Created Date: October 21,2013

Created by: MitchellRuiz

I'm getting ready to build something I 've had on my mind for years now. I wanted to post the details of my lastest project and see if any of the super smarts on here might be able to offer advice or find problem that I will need to work out before I even run into them

So the premise of my project is to provide a mobile power station consisting of 200 Ah of LiFePO4 batteries, 4.2kW of diesel driven generator power, roughly 1kW of solar panels and a 5kW of Pure Sine inverter.

The the motor I ordered is a 26 HP 4 Cylinder Liquid Cooled Diesel engine with electric start. Attached to the motor will be 3x 100 Amp belt driven alternators. The alternators will be clutched allowing easy disconnecting of each alternator from the motor for either starting or fault isolation. I was planning on having the onboard 45 amp alternator along with a deep cycle battery power the alternator clutches, starter and control system so that the system could be run without the primary battery bank if needed.

The primary battery pack is made of 2x 100Ah packs each consisting of 4x 3.2V LiFePO4 Prismatic cells, with Balancing PCM . They may be more expensive but they are extremely light and can take the high amp charging rate of the alternator and solar combined.

The solar is made up of 4x Trina Solar 245Watt panels wired to an Outback 80 Charge Controller. This can't provide the snap charge that the genpack can produce but it can help will cell balancing and and is plenty to keep up to 1kW of draw supplied with out drawing down the battery during the day.

the inverter is a only to provide power for very specific backup times such as power outages, or job sites where I need AC power and DC power just wont do. Most of my camping gear is 12VDC (Lights, powered coolers, heating blankets, fans) I could also see the AC being used to run a compressor. the other big item is an emergency start pack for larger diesel engines such as my truck or my friends when they leave their light on or leave something plugged in to the power out let af it kills their battery. The other main loads consist of a HF Ham radio. Work lights, small battery chargers....

Im going to be building this as an attachment to my camping trailer a 35 ' 5th Wheel for right now but I'm building a smaller 18 ' R-Pod like trailer for easier towing. When i go camping I often go to some very remote places for weeks at a time. Even some job sites are remote enough to warent the use of this. Along with the need for emergency power at home in times of crisis or storms that knock out the power.

I plan on controlling the entire thing with D0-06DD1-D PLC with a mix of analog input for every thing from voltage to amp draw, supply. along with some some A/O to control motor speed for load matching and cell balancing operations at the end of a charge cycle. I 've thought about using the 4 " HMI for control and monitoring of the system. again tied to a separate deep cell battery but combined with the engines built in charging system to allow it to operate separately from every thing else. The operation theory is that the motor would only start when it detects a high amp draw from the system, enough to warrant starting the motor. along with detecting lower pack voltage and starting and running to full speed to charge the pack back to strength. It would also take into account time of day and solar contribution to decided if it needs to start. For example if it 10am and the cell voltage is getting low but the solar is providing power and there is minimal draw the motor would not start. However if it was 6 in the after noon and the pack voltage was still not all the way up the motor would start and top off the batteries before dark as not to run at all through the night. Nothing is more annoying then generators running in the middle of the night when some one needs to heat up their trailer. By programing in No run times the system could be extremely efficient and produce minimal distribution. If it does run at night it can be throttled back to match the load and significantly reduce engine noise and fuel consumption. In a pure efficiency mode the generator could be run at its peak efficiency point of 2,600 RPMs producing 1/2 of the noise produce at full speed.

I'll have drawings one I get the parts and can fab up brackets and mounts. this version will have a hitch mount that will allow it to hook on the the 2 " receiver of a truck for easy transportation.

I would very much like any input on this project. All told its costing me about $10k but I 've calculated its run time on a constant 1kW load at about 24hours on 10 gallons of diesel in my mind this is a worst case as no load I have can maintain that much draw for more than a hour or so a day. So at a 250W draw the fuel would last for more than 16 days.

I'm also going to build a much smaller version using one alternator and a much smaller pull start motor as a start cart for around the shop and house along with a 3kW inverter and 2 deep cycle gelcel batteries .

You have got a real nice project to work on..Can you share some more details about the project and have you completed it successfully? Waiting for reply thanks in advance:)

Created Date: October 25,2013

Created by: dieseltwitch

Ironic that you would suggest that. One of the loads I put in my calc's to see how much power I would need was my FT-857D, amp and screwdriver ant! :)

I havent gotten as much done on this as I would like. I 've gotten most of the parts but need to do some cad work to get mount plates cut out, belts and pulley ordered.

I also need to build the skid, battery pack box, and electrical enclosures. Just havent had much time.

Im also building a much smaller, 5-10HP unit for long term field operations where weight is a factor.

Getting everything to work together smoothly will probably be your biggest challenge. Keeping things modular might save you a headache later since it makes it easier to fix any issues that pop up.

For the solar part, 1kW sounds solid for smaller daytime loads, but I’d check how the panels do with shading or if they need to be angled just right to hit max output. When I was looking into solar setups, I found solarsmart.ie pretty handy for ideas on getting the most out of panels and charge controllers.