Your last generator Maintenance Run
- Thread starter 3930dave
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cqaigy2
Super Member
Completely agree. Thank you for getting thread started.
You're most Welcome.
Started with my Lousy Memory....... thanks to that
, I've gained 100x more out of this thread than I expected..... Thanks to All for the great information that has been posted here.Esp. if you are faced with your first dead engine, it helps to know that you are not the first one down that road...... many good test and maintenance tips have been posted here....... not the least of which is realizing that with today's off-shore manufacturing economics, you can often buy a complete ready-to-go new carb for not much more than what a carb-kit goes for !
As I type that last paragraph, I'm thinking......"Get that RoundTuIt Done to better organize my Parts Storage, then just buy 2 complete carbs (one large, one smaller portable gen in my case) and have them on The Shelf"...... Food for thought....
This thread does perpetually seem to create work.....
Rgds, D.
nikdfish
Veteran Member
A couple of unscheduled "tests" yesterday.
First one lasted a couple of minutes, later in the day the second one lasted about a half hour or so. The whole house generator kicked in as designed each time, only about 20 seconds of no-power each time (I forget the exact spec). With the various UPS units in place around the house there was no interruption on sat. TV, house WIFI or the 3d printer that was running a job during both events. No knowledge of what caused the outages. The second event had the wife smiling about how nice it was not to have to worry about when power would be restored & quite happy we spent the money..
On a different generator note, I finished up setting up the Champion 7K dual fuel with quick connects for the propane feed. Leaving the provided hose w/regulator attached had me worried about breakage when moving the unit around & removal between uses had me concerned about the flare fittings eventually leaking from repeated install/removal. The only pain was getting/building adaptors between SAE flare connections (on the gen & extension lines) & NPT (what the quick connects use). The original line & generator got one set and the extension hose got the second one. I already have a two bottle manifold set up for extended/high consumption use if needed. I keep 7 20lb bottles in the shed for "just in case".
First one lasted a couple of minutes, later in the day the second one lasted about a half hour or so. The whole house generator kicked in as designed each time, only about 20 seconds of no-power each time (I forget the exact spec). With the various UPS units in place around the house there was no interruption on sat. TV, house WIFI or the 3d printer that was running a job during both events. No knowledge of what caused the outages. The second event had the wife smiling about how nice it was not to have to worry about when power would be restored & quite happy we spent the money..
On a different generator note, I finished up setting up the Champion 7K dual fuel with quick connects for the propane feed. Leaving the provided hose w/regulator attached had me worried about breakage when moving the unit around & removal between uses had me concerned about the flare fittings eventually leaking from repeated install/removal. The only pain was getting/building adaptors between SAE flare connections (on the gen & extension lines) & NPT (what the quick connects use). The original line & generator got one set and the extension hose got the second one. I already have a two bottle manifold set up for extended/high consumption use if needed. I keep 7 20lb bottles in the shed for "just in case".
It's great when a plan works out as intended ! AND, the wife likes ! Double bonus points :thumbsup:
Fittings/lines don't like impacts...... good point about converting to quick-disconnects.
"When you get a minute"
..... pics of those quick disconnects please ? Inquiring minds want to see exactly what they look like......Rgds, D.
nikdfish
Veteran Member
I used these, sourced from Amazon -
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073BW88D3/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
described as "Solid Brass Propane/Natural Gas Quick-Connect Kit 3/8 inch Male Pipe Thread x 3/8 inch Female Pipe Thread- CSA Certified."
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073BW88D3/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
described as "Solid Brass Propane/Natural Gas Quick-Connect Kit 3/8 inch Male Pipe Thread x 3/8 inch Female Pipe Thread- CSA Certified."
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TheMan419
Veteran Member
So in this vein.... when should I replace the battery in my generator? It is electric start portable. It is 5 yrs old at this point and has the original battery. Last maintenance run at thanksgiving it fired up like it was new. It is on a battery maintainer 24/7. However I don稚 want to tempt fate....
LittleBill21
Elite Member
no one can answer this but you, if you can't take a SG level from the battery there really is no way to tell the health. that said can you pull start it? can you get the battery locally? you have to decide. battery's can die at any moment, they don't always show signs especially seldom use ones.
BoFuller
Veteran Member
My generator auto starts once a week for maintenance, but a couple days ago the Mate kicked it on because my batteries were down to 75%. It would run for a minute then shut off, run a min and shut off, again and again.
Upon checking the Mate for error messages, it kept saying “low voltage” - 76 vac to be exact. I thought my generator was dying (only 3 yrs old), but my neighbor said to let it run a couple minutes before engaging the charger. Then it worked fine. It has been rainy and cold and he said the humidity was wreaking havoc with the electronics until it is warmed up. So I set the timer on my Mate to engage the generator after 2 minutes of run time instead of 30 seconds. Seems to be working fine now.
Upon checking the Mate for error messages, it kept saying “low voltage” - 76 vac to be exact. I thought my generator was dying (only 3 yrs old), but my neighbor said to let it run a couple minutes before engaging the charger. Then it worked fine. It has been rainy and cold and he said the humidity was wreaking havoc with the electronics until it is warmed up. So I set the timer on my Mate to engage the generator after 2 minutes of run time instead of 30 seconds. Seems to be working fine now.
