Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

How much does a wire brush and some paint cost??

SR

Picked up a can of self-etching primer tonight, $25 CAD..... even that's gone up !

Rgds, D.

 

[5030]

Aluminum should stay clean looking, but at $1900 USD I'd be tempted to build something myself.... says the guy with more projects than time

If you get the new enclosure, please post up some pics !

Rgds, D.

We can do that. I thought about building one, I own a fab shop and work on front end loader buckets and excavator buckets but it would be a daunting task as the internals mount to the cabinet itself with the exception of the engine and generator head. The asking price is a bit steep bit compared to a new unit, it's cheap. I do need to confirm that all the required mounts are attached to the cabinet. Don't really want to be using my TIG to attach the peripherals.

Thinking abut it, really not all that bad considering what everything costs today.

 

[5030]

How much does a wire brush and some paint cost??

SR

Not much but the original sheet steel cabinet has serious cancer as it's getting Holy, like swiss cheese.

On the subject of hours, ours is 15 years old and the John Deere diesel engine might have 375 hours on it. Oil and filters get changed every fall anyway. I take the drain oil and recycle it in the lawnmowers. Usually, nice and clean.

 

[5030]

Fuel is a non issue with ours. It's plumbed into the 500 gallon diesel farm tank. Just need to keep that fueled. Last spring fill was just under 2 grand.

 

[swines]

30 - all electric house, big A/C tonnage, supporting a business/shop as well ? Just nosy , as a lot of folk seem to "get by" on 22k....

Rgds, D.

I have 200 Amp service to my house. I don't want to pick and choose what I'm going to use or not use - including 240 Vac power tools. I wanted a liquid-cooled generator that ran at 1800 rpm and not an air-cooled motor turning at 3600 rpm for lower noise while the generator was operating. That came down to 30kW or larger generators. So far this year, the power has been out where I live for a total of 11 hours. It's only going to get worse as the weather gets warmer. As my mother always said, "There's no kill like overkill..."

 

[5030]

Mine is out next to the shop (about 150 feet from the back deck and we cannot hear it so I had the electrician install a set of lights (where we can see them) to tell us if it's on standby power or on utility power or if it had failed for some reason. Works for us. The diesel Generac is very quiet. I tend to forget it's even there.

 

[3930dave]

We can do that. I thought about building one, I own a fab shop and work on front end loader buckets and excavator buckets but it would be a daunting task as the internals mount to the cabinet itself with the exception of the engine and generator head. The asking price is a bit steep bit compared to a new unit, it's cheap. I do need to confirm that all the required mounts are attached to the cabinet. Don't really want to be using my TIG to attach the peripherals.

Thinking abut it, really not all that bad considering what everything costs today.

Time (cabinets can be intricate), Materials, Effort..... you know it well. And... sometimes doing the Day Job stuff on your own things just isn't that attractive .

With the diesel, that must be fairly high capacity, so that cabinet price doesn't look as bad, compared to where the equivalent generator prices NOW.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I have 200 Amp service to my house. I don't want to pick and choose what I'm going to use or not use - including 240 Vac power tools. I wanted a liquid-cooled generator that ran at 1800 rpm and not an air-cooled motor turning at 3600 rpm for lower noise while the generator was operating. That came down to 30kW or larger generators. So far this year, the power has been out where I live for a total of 11 hours. It's only going to get worse as the weather gets warmer. As my mother always said, "There's no kill like overkill..."

Understood, now .

Wondering if the auto-test runs are Loaded, or Un-loaded ? We've wandered through this topic now and then (and, you could well be a certified diesel tech, so forgive redundant rambling....) , but some people have gotten into issues when "over-specing" systems, then underloading them, esp. diesels.

Grid-down "helps" that ^ issue, assuming household loads are significant, but I don't know what the industry norm is, concerning test-run Loads..... so I ask nosy questions like this on here, having a Saturday morning coffee......

Rgds, D.

 

[grsthegreat]

5030. I did not know aluminum cabinets were available with the real old air cooled units. Yoy say yours is 15 years old?

 

[swines]

Understood, now .

Wondering if the auto-test runs are Loaded, or Un-loaded ? We've wandered through this topic now and then (and, you could well be a certified diesel tech, so forgive redundant rambling....) , but some people have gotten into issues when "over-specing" systems, then underloading them, esp. diesels.

Grid-down "helps" that ^ issue, assuming household loads are significant, but I don't know what the industry norm is, concerning test-run Loads..... so I ask nosy questions like this on here, having a Saturday morning coffee......

Rgds, D.

The generator runs a self-diagnostic routine unloaded, meaning it does not activate the automatic transfer switch to the house load. The monitoring system on-board the generator does look at the unloaded voltage and frequency. As for loading the generator when it runs during a power outage, I have no idea what the average load is. I do, however, get nasty-grams in the mail from the power company telling me that my household uses xxx more power than the "average consumer." For the life of me, I have no idea why they care about how much power I use since they're selling it to me and make a profit from my usage. Must be all those parasitic loads from the myriad of LED status lights on appliances, power strips, LED nightlights, etc. --- or, their average consumer lives in a tent with only a single 100-watt incandescent lightbulb and a toaster as the load...