Originally Posted by
Darryl MacDonald
The older Cub Cadet riding mowers used a starter generator on them. They had a pretty neat little mechanism on the camshaft that would open the exhaust a bit at cranking speed for a compression release. When the RPM got over about 50, centrifical force would let the mechanism retract and the exhaust valve would operate normally. The output of the generator wasn't much over about 25-30 amps at full throttle and you had to have a voltage regulator with it. It would keep the small mower battery charged quite well. Not sure if the starter mode would have enough oomph to push even a low compression A/C motor past the compression stroke or not. If it would turn it over, you'd have a pretty good set up if you aren't running a full IFR radio stack with strobes, rotating beacon, etc.:)