Hi all, Harbor Freight had a sale on their small gas engines so I just had to buy one and do something cool with one.
Decided to make a heavy duty fast battery charger to charge a pair of group 31 deep cycle lead acid batteries. The batteries are then used to power a pure sine 1500 watt inverter.
The alternator used is a common automotive used on older GM cars and pickups. It puts out near max amps at 2500 RPM so I got a oversize pulley from Summit to give the small engine some leverage. Works great and the small engine has no problem pulling the load.
I get real world 80 amps charge rate at reduced engine rpm of about 2500. Or I can run the engine up to full 3600 rpm for even more.
Takes about an hour to charge the pair of batteries from about 50 percent to 95 or so. Then the engine is shut off and the inverter takes power from the batteries. The testing I have done so far has the inverter running the refrigerator, some lights and a small TV for part of the time and the refrigerator for 12 hours.
It uses a fraction of the gas a full time generator world require and the total silence when the engine is off is very nice.
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