Your last generator Maintenance Run
- Thread starter 3930dave
- Start date
- Views: 1139198
RalphVa
Super Member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2003
- Messages
- 7,902
- Location
- Charlottesville, VA, USA
- Tractor
- JD 2025R, previously Gravely 5650 & JD 4010 & JD 1025R
Called and got a computerized reply with an email that does not work. Tried faxing my request. No reply. Think I'll probably just have to get everything locally. At least I have the Wix and NAPA replacements for the oil and fuel filters. Assuming my JD Coolgard II will work for 6 years anyway. Why don't tractor manufacturers do 10 year coolant like is in all our SUV, car and pickups now?
5030
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 28,967
- Location
- SE Michigan in the middle of nowhere
- Tractor
- Kubota M9000 HDCC3 M9000 HDC
Getting time to purchase a new cabinet for my standby as the original one is getting rusty. I see Generac is now offering an aluminum enclosure for their earlier steel cabbed units. I'll have to gut the old cab and install everything in the new enclosure. 1900 for a new cab, but cheaper than a new unit.
TheMan419
Veteran Member
Thankfully only out for about 4 hours. I was at the gym when the power went out. Picked up a pizza for dinner on the way home since the oven/cook top is electric. Fired generator up around 7:30 and ran it for 2 hours before power came back on. Power company uses the Scotty method of estimating restoration time. Told us 11:30 and it was really 9:30.Water and ZZZZZ's ...... never good being short on either.
Here's hoping you won't be out long 419
Rgds, D.
Best guess is used a bit over a gallon of gas. That is pretty consistent with the consumption we have seen in longer outages. Between .5 and .7 gal per hour depending on load. If I knew a bad storm was coming I would have the tank full and all jerry cans full giving me about 22 gal of gas on hand. In a real cold snap the furnace runs a lot more than we think it does. So that would last me a couple days if needed. In a more moderate temperature many many days of use out of that fuel.
# years.... good question. One issue might be operating hours (vs. years) - commercial diesels tend to see high operating hours (loaded, and just idling) vs. what a typical light duty gas engine sees.
Hopefully that distributor you were trying is still in business, and just understaffed.....
Rgds, D.
Short outage.... that worked out well.
My big generator would use a similar amount, so I try and keep at least 22 gal on hand (not a fan of crowded gas stations, or long drives to same...). Years ago, I decided that all cans get fuel stabilizer, ALL the time.... cans are tagged, but Stabil etc buys me a little extra time, if I get lazy/sloppy about rotation......
.... I've cleaned carbs and changed floats over the years, but it's not a favourite pastime, and definitely not something I want to be doing during a major outage.....
Rgds, D.
Sawyer Rob
Super Member
How much does a wire brush and some paint cost??
SR
SR
5030
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 28,967
- Location
- SE Michigan in the middle of nowhere
- Tractor
- Kubota M9000 HDCC3 M9000 HDC
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.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.
Thinking abut it, really not all that bad considering what everything costs today.
5030
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 28,967
- Location
- SE Michigan in the middle of nowhere
- Tractor
- Kubota M9000 HDCC3 M9000 HDC
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
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 28,967
- Location
- SE Michigan in the middle of nowhere
- Tractor
- Kubota M9000 HDCC3 M9000 HDC
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.
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..."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.
5030
Rest in Peace
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 28,967
- Location
- SE Michigan in the middle of nowhere
- Tractor
- Kubota M9000 HDCC3 M9000 HDC
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.
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.
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
Super Star Member
5030. I did not know aluminum cabinets were available with the real old air cooled units. Yoy say yours is 15 years old?
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...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.
Here are some similar links:
