Generator on 100LL?

Does anyone have any experience with running 100LL in a generator?

I picked up a small and quiet (900 Watt) genny a week or so back for
Oshkosk, and am considering the fuel options for it once we get there.

The manual was of only minor help, mentioning a minimum of 87 Octane
"unleaded". Its the latter that worries me, since it specifically mentions
unleaded, although given the bad japanese translation of the rest of the
manual, I'm not sure how much attention I should really pay to it.

The long and the short of it is that it's basically a 2 stroke carburated
single cylinder - nothing fancy. I can't see the lead in 100LL causing much
of an issue beyond the occasional plug fouling from deposits, and the high
octane should be of no relevance either. Presumably 2-stroke oil will mix
just as hapilly with 100LL as it does with Mogas, so I don't see any issues
there either.

Once it's home I'll run a tank of mogas through it to clean up whatever may
be left of the 100LL.

Of course, if mogas is easilly available within a reasonable distance of the
GAC area, this may all be rather moot, as I'll hapilly use it instead.

And yes, before anyone mentions it, we are using it the absolute minimum
necessary..and not at all in the evenings or early mornings. 30 or 40
minutes per day to charge the electronics (Probably done when the camping
area is quietest through the peak daytime hours (to further minimize the
bother) is the plan. That aside, it's remarkably quiet anyways.

Opinions?

--
Regards, Mark.
http://www.oshawapilot.ca
Unmunge my email address to respond directly...

I didn't think so, but thought it was worth checking.

Come to think of it, they run the 100LL from the sample-jugs in the grass
maintenance equipment at my home airport with no ill effects.

Guess that more or less answers my own question.

--
Regards, Mark.
http://www.oshawapilot.ca
Unmunge my email address to respond directly...

"Mark Morissette" writes:

Does anyone have any experience with running 100LL in a generator?

I've run my tug on it exclusively for years. The engine is probably
about the same as your small generator.

As long as you don't have a catalytic converter on it I don't know
why lead would be a problem. Heck, without a catalytic some would
argue that it's *better* for your health to use leaded instead of
carcinogen-laden unleaded.

--kyler

"Kyler Laird" wrote in message
...
"Mark Morissette" writes:

Does anyone have any experience with running 100LL in a generator?

I've run my tug on it exclusively for years. The engine is probably
about the same as your small generator.

As long as you don't have a catalytic converter on it I don't know
why lead would be a problem. Heck, without a catalytic some would
argue that it's *better* for your health to use leaded instead of
carcinogen-laden unleaded.

The lead in the 100LL fuel will kill you just as miserably. That's why it
can't be transported through the nationwide fuel pipeline system, and why
oil from aircraft that fly on 100LL cannot be recycled like automotive oil,
for example.



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"Juan Jimenez" writes:



The lead in the 100LL fuel will kill you just as miserably. That's why it
can't be transported through the nationwide fuel pipeline system, and why
oil from aircraft that fly on 100LL cannot be recycled like automotive oil,
for example.

Horsefeathers.

I worked on a products pipeline eons ago...

Leaded gas was sent by pipeline for years. Still is, elsewhere.

100LL is not sent by pipeline because the quantities involved are
so tiny, they can't be economically carried. Plus, there's a testing
issue.

A products pipeline [vice crude] carries "tenders" -- a quantity of
Product B, pushing Product A ahead of it, and followed by Product
C. The only thing separating them is paperwork...

Separation ("a cut") is made by an operator at a sink in an isolated
shack with a running sample of the line output going into an
overflowing hydrometer. (This 'shack' is well within the NO SMOKING
zone...)

Each tender is (at a minimum...) say 2 hours long & more likely 10
hours. As long as the line is kept tight (i.e. under pressure as
its running..) the "interface mix" between A&B or B&C is quite small
AS COMPARED TO THE TENDER. But if the tender were 15 minutes worth,
then...

The fate of the interface mix (old term - 'slop') depends on the
two products. If you have premium gas as A, and regular as B; then
the operator cuts from the A tankage to B as soon as {s}she see the
color or specific gravity change. Other cuts are made mid-way...
[such as a regular gas [Sun] to regular gas [Shell] and such.

On some combinations, you cut to the slop tank ASAP, and only once
it's stable the new product, is it put into tank B. That's
oh JetA to gasoline.

The slop, inc. the sample sink drain, is slowly injected into #2
Fuel Oil as it arrives. It's refined to have a (say) 130F flashpoint,
and gets the slop injected as it's received, lowering the flash to
NLT 110F. [You have say 500 gallons of slop to mix in, and 500,000
gallons of #2 arriving... you can see why it works...]

With 100LL, there's no way you'll EVER have a viable tender size.
Take a small line, 6". I recall its rate was [click click] 21000
gallons an hour. Who want 50,000 gallons of 100LL today? Plus, with
no leaded {auto} regular around, the slop would all go into injection,
a PITA. [With gasoline, you'd always err by dumping better gas
[premium] into the regular...]

And there's no good way to test the tanked 100LL; you'd have to send
samples to a lab before releasing it, I bet. [The JetA was sequestered
until the lab gave the thumbs-up on 16 tests...but we shipped just
shy of half a million gallons a day of it...]

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

"David Lesher" wrote in message
...
"Juan Jimenez" writes:



The lead in the 100LL fuel will kill you just as miserably. That's why it
can't be transported through the nationwide fuel pipeline system, and why
oil from aircraft that fly on 100LL cannot be recycled like automotive
oil,
for example.

Horsefeathers.

My information comes from Ben Visser, of AeroShell/Shell Oil Products. He
has worked in fuels and lubricants for over 35 years, the last 20 of which
have been specifically in the aviation side of the company. He has chaired
the Committee and authored most of the SAE/Milspecs for aviation oils.

I wrote about this for Aero-News after attending one of his seminars at
Oskkosh. Because avgas has lead, it cannot be transported through normal
fuel pipelines. If that were to happen, the pipes would be contaminated with
lead and could not be used for other fuels. That leaves only two options,
rail or trucks, and both are significantly more expensive. In addition, the
additive used to add the lead content into the fuel is a known carcinogen
(and now only produced at a single plant in Great Britain). As far as oil is
concerned, the EPA has classified it as hazmat because of the lead content.
In 2004 it was estimated the cost of recycling a single gallon of recip
aviation oil was about $4 because of the lead content and its inability to
be mixed with other recip oils for recycling.



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"Juan Jimenez" writes:


The lead in the 100LL fuel will kill you just as miserably. That's why it
can't be transported through the nationwide fuel pipeline system, and why
oil from aircraft that fly on 100LL cannot be recycled like automotive
oil,
for example.

Horsefeathers.

My information comes from Ben Visser, of AeroShell/Shell Oil Products. He
has worked in fuels and lubricants for over 35 years, the last 20 of which
have been specifically in the aviation side of the company. He has chaired
the Committee and authored most of the SAE/Milspecs for aviation oils.

Well, I've been out of the business since 1981, but we used to carry
both leaded and unleaded gas on a daily basis. The only change I've
heard about since is, with no more leaded regular, you must cut to
slop far sooner and more often [fewer 'safe' cuts...]...

We did have a test for "lead in the unleaded" & worst case, the
unleaded would be mixed and sold as leaded regular. (Never heard of
it happening, but..)

Even then, there was no way Avgas was used in quantities that you
could pipeline it in. As I recall from hanging around CLE, they got
a {6000 gal max} 87/100 truck in from the refinery every two weeks
or so. For contrast, the JetA pipeline from our facility to theirs
moved just under 500,000 gallons a day.



--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

"David Lesher" wrote in message
...
"Juan Jimenez" writes:


The lead in the 100LL fuel will kill you just as miserably. That's why
it
can't be transported through the nationwide fuel pipeline system, and
why
oil from aircraft that fly on 100LL cannot be recycled like automotive
oil,
for example.

Horsefeathers.

My information comes from Ben Visser, of AeroShell/Shell Oil Products. He
has worked in fuels and lubricants for over 35 years, the last 20 of which
have been specifically in the aviation side of the company. He has chaired
the Committee and authored most of the SAE/Milspecs for aviation oils.

Well, I've been out of the business since 1981, but we used to carry
both leaded and unleaded gas on a daily basis. The only change I've
heard about since is, with no more leaded regular, you must cut to
slop far sooner and more often [fewer 'safe' cuts...]...

We did have a test for "lead in the unleaded" & worst case, the
unleaded would be mixed and sold as leaded regular. (Never heard of
it happening, but..)

Ah, there may lie the crux of the issue. There is no market for leaded
regular anymore, not in the automotive market.

Even then, there was no way Avgas was used in quantities that you
could pipeline it in. As I recall from hanging around CLE, they got
a {6000 gal max} 87/100 truck in from the refinery every two weeks
or so. For contrast, the JetA pipeline from our facility to theirs
moved just under 500,000 gallons a day.

They also burn the JetA a lot faster...



--
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Kyler Laird wrote:
"Mark Morissette" writes:

Does anyone have any experience with running 100LL in a generator?

What's the compression ratio of the generator engine? Generally if the
compression ratio is low and the combustion temperature isn't high
enough to activate the lead scavenging agent (ethylyne dibromide), you
will end up having metalic lead slush accumulating in the engine.

A while back someone did the calculation that a 40 gallon 100LL
contains enough metalic lead to form a lead ball with the diameter of a
quarter. Proper lead scavenging is a must in any engine burning 100LL.