fuel and it does seem to improve things albeit more expensive than DIY two-stroke mixture. I also use the other Aspen for the four stroke. I do recall reading about a cheaper alternative to Aspen. I tend to leave Aspen in over winter and use DIY mix during Summer when the equipment is more in use.

 

[Trevor Molyneux]

I'm no chemist nor do I know much about the additives ethanol aside in regular fuel however... -
I've owned a Honda Izy lawnmower bought new maybe 10y ago and after a couple of winters it developed an issue whereby after warming up and coming off automatic choke the engine would constantly hunt, but still work.
My days of tinkering with engines are long past and I took it to a local lawn mower service place for repair and one week later picked it up after parting with >50% the cost of the original mower and it ran fine, until after the following winter...
The 'shop had fixed it by cooking the carburettor in a solvent filled ultrasonic bath and I deduce that these models are prone to blocked idle jets because they have such small ~160cc engines and are reasonably fuel efficient and hence the idle jets are tiny.
Some searches online show this is a common problem and usually resolved by thorough cleaning with carburettor cleaner and aided by the use of a fuel additive - Briggs & Stratton make a commonly available one, that diminishes the tendency of the ethanol to separate out of the fuel if left undisturbed for months..
Subsequently I have used this in the mower and have had no further carburation issues.

There are also lots of info on the web as to how to remove the ethanol from fuel, I deduce by owners of historic vehicles that cannot run on E10 fuel, bizarrely this is done by adding water to the fuel and agitating it since the ethanol has a greater affinity to water than petrol and will dissolve out into it.
Since water is denser than petrol it ends up at the bottom of the container, and some techniques use water soluble dyes to aid visually eye-balling the separated fraction.
Gawd knows what else is leached out in this process nor what affect this has on the octane of the residual fuel but it seems to be a popular pastime for some folk....
wrt solubility, E10 means 10% of the fuel is ethanol and ballpark petrol absorbs water at ~1% by volume....

Dropping out the ethanol will reduce the octane number a little. Pure ethanol is 100 ON but behaves more like 109 ON when dissolved in petrol so 10% ethanol is about 15 ON higher than E10 petrol but only contributes 10% so it will be about 1.5 ON lower. It isn't linear so it won't be exact but that's roughly the impact. On E5 petrol the octane is about 10 lower than pure ethanol but only contributes 5% so the impact will be about a reduction of about 0.5 ON.
Other octane improvers were various ethers but they are not very soluble in water and were stopped years ago, so the water washing would make no difference.
The greatest risk is from the loss of proprietary additives used to keep the engine clean. As these are surfactants (detergents) they are readily soluble in water and would fall out in the water washing probably leaving both the water and petrol hazy; the petrol from entrained water stabilised by surfactant and the water by petrol also stabilised by surfactant. These surfactants are in very low concentrations so they will make a neglible contribution to the octane number.

 

[Katomi woodsmith]

Talking of carburettors
I find that the water in the tank it makes a rusty sludge that collects in the carb
Last time I had to strip down and re build the carb after cleaning

 

[Sideways]

A number of not really very old motorbikes have plastic tanks that get affected by the ethanol in modern e5 and worse e10 petrol. Vintage bikes had metal tanks but there was a widespread shift to plastic tanks long before ethanol fuels arrived and materials were reengineered to cope with them.
The effect is bad enough that tanks soften, distort, and can split.
On a bike that cost several thousand and for which there aren't any foolproof fixes, this must be extremely frustrating. It's all very well to process your own fuel or buy specialist non ethanol petrol, but on a bike you can't carry enough extra fuel to be useful and you can't buy the special stuff en route, so these have been badly impacted by the addition of ethanol.

 

[RonnieI]

I can recommend adding Seafoam to stored fuel. I use it for all my stored fuel, petrol and diesel and don't seem to have any problems with grotty carbs in mowers, motorbikes, generator, etc. I add a can to the car tank every now and again (couple of times a year) and get about an extra 2mpg average for a while until I add another.
I also use ZX1 in the oil on all my motorbike restorations and put that in most other engines now after a recommendation from Allen Milyard.

 

[Chubber]

In case it's not been said before, turn off the fuel **** to stop small I\C engines. Empties all the nooks and crannies.