Bought a couple of surplus generators

[hiddentacocatneddih]

My buddy scored one a few years ago. Looked good except the main contactor was stole from it. Then it had a few minor electrical bugs

I figure itll sit and rot before he needs it. even thru the big ice storms the last couple years, we never lost power

 

[Number15]

How many watts are they? What do they run on? Look very cool.

5000w at a PF of .8. Run on diesel

5K Diesel

Prepper and surplus sites out there have them listed at $3500 and up without the trailers which is a stupid high price for such a low output.

Curious what kind of low bid won though.

I'd argue that they are not that low in output. 5K will run a lot of stuff, especially these. They are rated at a PF of .8 so true capacity is higher. We humans tend to want to oversize everything "more is better" and I frequently do that myself. The only thing that would really crush this is electric resistive loads and huge surge loads. Like AC over 5 tons if not inverter style.

My AC is inverter type and my power usage at any given time is less than 5K so these would work, but I am on the hunt for a 10k.

Sizing the load is important on these gens, if run excessively at low load they will wet stack. Military gens are not for everyone for sure, but are a solid choice for those that know what they are getting into.

I would have bid on them also if not just for the running gear, it sounds good. Seems like a low output for such a size machine tho............Mike

I got lucky with these but the engine is pretty easy to work on and parts are available on the civilian market. They are the Lister Petter LPW2. The Generators are extremely overbuilt and the sound suppression adds a lot to the weight/size.

Are they 3 phase? Most surplus gens are 3 phase and some can be goofy voltages.

1 and 3 phase. Most military gens above 15K are 3 phase only. The voltages are not goofy but you have to watch out for the frequency. Some of them are 400 hertz and there is no way to convert them to 60.

I wouldn't mind having one opf those. What site do you guys use?

www.govplanet.com

 

[Joel/ak]

I'd like one and mount a welder on it for at the property.

As for wet stacking, your not joking. Once a month we had to put our ground power units on the load bank and run them at full capacity. Airport job.

Those duetz engines would smoke out the area until they finally cleared their throats, so to speak.

 

[nyone]

I have had a 802 for about 7yrs now. I was buying 2-3x at a time when another website has them listed. I had a 3hr 802 that was so clean you could eat off it at one time. I didnt pay more than $1500 for any of them and they needed only batteries.

My 802 has 250hrs non reset. It's a great unit. They burn less fuel than a honda eu2000 per KW. Generaly my house in 24hrs will burn 0.35gal/hr...and theres no carb to clean.

 

[Williy]

With the tests they been running we may
be using JP8 for fuel in our tractors, trucks
etc as it puts out less NOx and particulates

willy

Don't ask my name is Schultz!

 

[Thomas]

Win Win.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Are they 3 phase? Most surplus gens are 3 phase and some can be goofy voltages.

Some are for powering aircraft. Those are useless.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I have a 60,000 watt here with less than 8 hrs on it. Allis Chalmers six cylinder. I would like to sell it. 5 k sounds fair. I'm thinking this one does single and three phase. If the oilfield was still rocking I'd keep it.

I have a 25,000 watt pto generator that was run along with it for the same 8 hrs. I figure 2500 for it.

One day the power was off 4 hrs at the farm and another day 3 hrs. Now we have 125, 000 watt generator on each set of two houses. We kept the two old generators just in case until we bought real ones with automatic transfer switches. Comes on and runs once a week. Calls your cell phone if any trouble.

 

[nyone]

Some are for powering aircraft. Those are useless.

Most are 3ph. The mep802 and 803 are 240v 1ph and switchable to 3ph. The useless ones are 400hz and only really share a engine with these 802/3 models.

 

[Bob Rooks]

Some of them are 400 Hz, otherwise identical. I think you got lucky for a quiet genset (depending on what your "low" bid was).