Generator Damage Electronics?

[Travelover]

I appreciate all the comments, I'm learning a lot. I got lazy during the 4 day outage and left everything on. I really should have turned off the well pump and only run it occasionally to recharge the system, between furnace cycles.

I'm also looking at a slightly larger Honda generator that I found on Craigslist. The Coleman generator that I have has minimal voltage regulation and they may have exaggerated its rated output.

Those APC UPS systems aren't all that expensive. How many watts would be necessary for a typical desktop and printer setup?

 

[Eagleview]

What can also happen is that a generator can put a lot of line noise into the modem which will make it drop out . Mine does it all the time when i have the genny charging the batteries .

Hey , what's with this Veteran Member deal ? One minute i'm Platinum , next thing i'm old .

 

[RadarTech]

Another thought here...

Difference of potential of electrical current flow..
If the generator has a different ground than the system, DC conversion on the AC voltage could have a floating ground effect and create problems.

With all that said..
Make sure you connect the ground from the generator to the ground of the house!!!

About 15 years ago I deployed a military radar to a location with poor grounding.Someone did not keep the grounds watered and salted and we fried a few components in the transmitter system.

The grounding from the transmitter system to the control systems had a 10 volt AC difference due to the grounding differences.

When the ground was fixed the voltage difference was zero.. and we never had another problem!!




Jim

 

[RonMar]

To add to what Jim said, if feeding a 240V panel from your generator, make sure the neutral wiring from genertor to panel is good also. Bad things happen to 120V appliances put in series across a 240 circuit that has dropped it's center tap/neutral connection from the power source...

Whistlepig
As for your situation, it would depend on how long it takes you to get home to get the generator on line. Watts are watts regardless of the source. Power in watts is equal to current times voltage. Your 200 watt pellet stove pulls 1.6A of electric current at 120VAC. Most small domestic UPSs(600-700VA) have two 8.5 Amp Hour, 12V gel cells in series for 24V. A 200W load would pull 8A of current from a 24V battery bank. No conversion is without loss, so making 120VAC out of 24VDC is only done at about 90% efficiency so that 200 watts might cost you upwards of 8.5A of load on the batteries. Those 8.5AH batteries also only deliver that ammount of capacity when discharged at the 20 hour rate(about 1/2 amp of load). Faster discharge means more heat generated and less delivered energy. So your 200W of pellet stove load could probably be sustained by a typical domestic UPS for about 50 minutes? The mid grade UPS's(1.5-3KVA?) typically use 4 batteries for 48VDC which cuts a given load on the batteries in half compared to the 24V units. The dollar figure goes up considerably with these units.

Most UPS's are not really meant for long term backup, and are not as efficient as purpose built inverter systems. They are just designed to cover the gap during short commercial outtages, or between commercial loss and automated generator startup. Or they run long enough to allow for a safe shutdown of equipment.

As for make of UPS. I have had good luck with TripLite and APC. Where I work we deal almost exclusively with APC units of various sizes from 4 battery 19" rack mount units, up to about the size of a refrigerator with multiple battery banks.

 

[denmansoft]

Bit of a side question:
What is the 200 watt load on a pellet stove?
Is this continuous or periodic ?

I'm not complaining but my 8500 watt genset hasn't had a good workout yet.

I use APC 700 and 1000VA UPS and a few smaller ones for things like phone system etc.

 

[ray66v]

I have a 5500 watt Generac. As far as electronics used on it go, I have run my high efficiency furnace, plus every kind of electronic device imaginable, and have never had any problems.

 

[dmccarty]

We now have three APC UPSes in the house. Each desktop has its own UPS. I replaced the bad battery in a very old UPS I had laying around and our router and DSL modem are plugged into it.

The old UPS beeps when we have a power twitch. Almost every morning around 5:00-6:00 it beeps. I suspect people are getting up and drawing more power or the power company is preparing for same.

We need a another UPS for the stereo. If we loose power it drop some of its setup. Not real impressed.

I wish we could put in a whole house UPS but I don't think I could afford it.

Later,
Dan

 

[RonMar]

Bit of a side question:
What is the 200 watt load on a pellet stove?
Is this continuous or periodic ?

I'm not complaining but my 8500 watt genset hasn't had a good workout yet.

I use APC 700 and 1000VA UPS and a few smaller ones for things like phone system etc.

Pellet stoves typically have 2 blower and 1 auger motor. One blower for the exhaust gas, which also puts the stove under a vacume and draws combustion air into the burn pot. A second blower moves room air thru the heatexchanger tubes and around the fire box to move the combustion heat into the room. The auger pulses to deliver the pellets to the burn pot at a set rate. Most also have an electric heating element that starts the pellets on fire automatically when you turn it on. During startup, mine uses about 700-800W to run the blowers and heating element. Once lit, it drops back to around 400W running on low. I have a full chimney on mine, and have a good natural draft. Because of this I can shut down my combustion blower and drop it to around 200W

Genset need a load? Look around for some electric baseboard heaters. They are about 250W per foot, and you can usually get these for very little money. They make great generator loadbank elements.

 

[Steve_Miller]

We now have three APC UPSes in the house. Each desktop has its own UPS. I replaced the bad battery in a very old UPS I had laying around and our router and DSL modem are plugged into it.

The old UPS beeps when we have a power twitch. Almost every morning around 5:00-6:00 it beeps. I suspect people are getting up and drawing more power or the power company is preparing for same.

We need a another UPS for the stereo. If we loose power it drop some of its setup. Not real impressed.

I wish we could put in a whole house UPS but I don't think I could afford it.

Later,
Dan

These beeps every morning at the same time are probably created by the power company switching in capacitor banks for power correction. I'll guess and say that there is probably some industry/manufacturing around or near your place on the same grid as you. I used to get these a lot but haven't noticed them in a while.

Steve

 

[jinjimbob]

Those APC UPS systems aren't all that expensive. How many watts would be necessary for a typical desktop and printer setup?

I use an Newegg.com - APC BR1500LCD 1500VA 900 Watts 8 Outlets BACK-UPS - UPS works well for the monitor, PC, router and DSL modem, about a 40 minute run time, configured to shut the PC down when less than 5 minutes of run time left.

What kind of printer? I have a laser printer, uses 610Watts, so that is not on the battery back UPS sockets, just the surge.

Different UPS output different types of power. Most put out pseudo sine waves, kinda like a square/saw tooth wave. I have another UPS that puts out a pure sinewave, needed for fish tank pumps.