Your last generator Maintenance Run

[daugen]

Now GRS, the only thing a horse drawn generator will generate is an occasional horse poop.

ahhhh, we burn the horse poop in a 55 gallon steel drum to create steam to drive a small turbine.
like a water wheel in the old days...
horses rock, particularly after an EMT takes out your car and truck and tractor.
But not if you have an old enough tractor.
An old enough tractor hooked up to a 25kw Wilco gen seems like a really good idea

I don't know the equation to convert kw to hp needed, but then the question is,
how else to power our own 25kw without petroleum, which of course could run out.
And perhaps if it does, the world isn't going to an ideal place to retire in....

but to support GRS, put a belt on the end of the pulley of the two wheel cart your horse pulls,
and power an alternator and inverter.
How many watts can one real horse produce?

since most solar panels don't need a vet,
pretty sure they make more sense.
I grew up on a farm with a stream through the woods, which flowed down to the Delaware River.
fantasized as a kid blocking it up and creating a pond, but if I were a budding EE,
I would have been thinking about a hydro electric plant...

intermittent power sources like the sun or water require a lot of storage.
I think our future will continue to be focused on better batteries.
Or solar panels that create way more power than they do now.

big problem with solar is if some big volcano blows (Yellowstone?) and we have a major darkening of the skies for months on end,
sure hope that doesn't happen during winter.
where did we put that coal?....

predictions are not good about Yellowstone though. It could dwarf Mt St Helens.
would likely mess up the big grid and we'd find out how reliable our gens are.
hopefully not for another 1000 years...

makes one think, how long will my current gen last.

 

[Billy Bee]

Charged my gen. battery overnight, at my age I like to be sure the electric start works.

 

[Robin Veerman]

If you’re able to hook up a battery maintainer, small 1 amp is good, and leave it on 24/7 it will keep the battery at the optimal condition and ready for many years. I have them on everything with a battery here. 2 are 10 years old and 1 is 11 years old and original since new….

 

[3930dave]

Now GRS, the only thing a horse drawn generator will generate is an occasional horse poop.

ahhhh, we burn the horse poop in a 55 gallon steel drum to create steam to drive a small turbine.
like a water wheel in the old days...
horses rock, particularly after an EMT takes out your car and truck and tractor.
But not if you have an old enough tractor.
An old enough tractor hooked up to a 25kw Wilco gen seems like a really good idea

I don't know the equation to convert kw to hp needed, but then the question is,
how else to power our own 25kw without petroleum, which of course could run out.
And perhaps if it does, the world isn't going to an ideal place to retire in....

but to support GRS, put a belt on the end of the pulley of the two wheel cart your horse pulls,
and power an alternator and inverter.
How many watts can one real horse produce?

since most solar panels don't need a vet,
pretty sure they make more sense.
I grew up on a farm with a stream through the woods, which flowed down to the Delaware River.
fantasized as a kid blocking it up and creating a pond, but if I were a budding EE,
I would have been thinking about a hydro electric plant...

intermittent power sources like the sun or water require a lot of storage.
I think our future will continue to be focused on better batteries.
Or solar panels that create way more power than they do now.

big problem with solar is if some big volcano blows (Yellowstone?) and we have a major darkening of the skies for months on end,
sure hope that doesn't happen during winter.
where did we put that coal?....

predictions are not good about Yellowstone though. It could dwarf Mt St Helens.
would likely mess up the big grid and we'd find out how reliable our gens are.
hopefully not for another 1000 years...

makes one think, how long will my current gen last.

May You Live in Interesting Times.....

Health and Prosperity are two things @ the top of my list - that I don't take for granted. Better informed people than I (Alex Epstein for one) have written, at length, about how abundant, reliable, and cost-effective energy is at the core of good Health and a prosperous society.

24x7 grid-uptime - an assumption people don't even think about, unless they have spent significant time living outside of Can/USA etc.....

As ur said recently, As goes Cali, so goes the rest of the country....... Cali has made some deliberate choices, over a long period of time, that has caused a serious decline in their grid reliability and capacity. AND, that ^, is w/o even taking into account the present mass-psychosis about electrification of transport.

It's just One Thing (among many), that would cause a business to think twice about locating in Cali - or hasten a departure.

We all have dealt with plenty of normal events (well below a Yellowstone scale) where a personal generator can make a huge difference - you can continue to operate your household @ close to normal, or at least support critical heat/water etc needs.

I doubt that I will see in my lifetime, a compact, and affordable replacement for what an ICE generator can do. (Longer (much) discussion, but it's not primarily technical limits behind that ^ sentence above).

Generator Maintenance Matters now , but it's going to matter even more, soon.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

If you’re able to hook up a battery maintainer, small 1 amp is good, and leave it on 24/7 it will keep the battery at the optimal condition and ready for many years. I have them on everything with a battery here. 2 are 10 years old and 1 is 11 years old and original since new….

What brand(s) of maintainer are you using Robin ?

Rgds, D.

 

[Robin Veerman]

Most of mine are NOCO as pictured on one of my Harleys. But others like Schumacher, OptiMATE, Battery Tender, etc

but regardless of brand make sure that they are SMART maintainers.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

This reminds me, next week is our next generator run… good time too, usually January is our winter storm window.

 

[Robin Veerman]

ps…. I have this Viking maintainer on my tractor that is stored in an ambient temperature but dry shed. I bought this about 5 years ago because it has a winter setting. Perfect for my tractor as it keeps the battery warm during the winter season as a bonus!! One downfall of many maintainers is that they stop working/charging when temperatures drop to about-20C. My one gripe against NOCO, but atleast they publish that in their description

 

[3930dave]

Most of mine are NOCO as pictured on one of my Harleys. But others like Schumacher, OptiMATE, Battery Tender, etc but regardless of brand make sure that they are SMART maintainers.

Maintainers are probably worth an entire thread alone; obviously relevant to any engine, but esp. sitting-idle gens.

Like your list, I prefer to stay away from mystery brands for long-term maintenance hookups..... esp. with electronics on-board, there is not much choice about using a maintainer, but short-term regulation and long-term reliability are a concern.

Noco seems to be a good brand, but I haven't been impressed with their Li jump-pack I bought - haven't done an instrumented load-test on it, but doesn't seem to have the cranking amps expected. I have spec'd something out of their commercial charger line @ work, which I do like.

Speaking of Harleys... neighbour that I ride with, asked How Long Do Chargers Last ?.... good question, but I mention it more re. any of them could use an independent check with a known-good voltmeter now/then.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

ps…. I have this Viking maintainer on my tractor that is stored in an ambient temperature but dry shed. I bought this about 5 years ago because it has a winter setting. Perfect for my tractor as it keeps the battery warm during the winter season as a bonus!! One downfall of many maintainers is that they stop working/charging when temperatures drop to about-20C. My one gripe against NOCO, but atleast they publish that in their description
View attachment 842088

A selectable Winter mode is nice...... mimics the Temperature compensation built-in to Alternators.

I had a Winter mode on a weatherproof Ctek that I used a LOT.... enough so that I wore out the mode-select switch.... probably just needs me to find the RoundTuit, and source a pcb-mount switch to fix it....

Thanks for the 411.

Rgds, D.