Your last generator Maintenance Run

[daugen]

whoa, what a pic GRS!
looks like some parts were sure trying to escape.

since I used to own the same gen, that doesn't look good at all.
Inquiring minds want to know Why?
How do the rest of us avoid this?

don't these Generacs have a low oil shutdown? Maybe a key to longevity would be to somehow raise the level of when that sensor trips, like maintaining
at least half at all times. If that engine had annual synthetic oil changes, that just should not happen.
Bet that made a nice bang when it finally expired and tried to throw a rod into the next state.

 

[tradosaurus]

Tornado came through my area and power was out for almost 48 hrs.
Generator worked great.
Champion 10,000 W was able to run my well pump, freezers, lights, and one water heater.
Microwave would trip the generator if the well pump was running.
No way could I run the central heat/air unit.
I'm glad I purchased this generator about 2 yrs ago.

 

[TheMan419]

That's a whole-house gen you have now ? ..... me and my lousy memory

Just a battery swap..... not too hard a hit, for a +24 hour outage......

Rgds, D.

No it is a portable with electric start. With my shoulder problems I could not generate enough force on the recoil start to get it going.

The power company also must employ Scotty as one of its engineers. They give us a 24+ time frame for restoration. It went out at 9:30 a.m. Since the horses were not watered we had to fire up generator at about 10:30 a.m. Watered horses, did other chores and then made lunch.

Power came back on at 12:30 p.m. that same date. So ran the gen for about 2 hours. Used about a gallon of gas, maybe a bit more. That is pretty consistent with prior outages and my best estimate of .6 gal per hour of fuel consumption.

Happy the power company was so widely off by their estimate for power restoration.

Now to pull the battery, it is of course, in a spot hard to access. I'll have to take the wheels off the generator to get to it.

Looking into a whole house generator now that lead times seems to have come down some. You can actually find them in stock around here if you look. Costco apparently has a good price on them.

 

[grsthegreat]

whoa, what a pic GRS!
looks like some parts were sure trying to escape.

since I used to own the same gen, that doesn't look good at all.
Inquiring minds want to know Why?
How do the rest of us avoid this?

don't these Generacs have a low oil shutdown? Maybe a key to longevity would be to somehow raise the level of when that sensor trips, like maintaining
at least half at all times. If that engine had annual synthetic oil changes, that just should not happen.
Bet that made a nice bang when it finally expired and tried to throw a rod into the next state.

well, ill tear into block after i replace engine. See what i can find.

 

[TheMan419]

Guess who has a trip to the auto parts store planned?
May as well get a battery maintainer while you’re there getting a replacement battery….

Generator has one built in. That battery is the original to the machine. We bought it at the old house that was in a subdivision. We have been on the farm for 7 years. So generator is about 10 years old. I am pretty happy with that battery life. If I get 10 years out of the next one I will have a "whole house" installed before then. I put that in quotes because I won't buy one big enough that literally lets me run all the things in the house at the same time. I can manage to not run laundry when I am cooking etc.

 

[grsthegreat]

whoa, what a pic GRS!
looks like some parts were sure trying to escape.

since I used to own the same gen, that doesn't look good at all.
Inquiring minds want to know Why?
How do the rest of us avoid this?

don't these Generacs have a low oil shutdown? Maybe a key to longevity would be to somehow raise the level of when that sensor trips, like maintaining
at least half at all times. If that engine had annual synthetic oil changes, that just should not happen.
Bet that made a nice bang when it finally expired and tried to throw a rod into the next state.

Oh. No, this picture wasnt the one with blown engine block. These pics were of a customers generator after someone drove into it. I guess i should have expalned this better. Someone actually drove around steel post to strike generator.

 

[3930dave]

Tornado came through my area and power was out for almost 48 hrs.
Generator worked great.
Champion 10,000 W was able to run my well pump, freezers, lights, and one water heater.
Microwave would trip the generator if the well pump was running.
No way could I run the central heat/air unit.
I'm glad I purchased this generator about 2 yrs ago.

Nice capacity with that Champion.

I hope your family and friends/neighbours don't have much damage/cleanup to do.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Generator has one built in. That battery is the original to the machine. We bought it at the old house that was in a subdivision. We have been on the farm for 7 years. So generator is about 10 years old. I am pretty happy with that battery life. If I get 10 years out of the next one I will have a "whole house" installed before then. I put that in quotes because I won't buy one big enough that literally lets me run all the things in the house at the same time. I can manage to not run laundry when I am cooking etc.

Can't complain @ 10 years, and Scotty came through for you in jig time !

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Someone actually drove around steel post to strike generator.

Pretty bad when you have to up-armour gens for perimeter security !

Rgds, D.

 

[daugen]

seems like there is a trend among smaller gens to go full battery, no motor.
But I saw a youtube video where some guy who seemed to have just discovered inverters was
showing how a hundred dollar battery hooked up to a hundred dollar inverter would easily keep his gas furnace going in the winter.
Say 250 bucks with cables. And incredibly reliable, but like an EV, has range anxiety.
But to turn a freezer on and off every four hours or to run a gas/fuel oil furnace, seems pretty interesting.

so I did a little poking around. A 1000 ah LiPo4 battery with a ten year warranty is 310, 2500W sine wave inverter, couple hundred+, special battery charger
for LiPo, another hundred and cables. About 800 bucks for a "solid state" generator/power supply.
And you could keep and charge the battery in your basement. Add another battery if needed.

Useless for hvac, hot water heater, hot tub, etc etc but if one is only trying to keep some lights on, keep warm, and run the fridge and freezer once in a while,
I wonder if our future gens will be quite different.

we really need better battery tech, seems like our whole world will depend upon it. Until we get our personal fusion generators.