in 2017 I built a small 200 watt DC generator powered by an Echo GT-1000 string trimmer engine. Here is the playlist for that.
If you don't want to watch the whole thing you can watch a wrap up video here:
The biggest problem was that it did not have a governor and so is mostly useless. I could have made one with an arduino or something like that, but I kind of think that's like using a cray to balance your check book. Gensets were out of the question as being too expensive and way to big.
Recently I found a device called the Pololu Micro Maestro 6 It can control 6 servos or any combination of 6 buttons, sensors, and/or POT's.
Here is the full build:
The most difficult part of this was the script. The script language is basically Fourth. I will provide a more detailed explanation of the program at a later date.
This is the most current script that works:
100 #this does nothing
top:
8800 0 servo # Move servo to middle position
begin
button # is button on or off
if #on proceed with program
too_low # Check if throttle is too low
100 delay
too_high # check if throttle is too high
else #off keep checking for on and reset the servo if it was moved.
goto top
endif
repeat
sub too_low
5 get_position 750 less_than #check the voltage is it below X
if 0 get_position minus 10#if voltage is too low get position of servo and subtract 100
over # not sure how this helps
negate
0 servo # move the servo to the new position
10 delay # wait
else #if voltage is fine do nothing
goto skip
endif
swap # not sure why but the program won't
drop # work without these commands
skip:
return
sub too_high
5 get_position 900 greater_than #check the voltage is it above X
if 0 get_position plus 10 #if voltage is too high get position of servo and add 100
over # not sure how this helps
0 servo #move servo to new position
10 delay #wait
else #if voltage is fine do nothing
goto skip2
endif
swap # not sure why but the program won't
drop # work without these commands
skip2:
return
sub button
2 get_position 500 less_than
return
-----------------------------
this video has the explanation of the script above
Bonus video
