Hi Everyone,
I am a senior in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, and I am working on a senior design project aimed at designing and building an autonomous surface vessel. The vessel itself is about six feet long and based on a personal fishing catamaran built by Hobie. We recently acquired a two-stroke, 10-horsepower gasoline motor from a manufacturer/retailer in China. I have included the link to the site from which the engine was purchased. It came with very little documentation, and we are struggling to get our heads around just what we need to do to get it running. It seems the retailer took parts from several different manufacturers to create the final product, and frankly it is rather confusing. I am hoping someone has encountered and/or used this engine, or at least something similar. Our end goal is to couple this engine to an alternator to generate power for two electric trolling motors, which will drive the vessel. We are in the process of developing software to control engine and alternator action, but for now we simply need to start the engine! The link below shows the hardware that came with the engine. We have the engine with starter motor, exhaust pipe, power supply box, and two starter boxes. It appears the “remote starter box” pictured on the website is missing, I will look into that ASAP. That looks to be a simple motor controller that needs to be connected to a remote control receiver, so I will see what I can gather on that tomorrow. Any assistance or guidance anyone could provide will be very, very much appreciated!

www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/50...ith-clutch.html

Best,

Alex

Please forgive me as I'm only a High School graduate and not too smart when it comes to electrical stuff but I see no reason why if you're only using an engine like that to power an alternator why you needed to buy something like this? I'd put this up there with overkill as an air-cooled engine would do the job quite well and at a much lower cost. I've got an idea that my $90.00 Harbor Freight generator would do the job. It'll run for 4 hours on a gallon of fuel at 50% power which is 800 watts/900 peak. I'm guessing that it could power one heck of a 12- or 24-volt charger nicely.

Hi Ronald,

There are a few reasons we went with this engine. The main reason is that the engine compartment needs to be as water-tight as possible, so a closed-loop liquid cooling system is easier to implement without having a large radiator or air vents penetrating the compartment. Secondly, the last generator system we had was an air-cooled four stroke Honda generator system you would buy at any hardware store, but it was far too heavy for the modest size of the boat. Either way, this is the engine we have for the job, so I need to find a way to make it work. I will look begin looking into other options though, in case the setup we have doesn't work. Thank you for your reply.

Best regards

looking at the pics, they have the carbs mounted on backwards!! the butterfly should be against the intake and the verturi side out!! Wow! If yours are mounted like this, thats one reason it wont start!!! Get some good pump gas, ethonal free, add 10oz of 2 stroke oil per gallon and it should fire right up!! Like Ron said this is over kill, to run an altinator all you needed was a single motor, not a twin! A 26cc Marine Zenoah water cooled is only $200 but, it will work with what you got too! Lol, still cant get over the carbs!!!lol

Carbs are fine BTW ... Those are WT series carbs with choke shafts like Zenoahs 644 series

Agree with what others are stating about 100CC engine powering alternators.
With only a tad over 10HP at 12,000 rpm that fuel guzzling monster will need to be spun up to get the HP and will be quite noisy doing so.

Honestly a more compact and lower displacent engine of 1/3 the weight IMO would be a better choice.

As too your inquire, This engine is NOT one I personally have ever seen or heard of ... so research and invest your money wisely.

Thank you all for your input. After spending some time over the last few months trying to get that engine working, I am beginning to think I should take the advice you all provided and go with a smaller engine. Soo.... Other discussions on the forum seem to suggest that Zenoah and RCMK are quality options for a reasonable price. If I were to choose between the two, for a single-cylinder engine that can put out ~6HP, is there a clear winner between those two or another company? Seems like this kind of power might only come from a tuned engine, so are there any dealers/retailers that do good mod/tuning work with short lead time? Want something as simple and reliable as possible, but will a mod job complicate things?

Thank you all in advance,

Alex

What would really help us help you is you spelling out in greater detail WHAT & HOW you need engine to power your project ?

2 stroke gas hobby engines seldom make much power as the RPM comes up from idle threw midrange speed only making it's peak HP typically in the 13-15K RPM range.

Those engines used in generators, water pumps and other VERY high load and lower rpm applications generally are 4 strokes and operate generally under 4000 rpm also making there rated power at those speeds.

OK so we are building an autonomous surface vessel using a Hobie personal fishing system, a simple catamaran design of approximately six feet in length. The vessel consists of two 12V Sevylor electric trolling motors for propulsion and maneuvering, two 12V lead-acid batteries, and an electronics enclosure housing computers and other control systems. The goal is to increase the vessel's time at sea beyond that allowed by only using batteries. Thus a generator system is needed to recharge the batteries while the vessel is underway. The original design employed a generic 24V Honda 4-stroke generator. However, the weight of the generator (~55lbs) essentially maxed out the payload on the vessel. Additionally the system was air-cooled, and generated quite a bit of heat, and efforts at developing a radiation system for the engine enclosure failed.

So the two main problems with the original design are: 1) Weight; 2) Cooling. The generator used was also the most compact and lightest we could find. To address these problems we set out to develop our own generator system using a lightweight, water-cooled two-stroke model boat engine. This would alleviate the two main problems, but has obviously given rise to many more.

Our plan is to run the two-stroke engine inside an engine enclosure, and to couple the engine's driveshaft via belt and wheel to an alternator to generate electricity. The system will be computer controlled, so that the generator will only run when needed. A sensor will monitor battery voltage, and when the voltage hits a critical point the engine will either start (if an electric starting mechanism is employed) or increase speed, and the alternator will engage and begin generating electricity. To deal with the high load applied by the alternator, the computer will throttle the engine up to a desired RPM before allowing the alternator to begin loading.

I hope this has clarified our goals, but please let me know how else I can help you help me. Thanks very much.

Regeneration into batteries takes time, Time running is FUEL BURNT .... Fuel is WEIGHT at about 8# per gallon.

2 stroke engines are GAS HOGS !!! and for what you need not the power source that is going to save weight when there fuel consumption is IMO at minimum 4X that of a 4 stroke with equal torque.
Torque is what you need for turning a generator and not high rpm HP

I would do a search ... HONDA once made a VERY SMALL compact inverter generator called the EX350, it was a 2 stroke but weighed if my memory is correct less than 15#
Even there newest inverter 1000 watt 4 stroke weighs less than 30#

* Really DO NOT think any of the engines you are looking at are what this project requires.