Nice display. I love these old light plants! I have a model 1250 in good running shape. I even have a toaster. I even managed to source some 32v bulbs and I display it with some vintage light fixtures. I also have a few flywheel engines and maytags. Even an upright
Very Cool and so awesome to see these things are still running and producing electricity after a century plus now! This is when we as humans built things with pride and made to last the test of time!
My grandfater started working on farm light plants with his unckle around 1900 or earlyer - back then kids were learning a trade at very young ages - In my area farmers started having light plants around 1890 or so - i live in the rural south - Many know about delco light plant generators today - few know about are the batterys - Today deep cycle and automorive batterys use a acid strength of 1.265 to 1.285 acid - The batterys used for rural or farm light plant house batterys down here often used batterys with a acid strength of 1.195 or 1.220 - so on our scale today when those house batterys were fully charged they would be concidered dead - With the weaker acid of 1.220 there was a capacity loss of about 30% and with a acid strength of 1.195 there was a 40% capacity loss of power - Acid strength was normaly judged by the lowest and highest temperure the batterys were used in - 1.220 batterys would freeze at minus 17°F and 1.195 would freeze at 0° F - The standard that delco exide batterys came with were 1.220 acid strength - If the generator and batterys were sized correctly - during winter in the northern part of the country you would have to charge the battery every friday all day once a week - with a single 850 watt generator - Up north most had a 7000 watt battery bank - Down here in the deep south many had a 21000 watt battery bank and two generators instead of one generator - Down here during the summer window fans and ceiling fans run constantly also the motors on fridges and freezer ran a lot when its 95 to 100° in summer so instead of having 16 or 17 cells they would had 48 to 51 exide or gould cells - Delco generators with batterys with a set of 16 cells at a strength 1.220 were designed to be charged once a week in winter an twice a week in summer had a expected life cycle of at least 40 yrs - There were other companys in the mid 20s that sold direct fuel injection oil engines and battery banks with life expectancys of 60 to 70 yrs - Batterys with 1.220 acid strength and 1.195 acid strength last much longer in cycle serves compared to deep cycle batterys sold today - The delco generators were expected to last about 40 yrs or 45000 + hours of run time - There effecency was around 8:1 that means one gallon of kerosene generate 8000 watts of power - A delco plant could generate power at 1 cent a kw back then when city people were paying 30 cents a kw for power - to adjust those nummbers for inflation just multiply them by 120 - Batterys with weaker acid do not easly sulfate also plate dont flake, swell or rot - there is just about no termanal corrosion and they dont use much water - Few know all this today - I have a set of 26 golf cart batterys with the acid adjusted to 1.220 strength - I just use them when huricanes and ice storms pass over - sence i only cycle them when the power is knocked out - they will be here when im dead and gome - Down here many used 1.195 acid - instead of having 16 cell racks they often used 17 to 18 cell banks to bring the voltage back to 32 volts - Also many used belt drive direct crude oil injection engines - most ran at 400 rpms and had a fuel effecency of 17:1 - thats 17 kws to one gallon of crude burned - This info can be searched out on the net - there waa a lot of data collected from 1880 to about 1940 on farm and rural farm light plants -
Super cool! I didn't know these ran on kerosene too!! I have a very oddball version of one of these that seems to produce 110V AC in addition to the typical 32VDC. I recently got the engine running, now I have to go through the generator end and a couple of other things too. Can't wait to see it making power!! ;)
Many of them were started on gasoline once the engine warmed up running on gasoline - the fuel was switched over to kerosene - As the kerosene filled the carburator the engine would start running ruff - at that point they closed in the needle valve on the carburator till the engine ran smooth - The first reason for running a engine on kerosene was it was a lot safer than gasoline - Insurance companies would not insure a house with a gasoline generator in a basement or barn on less the engine ran on kerosene - - The other was kerosene was far cheaper than gasoline - also it was 25% more fuel efficient than gasoline - Another was the engine would run a far long duration with out having to pull the head and re-lap the valves in - the other is the rings and valve & valve guides lasted much longer when running on kerosene - I live in hurricane alley in the deep South in a rural area - REA did not finish running power lines out here till the early 1959s - For those with power in there house they had rather a 6 volt farm light plant, those were called junior light plants - most had 32 volt light plants that had electricity down here before REA - Just about all generators ran on kerosene - With the 6 volt junior light plants many of those had the 1/2 HP Delco 2 cycle generator they generated 150 watts or so, they started on gasoline and ran on kerosene or #0 or #1 diesel also -
Today living off grid is a novelty - Up till after WW2 very few that lived in rural America had grid power - also in citys many could not aford to have electricity in there homes - Im from a very long line of writers and publishers and a long line of early power generation and radio communication tecks and engineers - In my case i spent my yrs working as a SCR electrician in the offshore oilfields - As a young child i found power generation interesting - Delco light plants were first marketed in 1916 : compared to other rural light plants of the time delco light plants were very inexpencive - also delco offered an entire line of 32 volt DC appliances - equal to any appliance sold in citys - At that time all citys had diffeent voltages and frequencys - there were no standard voltages - The french quarter in new orleans had 4 or 5 diffrent voltages up till after WW2 - Delco pretty much set the standard for the 32 volt farm and rural light plants - The rail road was using 32 volts in mail cars and pasanger cars along with rail road Depots - So C J Kettering designed the delco system in 1912 the yr my dad was born lol - he adopted the railroad voltage of 32 volts DC - Up till then farm light plants came in all kinds of voltages - there were 2,6,8,12,18,32,48,60,64,100,110 volt DC - systems - Kettering had it down to 32 or 110 volts DC - Also he came up with a entire line of 32 volt DC appliances - Also light plants that wore out could be used as a trade in for a factory upgrated remanufactured light plant from delco - They quit manufacturing in 1947 but you could still get a remafacured light plant up till the 1970s - also exide and gould still sold replacement lead plates for cells - Appliances like electric motors, fans, motor generators inverters were also remanufactured with the same warrenty of a new one - Delco also had a junior line of 6 and 12 volts - the house batterys i saw as a kid were huge 6 or 8 volt batterys about the size or weight of 4 golf cart batterys - they were sold at the sears catalog store in town - i still remember seeing them as a kid - Those 6 aand 12 volt houses had a two cycle engines that drove a 150 watt generator - They sold 6 volt light bulbs, fans, and radios that ran on them - The 6 volt light bulbs came in 5,15,25,& 50 watts the 12 volt lights also came in 75 &100 watt bulbs - I remember seeing farm light bulbs in drugstors in towns and seeing the diffeent GE and westinghouse light bulbs sold up till about 1970 or so - there were some that had never switched to REA power in the 70s because grid power was expencive out here - For those with 6 or 12 volt houses they used keeoseen fridges and freezer - in Europe mary writers wrote about how many rural and farm homes ran off batterys in the US. -
Nice display. I love these old light plants! I have a model 1250 in good running shape. I even have a toaster. I even managed to source some 32v bulbs and I display it with some vintage light fixtures. I also have a few flywheel engines and maytags. Even an upright
I almost couldn’t find this video again!!! So glad I did
Very Cool and so awesome to see these things are still running and producing electricity after a century plus now! This is when we as humans built things with pride and made to last the test of time!
Very nice 👍 Thanks for sharing
My grandfater started working on farm light plants with his unckle around 1900 or earlyer - back then kids were learning a trade at very young ages -
In my area farmers started having light plants around 1890 or so - i live in the rural south -
Many know about delco light plant generators today - few know about are the batterys -
Today deep cycle and automorive batterys use a acid strength of 1.265 to 1.285 acid -
The batterys used for rural or farm light plant house batterys down here often used batterys with a acid strength of 1.195 or 1.220 - so on our scale today when those house batterys were fully charged they would be concidered dead -
With the weaker acid of 1.220 there was a capacity loss of about 30% and with a acid strength of 1.195 there was a 40% capacity loss of power -
Acid strength was normaly judged by the lowest and highest temperure the batterys were used in -
1.220 batterys would freeze at minus 17°F and 1.195 would freeze at 0° F -
The standard that delco exide batterys came with were 1.220 acid strength -
If the generator and batterys were sized correctly - during winter in the northern part of the country you would have to charge the battery every friday all day once a week - with a single 850 watt generator -
Up north most had a 7000 watt battery bank -
Down here in the deep south many had a 21000 watt battery bank and two generators instead of one generator -
Down here during the summer window fans and ceiling fans run constantly also the motors on fridges and freezer ran a lot when its 95 to 100° in summer so instead of having 16 or 17 cells they would had 48 to 51 exide or gould cells -
Delco generators with batterys with a set of 16 cells at a strength 1.220 were designed to be charged once a week in winter an twice a week in summer had a expected life cycle of at least 40 yrs -
There were other companys in the mid 20s that sold direct fuel injection oil engines and battery banks with life expectancys of 60 to 70 yrs -
Batterys with 1.220 acid strength and 1.195 acid strength last much longer in cycle serves compared to deep cycle batterys sold today -
The delco generators were expected to last about 40 yrs or 45000 + hours of run time -
There effecency was around 8:1 that means one gallon of kerosene generate 8000 watts of power -
A delco plant could generate power at 1 cent a kw back then when city people were paying 30 cents a kw for power - to adjust those nummbers for inflation just multiply them by 120 -
Batterys with weaker acid do not easly sulfate also plate dont flake, swell or rot - there is just about no termanal corrosion and they dont use much water -
Few know all this today -
I have a set of 26 golf cart batterys with the acid adjusted to 1.220 strength -
I just use them when huricanes and ice storms pass over - sence i only cycle them when the power is knocked out - they will be here when im dead and gome -
Down here many used 1.195 acid - instead of having 16 cell racks they often used 17 to 18 cell banks to bring the voltage back to 32 volts -
Also many used belt drive direct crude oil injection engines - most ran at 400 rpms and had a fuel effecency of 17:1 - thats 17 kws to one gallon of crude burned -
This info can be searched out on the net - there waa a lot of data collected from 1880 to about 1940 on farm and rural farm light plants -
Very nice unit.
Found My soft spot
Super cool! I didn't know these ran on kerosene too!! I have a very oddball version of one of these that seems to produce 110V AC in addition to the typical 32VDC. I recently got the engine running, now I have to go through the generator end and a couple of other things too. Can't wait to see it making power!! ;)
Many of them were started on gasoline once the engine warmed up running on gasoline - the fuel was switched over to kerosene -
As the kerosene filled the carburator the engine would start running ruff - at that point they closed in the needle valve on the carburator till the engine ran smooth -
The first reason for running a engine on kerosene was it was a lot safer than gasoline -
Insurance companies would not insure a house with a gasoline generator in a basement or barn on less the engine ran on kerosene - - The other was kerosene was far cheaper than gasoline - also it was 25% more fuel efficient than gasoline -
Another was the engine would run a far long duration with out having to pull the head and re-lap the valves in - the other is the rings and valve & valve guides lasted much longer when running on kerosene -
I live in hurricane alley in the deep South in a rural area - REA did not finish running power lines out here till the early 1959s -
For those with power in there house they had rather a 6 volt farm light plant, those were called junior light plants - most had 32 volt light plants that had electricity down here before REA -
Just about all generators ran on kerosene -
With the 6 volt junior light plants many of those had the 1/2 HP Delco 2 cycle generator they generated 150 watts or so, they started on gasoline and ran on kerosene or #0 or #1 diesel also -
cool
Today living off grid is a novelty -
Up till after WW2 very few that lived in rural America had grid power - also in citys many could not aford to have electricity in there homes -
Im from a very long line of writers and publishers and a long line of early power generation and radio communication tecks and engineers -
In my case i spent my yrs working as a SCR electrician in the offshore oilfields -
As a young child i found power generation interesting - Delco light plants were first marketed in 1916 : compared to other rural light plants of the time delco light plants were very inexpencive - also delco offered an entire line of 32 volt DC appliances - equal to any appliance sold in citys -
At that time all citys had diffeent voltages and frequencys - there were no standard voltages -
The french quarter in new orleans had 4 or 5 diffrent voltages up till after WW2 -
Delco pretty much set the standard for the 32 volt farm and rural light plants -
The rail road was using 32 volts in mail cars and pasanger cars along with rail road Depots -
So C J Kettering designed the delco system in 1912 the yr my dad was born lol - he adopted the railroad voltage of 32 volts DC -
Up till then farm light plants came in all kinds of voltages - there were 2,6,8,12,18,32,48,60,64,100,110 volt DC - systems - Kettering had it down to 32 or 110 volts DC -
Also he came up with a entire line of 32 volt DC appliances -
Also light plants that wore out could be used as a trade in for a factory upgrated remanufactured light plant from delco -
They quit manufacturing in 1947 but you could still get a remafacured light plant up till the 1970s - also exide and gould still sold replacement lead plates for cells -
Appliances like electric motors, fans, motor generators inverters were also remanufactured with the same warrenty of a new one -
Delco also had a junior line of 6 and 12 volts - the house batterys i saw as a kid were huge 6 or 8 volt batterys about the size or weight of 4 golf cart batterys - they were sold at the sears catalog store in town - i still remember seeing them as a kid -
Those 6 aand 12 volt houses had a two cycle engines that drove a 150 watt generator -
They sold 6 volt light bulbs, fans, and radios that ran on them -
The 6 volt light bulbs came in 5,15,25,& 50 watts the 12 volt lights also came in 75 &100 watt bulbs -
I remember seeing farm light bulbs in drugstors in towns and seeing the diffeent GE and westinghouse light bulbs sold up till about 1970 or so - there were some that had never switched to REA power in the 70s because grid power was expencive out here -
For those with 6 or 12 volt houses they used keeoseen fridges and freezer - in Europe mary writers wrote about how many rural and farm homes ran off batterys in the US. -
I saw your arm band and immediately knew it was from 22. Are y'all down there every year?
Yes, and were always set up in the same spot, easy to find, right along the road from the grandstand to the north village.
Perfect for a Tesla owner to use for charging their coal powered car with.