washers and generators

[Egon]

Golly, from the days of growing up off the grid, we have a washing machine that just has a hand crank on the top for agitator and another crank for the wringer. Absolutely no problems if the power goes out.

Water was no problem either. Hand operated sucker rod pump in the porch.:thumbsup:

 

[tommu56]

Interesting. One was an Onan BGE 4000W Emerald which I think was a pretty good unit.

same gen and a staber washer no problems for like 15 years
Staber Washer Model HXW2404 (White Cabinet)

it runs off my inverter or the gen and doesn't miss a beat

 

[Pete Judd]

On the boat, I have a 2500 watt Heart Interface inverter driven off 8 golf cart batteries, I use a 120 amp 8 hp water cooled diesel 12v generator to charge the batteries. and have a heat exchanger to heat the hot water from the waste heat. Only need to charge every couple of days. And I never let the batteries get below 50 percent. I am thinking of doing the same here at the house. The genset only uses about a pint of diesel an hour. And the power needs on the boat as well as here at the house can be very low.

 

[ultrarunner]

On the boat, I have a 2500 watt Heart Interface inverter driven off 8 golf cart batteries, I use a 120 amp 8 hp water cooled diesel 12v generator to charge the batteries. and have a heat exchanger to heat the hot water from the waste heat. Only need to charge every couple of days. And I never let the batteries get below 50 percent. I am thinking of doing the same here at the house. The genset only uses about a pint of diesel an hour. And the power needs on the boat as well as here at the house can be very low.

Are you running a northern lights unit?

 

[ultrarunner]

Golly, from the days of growing up off the grid, we have a washing machine that just has a hand crank on the top for agitator and another crank for the wringer. Absolutely no problems if the power goes out.

Water was no problem either. Hand operated sucker rod pump in the porch.:thumbsup:

I would have thought for certain you had a gasoline powered Maytag...

 

[Egon]

I would have thought for certain you had a gasoline powered Maytag...
QUOTE]


Later on we had gasoline powered washing machine but it wasn't a Maytag.


Yesterday I was at the Stan Reynolds museum in Wetaskawin for an old time farm exhibit. Seen a Maytag Washing machine there.:thumbsup:

Lots of goodies too. Old tractors, harvesting equipment, Steamers, ploughing with a twelve bottom, Thrashing machine in operation. Hey, I even thew a bundle on a hay rack. Still knew how to do it and place it on the rack!:thumbsup:

 

[Pete Judd]

Ultra, its a home built kabota 8 hp, coupled to a 120 amp Balmar marine alt. Built it a few years ago.

 

[masscity]

You guys got me thinking, the last time I used my generator I plugged my Samsung HD TV and my DVR to it and watched TV.

It's a high speed 4000/3500 Champion and the TV seemed to run fine.

Am I doing any damage to it?

 

[ayelvington]

You guys got me thinking, the last time I used my generator I plugged my Samsung HD TV and my DVR to it and watched TV.

It's a high speed 4000/3500 Champion and the TV seemed to run fine.

Am I doing any damage to it?

Probably not. They can run a bit warmer, but it it worked it was probably doing fine. It's just that some stuff can't take the noise, and some stuff doesn't even see it.

I have to shut down all of my PCs and take them off of their UPSs since the UPSs see the power distortion and switch to batteries. Beeping drives me nuts!

 

[ctbigman]

Arrow, Just trade in your Coleman for a HONDA EU6500is. It is an inverter and has "clean" energy to run computers and the delicate electronics that are in all the new appliances.

 

[hayden]

Isn't it ironic that inverters - the things that used to get blamed for all things bad in power systems - are now the preferred source for clean power? How things change.

Regardless, there has always been a strong tendency for people to blame electronic problems and failures on imaginary gremlins and gollywoggles inside electric wired. Rarely does anyone (me included) actually investigate enough to sort out what's really going on.

Personally, I've seen things that won't operate properly off a generator, but have never seen anything become damaged. All the stuff I've seen miss-operate on a generator has worked fine on an inverter, but I did see an old dewalt charger go up in smoke on an MSW inverter.

 

[thatguy]

Isn't it ironic that inverters - the things that used to get blamed for all things bad in power systems - are now the preferred source for clean power? How things change.

Regardless, there has always been a strong tendency for people to blame electronic problems and failures on imaginary gremlins and gollywoggles inside electric wired. Rarely does anyone (me included) actually investigate enough to sort out what's really going on.

Personally, I've seen things that won't operate properly off a generator, but have never seen anything become damaged. All the stuff I've seen miss-operate on a generator has worked fine on an inverter, but I did see an old dewalt charger go up in smoke on an MSW inverter.

I know of one personal situation that the generator caused damage to devices. About 4 yrs ago we were hunting/camping and had 2 campers running off a non-inverter generator.. Something happened with the generator and it burned up the power converters in both campers..

Besides a UPS, is there anything you could use to 'filter' power going to and high-dollar electronics? I reckon anything that was reasonably prices as well

Brian

 

[ayelvington]

Besides a UPS, is there anything you could use to 'filter' power going to and high-dollar electronics? I reckon anything that was reasonably prices as well

Brian

Brian, Filtering is a challenging task, and the only other option that I'm personally aware of is a harmonic-constant-voltage transformer. I have not seen one in over 20 years, but they do tend to smack the spikes and sags.

SOLA CONSTANT VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER 2KVA 120/240V OUTPUT | eBay

"Reasonable" is relative...

 

[kenmac]

Had a milwaukee battery powered drill with charger once. The batt charger wouldn't operate with the protable inverter (that I had) plugged into vehicle cig. lighter. I couldn't figure it out.I called the company and they told me that I would have to buy an inverter that produced a pure sine wave to operate the charger

 

[ultrarunner]

Had a milwaukee battery powered drill with charger once. The batt charger wouldn't operate with the protable inverter (that I had) plugged into vehicle cig. lighter. I couldn't figure it out.I called the company and they told me that I would have to buy an inverter that produced a pure sine wave to operate the charger

Same here with my Makita charger...

 

[kenmac]

Same here with my Makita charger...

That's good to know. I've got a makita cordless also. I hadn't tried to charge the drill bat. off my old inverter.

 

[ayelvington]

I recommend that anyone considering a new inverter check out Home Power magazine for affordable and reliable pure sine wave inverters (power-factor correcting too).

http://www.homepower.com

 

[RoyJackson]

You apparently have water and soap. What's wrong with a tub of water and some elbow grease?

Yeah...that's how we did it in boot camp...

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Yep, I ran my top loader washer off the generator and the dryer too. I got the fancy smancy new frontloaders and figured out real quick they wouldn't run. The washer worked but I thought better of it. The dryer drug so off it went quickly. I wish I had a clothes line, been after hubby to build one, we just don't know where we will put it.I wouldn't mind to have one of the old wringer washers, in the Lehmans catalog they are a $1000. ouch. They would be nice to wash throw rugs, tennis shoes, all that heavy stuff, blankets, but not for that much money.

We can use everything in the house on our genny but the W/D and the central air. We have a 7500 with a surge of 13500 and it even pulls the well pump ok. I think that is the size, I know that is the surge amount.