I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

All ideas and comments appreciated.

Ian

ian wrote:
I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

No problems with copper and sal****er; however, doubt you will be able
to get good enough heat transfer between copper tubing and generator
casing to make it worth the effort.

Lew

On Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:27:20 -0700, ian
wrote:

I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

All ideas and comments appreciated.

Ian

Certainly the concept is viable as some gen. set alternators are made
with water passages built in for sea water cooling and someone
advertises a cooler for a marine gear box that is simply a stainless
box that bolts against the side of the transmission and has sea water
pumped through it.

Home made marine air con heat exchangers are often made of plain
copper tubing and last quite a while, however they do corrode through
eventually. An alternate would be stainless tubing but that would
probably be difficult to wrap.

I would think that you are going to have to use at least 1/2" tubing
to absorb much heat which probably isn't going to be as easy to wrap
around the generator as perhaps you envision.

Last comment. Are you sure that you need to cool the generator?


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeatgmaildotcom)

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Ian,
BTDT, go find some cerrobend (sp?) to fill the tubing so it doesn't
flatten when you bend it.
I do not even vaguely remember the name of the high thermal conductivity
epoxy that we used to stick the copper to the generator frame.
Matt Colie

ian wrote:
I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

All ideas and comments appreciated.

Ian

On Jun 2, 4:27 pm, ian wrote:
I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

All ideas and comments appreciated.

Ian

A German fellow from WW2 (NAZI) showed me a trick that worked fairly
well for me. He pinched off one end of the copper tubing and filled
the soft copper with sand. Then pinched off the other end. Did all the
bending, then cut the ends that were pinched off with a tubing cutter.
Not one kink anywhere! No flattened tubing no matter how I twisted and
bent it. Drained the dry sand back out after bending. I had to twirl
it around, but I could have just blown it out with an air hose.
Stick with me Ian, You will be wearing rocks as big as diamonds. My
Dad used to say that.

On Jun 2, 6:07 pm, Matt Colie wrote:
Ian,
BTDT, go find some cerrobend (sp?) to fill the tubing so it doesn't
flatten when you bend it.
I do not even vaguely remember the name of the high thermal conductivity
epoxy that we used to stick the copper to the generator frame.
Matt Colie

ian wrote:
I am thinking of using plain old copper tubing (the type you get from
Home Depot) to cool the winding section of a a generator by wrapping a
few turns of the copper tubing around the casing and then pumping sea
water directly around the tubing. Can anyone advise whether this is
going to work? Obviously I don't mind if it gets an ugly blue colour
inside the tubing however I don't want to be loosing cooling
efficiency with time, or worse have the tubing leak. The reason I
don't want to use cuprous nickel is that it is much less malleable
than standard copper tubing and I would not be able to simply wrap it
around the casing.

All ideas and comments appreciated.

Ian

I have used dry beach sand and it works pretty good.

Over the years I've seen very little written about fuel economy in
boats. If anyone has good data I would like to see it. I am particularly
concerned with optimal speeds for planing hulls. Is it in the
displacement range? Or on the plane? Does it increase monotonically with
decreasing speed? Not in gallons per hour, but in miles per gallon. If
one has a twin screw boat, does fuel economy increase or decrease in
running only one prop? Is diesel always more economical than gas? And
anything else that bears on the problem.

Bob Swarts

On Jun 21, 7:24 am, R Swarts wrote:
Over the years I've seen very little written about fuel economy in
boats. If anyone has good data I would like to see it. I am particularly
concerned with optimal speeds for planing hulls. Is it in the
displacement range? Or on the plane? Does it increase monotonically with
decreasing speed? Not in gallons per hour, but in miles per gallon. If
one has a twin screw boat, does fuel economy increase or decrease in
running only one prop? Is diesel always more economical than gas? And
anything else that bears on the problem.

Bob Swarts

When I sold boats for Bayliner at Olympic Boat Center I was taught
that their hull was supposed to adjust itself to the most efficient
plane for the amount of throttle given to the prop. Sounded to me like
a bunch of sales talk.
I have crossed the Gulf of Alaska around 80 times in many types of
vessels and have found 8 knots to be the most economical speed to run.
I can monitor the day tank and measure gallons per day and nautical
miles covered.
Diesel is always more economical than gasoline all things being the
same. Load, distance, same boat etc.
Also, all the new fuel technology is for diesel engines, because
diesel engines can run on many different things. Rudolf Diesel even
tried to run coal dust, but he had too much trouble metering it and
injecting it. The diesel engine can even run on peanut oil. I haven't
tried it yet, but as soon as I buy an old diesel car I am going to try
it. You can buy vegatable oil from discount grocery stores cheaper
than Diesel fuel. I would like to see if it can be mixed! I have heard
that just adjusting the pump is the only modification required.

On Jun 21, 7:24 am, R Swarts wrote:
Over the years I've seen very little written about fuel economy in
boats. If anyone has good data I would like to see it. I am particularly
concerned with optimal speeds for planing hulls. Is it in the
displacement range? Or on the plane? Does it increase monotonically with
decreasing speed? Not in gallons per hour, but in miles per gallon. If
one has a twin screw boat, does fuel economy increase or decrease in
running only one prop? Is diesel always more economical than gas? And
anything else that bears on the problem.

Bob Swarts

The reason we measure boats in gallons per hour and not miles per
hour? Wind and current make miles per hour impractical. With the
current against you, the engine can be running at 6000 RPM for an hour
and you have only covered two miles. I have seen that in the Inside
Passage around the Fraiser River. Too big of a veriable there. RPM's
and fuel used can be realistically monitored.

tomdownard wrote:

On Jun 21, 7:24 am, R Swarts wrote:

Over the years I've seen very little written about fuel economy in
boats. If anyone has good data I would like to see it. I am particularly
concerned with optimal speeds for planing hulls. Is it in the
displacement range? Or on the plane? Does it increase monotonically with
decreasing speed? Not in gallons per hour, but in miles per gallon. If
one has a twin screw boat, does fuel economy increase or decrease in
running only one prop? Is diesel always more economical than gas? And
anything else that bears on the problem.

Bob Swarts


When I sold boats for Bayliner at Olympic Boat Center I was taught
that their hull was supposed to adjust itself to the most efficient
plane for the amount of throttle given to the prop. Sounded to me like
a bunch of sales talk.
I have crossed the Gulf of Alaska around 80 times in many types of
vessels and have found 8 knots to be the most economical speed to run.
I can monitor the day tank and measure gallons per day and nautical
miles covered.
Diesel is always more economical than gasoline all things being the
same. Load, distance, same boat etc.
Also, all the new fuel technology is for diesel engines, because
diesel engines can run on many different things. Rudolf Diesel even
tried to run coal dust, but he had too much trouble metering it and
injecting it. The diesel engine can even run on peanut oil. I haven't
tried it yet, but as soon as I buy an old diesel car I am going to try
it. You can buy vegatable oil from discount grocery stores cheaper
than Diesel fuel. I would like to see if it can be mixed! I have heard
that just adjusting the pump is the only modification required.


You can run a diesel on a mix of veggie and diesel. My dodge ram runs on
a mix of 70% veggie and 30% diesel in the summer.

Doesn't work well at any mix if the ambient temp is below 40 deg F.

But above that, mixes up to 70 percent work well.

I have more than 50K miles on mixes...

--
“TANSTAAFL”

__________________________________________________ __________________________

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3
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