Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Diggin It]

What time does it exercise? I set mine for 2 pm.
genmon changed time on my unit automatically.

7AM, so it should have updated some time between then and 2AM.

But I seem to remember that it doesn't have full time connection. It only connects at some interval or when it needs to send a status change. Since it updated around the time it exercised or just after, it may have gotten the command to do so at the same time it sent the status.

Just guessing though.

I don't remember what happened last fall and it wasn't on line for the change last spring.

 

[3930dave]

My old habit of throwing in a
few spare conduits once the ditch is open will pay off. I've got 1 or 2 open at that pedestal that goes back to the house to operate a light off of the street side of the transfer sw.

You don't like doing the same job twice ? Me neither.....

Garden Gnome caught my eye.... thinking if it was line-sight to house, stick a light-saber in his hand as an indicator..... might get the mothership to land though.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

7AM, so it should have updated some time between then and 2AM.

But I seem to remember that it doesn't have full time connection. It only connects at some interval or when it needs to send a status change. Since it updated around the time it exercised or just after, it may have gotten the command to do so at the same time it sent the status.

Just guessing though.

I don't remember what happened last fall and it wasn't on line for the change last spring.

Worst-case - updated by next day..... sounds all good for what I'd need.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Alan W.]

Well I'm giving my generator it's maintenance run as we talk;

Sitting at the table drinking coffee thinking about breakfast when about 9 the power went out, took a drive around and saw several generators running.
Came back home and fired up the IH 574 on the pto generator and she is purring away as I type.
After I started it, I logged into National Grid to report the outage.
Then seeing as how I hadn't had breakfast went ahead and made biscuit sausage and egg sandwiches,
now just sitting and drinking coffee #3 for the morning, expect I'll be making several trips to get rid of it

Oh, for any that wonder I generally leave the generator right up by the house covered up with a piece of heavy plastic.
Also during the winter I try to leave a tractor hooked up to it. So this morning I started the tractor and let it warm up while I
released the garage door, did my transfer to generator switch, unrolled the cord and plugged it into the generator, engaged the pto ran the throttle up to 60 Hz on the front panel meter, went to the generator and flipped the switch.
And heat, lights, kitchen stuff and water pump up and happy.

The worst thing about my setup is knowing when the power has come back on.
What I often end up doing is bypassing the safety to open the cover and measure voltage on the utility feed,
one of these days I am going to wire in a switch and light or volt meter.

I admire anyone who under the duress of a situation still takes time to eat. A motto I live and waddle by.

 

[5030]

7am sharp this morning just like every Sunday morning at 7 sharp.

 

[check]

Worst-case - updated by next day..... sounds all good for what I'd need.....

Rgds, D.

Dave, are you in Ontario, and if so, doesn’t Hydro One text you when power has been restored?

 

[daugen]

went to start gen yesterday and no joy. Dead. Battery was fine, but I charged it anyway. Light below electric start switch does not come on when rocker
switched to ON, so somewhere between battery and there is an issue. Need to pull panel off and look behind, everything seems tight and clean from what I could see.
Plus the one inline fuse looked fine, not blown, no corrosion. My friend Paul (Popgadget) is coming over this afternoon to put a meter on the wiring to figure out what the problem is.
Going to spray all connections with DeOxit while we are at it.
I was able to manually start gen and it ran fine but starting a very cold 457cc single is not easy and not smart for my bad back.

 

[LouNY]

I don't know what happened to it,
but years ago some lawn mowers had spring powered starter.
It was a small crank on the end of the flywheel that you wound up
and then it had some release mechanism that allowed the spring
you had wound up to crank the engine over as if you were pulling the rope.
Seems like something like that would be nice on a generator.

 

[not2old]

We got our first gas mower in 1960 and it had this type of starter on a Briggs motor. They didn't start so easily in those days and I remember times when you needed to crank and try starting many many times before it would fire. Those problems disappeared when we installed the shroud and recoil off another motor. You could give it a stronger spin with the rope.

 

[Rustyiron]

I remember those "recoil"? starters. I can hear the clicking noise as you wound it up. I can't remember the trigger for releasing it.

 

[bullbreaker]

Had not cranked it in a while, got out the JD -Subaru 404cc 14hp genny. Fresh fuel -full choke ' hit E start ' fired rite up . Have had it for years , never a lick of trouble. Wish Subaru still made gennys . Tough son of a gun . Reminds me of the old 22R Toyota engine Of course anything near perfect they conveniently to them they quit fabricating .

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[grsthegreat]

Had a power outage last night…only lasted about an hour. Ran great.

 

[nikdfish]

I remember those "recoil"? starters. I can hear the clicking noise as you wound it up. I can't remember the trigger for releasing it.

If memory serves, it released when you clicked the winding crank back down into the storage position.

 

[rScotty]

Generac 15KW on propane. We rarely go a month without a power outage, so it gets a lot of exercise.
Back in 2015 my thought was it was cheap enough from Home Depot to be OK for as long as it lasted. But it has surprised me. Darn good generator. It looks and runs fine. Even the old oil looks brand new.
I do manual start/stop so it has a warm up & cool down cycle.
rScotty

 

[Sawyer Rob]

If memory serves, it released when you clicked the winding crank back down into the storage position.

The ones I had, had a little lever you moved to release the spring to start the engine turning over.

SR

 

[Popgadget]

Generac 15KW on propane. We rarely go a month without a power outage, so it gets a lot of exercise.
Back in 2015 my thought was it was cheap enough from Home Depot to be OK for as long as it lasted. But it has surprised me. Darn good generator. It looks and runs fine. Even the old oil looks brand new.

When I had to replace the whole house generator that I assembled 30 years ago from parts that I had from being in the generator business back then, I called a friend who was a competitor back then to ask for advice. He only does industrial and commercial work, as I mostly did back then.
His suggestion was Generac, which surprised me. I mentioned that back in the day, Generac was regarded as crap, except for the large liquid cooled 1800 RPM units. He replied that they still are, but now all of their competitors in the 3600 RPM residential market are building crap, but Generac has been doing it for so long they are pretty good at it. BTW- he doesn’t sell Generac or do any residential work, so while a bit back handed, it was a valid recommendation. I bought a 22kw and it’s doing quite well. It was interesting integrating it to my Onan OT transfer switch, but it works well.

 

[grsthegreat]

i hear lots of people calling generac crap, but after installing and servicing them for years, i can honestly say they build a nice unit. i have very, very few issues with them. most issues arise from stupid owners not servicing them. i mean come on, not even doing an oil change for 7 years and then bitching that the unit is crap cause it didnt run.

there designed for occasional extended run during power outages, and not for continual runs for long periods of time.

 

[Popgadget]

I really think that was the point he was making. When I looked carefully at mine, I was impressed with how simple and uncluttered it was. To me that’s a sign of good engineering. Things like no mechanical governor or charging coils reduce parts count and increase reliability.

 

[not2old]

If memory serves, it released when you clicked the winding crank back down into the storage position.

The one we used had a small knob on the side, about 1" in diameter and about 1.5" long that you twisted to release the spring that spun the motor. Those old mowers are what caused me to become a pretty fair amateur mechanic. Young people today wouldn't believe how much skill was needed to keep them going.

 

[3930dave]

Hmmm.... time flies.... busy month or so.......

Tech not behaving...... seems the email notification I had set for this thread "fell off".... so am just now catching up on recent interesting posts....

Drew - did you get your battery-start issue sorted out ? I wouldn't want to be w/o a nicely designed pull-start, but electric is convenient....

The comments about Generac had me smiling..... after years in the Tech trenches, I can relate to the performance/reliability/cost perpetual battles.... esp. chuckled re. the Least Worst comment.....

Propane.... it makes sense to me that oil stays clean, but I often think of a counterpart from my Tech Daze when propane comes up...... he'd converted his pickup to propane, and lived in Dallas. Said that the motor oil never noticeably changed colour, but could tell by his (aftermarket) Oil Temp gauge - he paid attention enough (total opposite of grs's customers.....) that he'd notice the Oil Temperature starting to creep up (vs. Ambient/Load/Driving style) as the oil was mechanically starting to deteriorate......

Interesting recollections of the Spring Start engines.... that's one older type I'd never seen myself. Makes a lot of sense, and done well, could be reliable for a very long time........ memories of yesteryear.......

Rgds, D.