Anyone here have experience operating a Lister diesel generator?
Interested in learning more about them as an option to power my future shop.
Plan would be for power in the shop, LED lights,
some outlets for hand tools maybe a compressor.
Would also like to be able to power critical house circuits with it
in emergency conditions.
Best
DGDrls
Hope you are looking at at least 5-7 KW. Most of the listers I'm familiar with are smaller. Rob
One thing you can do to reduce power needed for lighting, is to look into building yourself some joule robber coils to power your LED lights. You can cut the power needed to run lights by 60% or more.
There is a big difference in quality between the original Listers and the current knock offs from India. I have heard horror stories about poor metallurgy, poor machining, etc on the clones.
Do you have photos on the genset? What size is the motor? DO you have a photo of the side decal on the side of the generator?
Thanks for the input so far,
Mometal77 no decisions yet, there is a place in Maine that carries them,
Central Maine Diesel.
scsmith42, I too have read similar stories,
I am interested in them due to their efficiency and simplicity to drive a generator for my needs.
DGDrls
Do a Google search or Listeroids (Lister knock offs made in India). There was some talk about the EPA banning them could not make Tier 1 ,2 ,3 ,4 ,...). I could be wrong though.
Al
CMD carries parts. I use them for parts for my 6-1 lister. The EPA shut down the importation of lister diesels. The big issue if you are talking about the 6-1 series is frequency regulation. They don't stay at 60Hz close enough for most but not everything. It's a joy to get one going mine is a 600 RPM unit and it just has the sweetest sound.
check out www.utterpower.com
also FF Member
SCHWEIZER
has a web site with his Powerhouse using a Lister
Look on craigslist,govt liquidations,hertz,united rental. I bought a few generators small and big from there. How many amps do you want to go? I found a few generators and waited and got a sweet deal on a 6cyl cummins brand new with a 134 kw for only 2500. Guy needed money. Fuel consumption and amps is the two things i would look into. Leds go to an rv store take photos of brand names of led lights which i just saw were 10 bucks a piece if not 20 here ugh...home depot t5 or t12 lights work a lot better but at 90 dollars for the fixture i believe. And it is worth it like looking into the sun. But online much cheaper when I oogled the company. I never got a load test on my generator but its 3 phase i use to run the welder and was going to use for carbon arc later on when i get a 440 miller set up and wanted the amps... Ebay a few yrs ago i got a 60 kw brushless mac n mac off a farmer in Arizona for 1700 had it shipped up for other uses... remind me i need to get telephone wire for my thomson and howe gov tomorrow....
Lister air cooled gen sets are VERY noisy. Excellent engines though. I would try and find a Kubota powered gen set.
I have 2 original Listers and 1 Listeroid.
Listeroid has hundreds of hours on it. Ran my whole house once for a little over a month. 4k maximum output on an ST-15 generator head.
Lister 1 is a 1948 model, runs but needs rebuilding.
Lister 2 is actually a Lister Petter air cooled that is now hooked up to the ST head direct driven with a chain coupler.
You can run your whole house but I recommend a Kill-A-Watt meter to plug in and watch the voltage. Be selective about what you're running at once. I became very familiar with my breaker box during that one month thing.
Things aren't as sensitive to changing hz and voltage as what you might think. The power supplies on the computers can handle anything from 50hz to 60hz and 100 volts to well over 240, if I remember right. At least on mine anyways.
Biggest things for me was the (then) electric hot water heater and the well pump (240 ft down). I never ran them at the same time.
I ran for 4 hours putting out around between 2k and 3k watts on one gallon of fuel.
Read Utterpower thoroughly for maintenance tips and follow it religiously. The engines will likely outlast you.
Any specific questions, just ask. :)