Your last generator Maintenance Run

[grsthegreat]

Me too, but it's unable to communicate to the grid and neighbors are a long way off.
They still come and read it monthly and this is for many around here.
Iirc at the time, they were getting highly paid by BO's administration so it was a profit item for the utility.

Thats weird….mine reports over the electrical wires themselves, or so i was told. All i know is they dont use my wifi.

 

[mike5511]

Date: Feb 18/13

Generator: 2kw Briggs

Activity: 5gal Shop Vac - cleaned Civic

Final Fueling notes: filled w. NonE gas, Stabil and Starton added.

Maintenance notes (Done, or Required): Gas cap issue resolved.

Rgds, D.

Good plan. I've got a HF Predator 3500 that has been a good one......with a few mods. I try to run in at least every couple of months. Always has real gas and Stabil in the tank.

 

[Racer4]

UPS's generally don't like non inverter generator due to the Frequency moving up and down more than .5 hz

My UPS shuts itself off sometimes when the well pump kicks on. This is on a 17kw stationary Generac. Especially if the dryer is running too.

Not sure why the UPS doesn’t just cut the power and go to battery. The old UPS didn’t have this problem.

 

[bigtiller]

My UPS shuts itself off sometimes when the well pump kicks on. This is on a 17kw stationary Generac. Especially if the dryer is running too.

Not sure why the UPS doesn’t just cut the power and go to battery. The old UPS didn’t have this problem.

What brand UPS do you have?

 

[Racer4]

What brand UPS do you have?

CyberPower EC850LCD Ecologic... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DBAA696?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

[3930dave]

UPS's generally don't like non inverter generator due to the Frequency moving up and down more than .5 hz

Busy week here.... even just w. events unrelated to the storm..... I can get by (clearance-wise), but haven't even started on branches in yard.

Roger That ^ on freq...... my old UPS was either more tolerant or (more likely) didn't display enough info for me to notice.

Good discussion on stability here (that I'm not quite caught up on.... I need my first coffee !), re. the larger stuff. You do get (some of the time at least) what you pay for.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I have a smart meter on the house, and this auto reports power outages.

The West Germans analyzed implementing smart-meters, and decided it was a waste of money. I don't disagree.

That said, not every utility implements them the same, or well. (S. meters here, but not auto-report).

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

My newest ups is an APC Pro 1000s.

Not their smallest, but not a monster either. Loud relay (not complaining, its how I noticed what was going on), and enough of a display to show it switching over to battery when my 7kw was running lightly loaded.
It did stay up/on battery, with all the switching going on. Scared me a bit, as the modem took quite a while to reset, after the grid was back, but all-good now. That delay was likely all the cable equipment resetting.

Cell service here is sketchy normally (and, I don't live in the middle of nowhere), and I saw glimpses of (digital) load-shedding on cell services. Starlink (emcomm-wise) keeps looking better....

After-action items......

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Heard mention of Ecoflow (in a favourable way) on local 2way radio, late last night.

EcoFlow US | Your FIRST Power Solution

Never heard of them before, but as a fan of generators+batteries, wanted to pass along to the tribe....

(Their vehicle fast-charger (for their packs) looks interesting too....)

Rgds, D.

 

[LittleBill21]

Heard mention of Ecoflow (in a favourable way) on local 2way radio, late last night.

EcoFlow US | Your FIRST Power Solution

Never heard of them before, but as a fan of generators+batteries, wanted to pass along to the tribe....

(Their vehicle fast-charger (for their packs) looks interesting too....)

Rgds, D.

one of the big solar generator companies, been around a while

 

[Popgadget]

I just added a Genmon to my standby after seeing GRS’s posts, it’s amazingly capable for donorware software running on a Raspberry PI. The downside is that it isn’t plug and play, but it’s not rocket science either.

I would recommend it to anyone that isn’t intimidated by a bit of technology and has some basic computer skills.

 

[3930dave]

I'm often impressed, by how low/no-cost software, coupled with almost no-cost hardware (and, someone willing to spend a bit of time tuning the tech) can outperform many commercial offerings.

Having that telemetry, accurately sitting on your cell-ph, Doesn't Get Much Better, than that.....

Rgds, D.

 

[grsthegreat]

I just added a Genmon to my standby after seeing GRS’s posts, it’s amazingly capable for donorware software running on a Raspberry PI. The downside is that it isn’t plug and play, but it’s not rocket science either.

View attachment 3221552

I would recommend it to anyone that isn’t intimidated by a bit of technology and has some basic computer skills.

I had the guy that builds these things preload mine….so it was plug and play. But i do love it. I ended up changing mine to an ethernet cable due to poor wifi reception out by generator, but that was also plug and play.

 

[grsthegreat]

I'm often impressed, by how low/no-cost software, coupled with almost no-cost hardware (and, someone willing to spend a bit of time tuning the tech) can outperform many commercial offerings.

Having that telemetry, accurately sitting on your cell-ph, Doesn't Get Much Better, than that.....

Rgds, D.

I also had the guy at pintsize.me add me to his cloud, so now i can monitor mine from anywheres theres cell reception. Its like $10/year. I figured ill try it out for a year, see if i use it much.

 

[Popgadget]

I had the guy that builds these things preload mine….so it was plug and play. But i do love it. I ended up changing mine to an ethernet cable due to poor wifi reception out by generator, but that was also plug and play.

I put up an outdoor access point years ago to provide service for my propane tank monitor and the mobile link connection for the Generac standby. Interestingly the Genmon installation coexists with the Mobile Link connection. I did use a usb external WiFi module and antenna rather than the one on the Raspberry PI board. It connects with plenty of bandwidth.

 

[3930dave]

I also had the guy at pintsize.me add me to his cloud, so now i can monitor mine from anywheres theres cell reception. Its like $10/year. I figured ill try it out for a year, see if i use it much.

Less than a $1/mo.... sounds good !

Even if you are home much of the time, that is useful. Just went through a family-event, that had me away more than normal, so would be even more appreciated When Things Happen.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I put up an outdoor access point years ago to provide service for my propane tank monitor and the mobile link connection for the Generac standby. Interestingly the Genmon installation coexists with the Mobile Link connection. I did use a usb external WiFi module and antenna rather than the one on the Raspberry PI board. It connects with plenty of bandwidth.

Lately, I'm feeling under-resourced here.....

JK... , one of the reasons I hang-out here is to catch up with the success people are having with Products That Work Well..... keeping electrons flowing......

Rgds, D.

 

[grsthegreat]

I put up an outdoor access point years ago to provide service for my propane tank monitor and the mobile link connection for the Generac standby. Interestingly the Genmon installation coexists with the Mobile Link connection. I did use a usb external WiFi module and antenna rather than the one on the Raspberry PI board. It connects with plenty of bandwidth.

I tried and didnt like the outdoor access points due to dropped calls when they switched to different accounts. I just recently swapped everything to mesh network. Added a mesh in back half of house, plus one in shop 300’ from house and barn about 200 feet from house. A MAJOR upgrade. Now i no longer get dropped calls, and can get internet inside shop and barn. And even out to arena which is 400’ from house. If i had swapped to mesh before running ethernet cable out to generator, i would not have needed the cable. But ill just let it be.

The mesh is amazing. I get 2.4 and 5.0 signals with 4 bars out in barn. The speed drops quite a bit from house speeds, but still impressive. Say if i have 250Mbps in the house, ill have about 30- 60Mbps in the shop and barn. No complaints from me.

 

[Popgadget]

Agreed about the mesh. I put a mesh system that covers the buildings a couple of years ago, and it works great. I used ASUS Zen hardware, three nodes with wired backhaul.

The outdoor access points don’t broadcast an SSID and my phone is set to ignore them, but before doing all that, it was the cause for a lot of dropped calls.

 

[grsthegreat]

Agreed about the mesh. I put a mesh system that covers the buildings a couple of years ago, and it works great. I used ASUS Zen hardware, three nodes with wired backhaul.

The outdoor access points don’t broadcast an SSID and my phone is set to ignore them, but before doing all that, it was the cause for a lot of dropped calls.

Ha, did the same thing with my access points. There still there, and still work, i let guest access them when we have gathering outdoors. I set them to have limited guest access. What surprises me is, im 67 yo and can figure this crap out.