Time to check out the generator.

[Rmart30]

Lost electric today for 8 hours. It was a good inspiration for me to test out the generator before winter. Got it all working fine and ran out some old gas it had in it. Last winter, never needed it. Good to know its there and working.

Gave up on generator back ups and got solar back up.
Too much trouble as we get older to keep 30 gallons of gasoline on hand and rotated out couple times a year to keep fresh on hand. I still have a 5000w electric start predator if needed. it will charge my batteries if we dont get much sun. I can run it 6 hours to recharge, rather than running it 24 hours to power the house.
This set up is what I went with basically. I just have 3 of those batteries instead of one as in video.
The benefit is its a back up, but its also not a $2500 whole home generator that does nothing 95% of the year. This one we can use to run our ac during the warmer months. Plus 30% tax credit. Can do one similar to the one in video as low as $1500. Ive got $3500 in my set up. we probably save $50-85 a month on power.

 

[ponytug]

Our utility is sufficiently unreliable that we have the whole catastrophe; solar, batteries, generators.

The nice thing about batteries, even for commercial deployments is that they pick up the load in a fraction of a second, supplies the essential power on while the generators starts and warms up, allowing the generators to get well lubricated up, with warm oil, block, and coolant before transferring the load to the generators. For commercial accounts, the batteries often pay for themselves in a couple of years from the reduction load management/peak demand charges, while also saving wear and tear on the gen sets.

Ten seconds isn't a lot of time for a diesel engine, and certainly not enough to come to equilibrium, but I do understand that for hospitals, people's lives are definitely on the line, and it is what it is.

@ultrarunner are your ORs on UPS systems, or do they go dark when the power drops unexpectedly?

All the best,

Peter

 

[groundcover]

60 KW LP gen set in town. Talked to Cat about disconnecting the block heater at least for the summer. Tech said leave it alone, this unit will use way more power than it ever makes ! We did at least add a thermostat to switch it off when up to temp.

 

[ultrarunner]

Our utility is sufficiently unreliable that we have the whole catastrophe; solar, batteries, generators.

The nice thing about batteries, even for commercial deployments is that they pick up the load in a fraction of a second, supplies the essential power on while the generators starts and warms up, allowing the generators to get well lubricated up, with warm oil, block, and coolant before transferring the load to the generators. For commercial accounts, the batteries often pay for themselves in a couple of years from the reduction load management/peak demand charges, while also saving wear and tear on the gen sets.

Ten seconds isn't a lot of time for a diesel engine, and certainly not enough to come to equilibrium, but I do understand that for hospitals, people's lives are definitely on the line, and it is what it is.

@ultrarunner are your ORs on UPS systems, or do they go dark when the power drops unexpectedly?

All the best,

Peter

Good question...

They never go dark because of the battery powered wall packs and things like medical and surgical equipment are on battery backup to bridge the 10 seconds allowed for backup power to kick in.

That said some lights will go dark for a few seconds but not say a microscope or eye laser...

The corridor light will go dark a few seconds and anything not on backup power will be offline like blanket warmers and similar...

 

[bdhsfz6]

Genset warmups have been discussed, but what about cool down? The manuals in several I've looked at recommend running the engine for 5 - 10 minutes with no load before shutting down. This is the manual page for the Kubota GL11000:

I understand the need for a warmup period, but cool down? In any case, an automatic transfer switch takes neither into consideration.

As posted by several others, it may well be that the relatively low run time of a consumer grade genset is low enough to make these warm up and cool down cycles less important. However, IMO, it's the number of start-stop cycles that counts. The actual run time is irrelevant.

The number of recommended monthly, or quarterly, start-stop maintenance cycles will add up over time.

 

[DarkBlack]

The big UPS generators I was involved with, that had literally zero seconds warmup time, were programmed to run 5 minutes cooldown after the load switched out. They were turbocharged engines though.

 

[grsthegreat]

An automatic transfer switch does take into account warm up and unloaded cool down. But the times arnt very long. Generac uses a temp probe that allows a longer warm up time if ambient temps are very low, but only allows a 1 minute unloaded cool down time.

But one thing, when the home standby is running, and if the enclosure is allowed to remain closed and sealed, the unit pushes a massive amount of air over the engine. This helps keep the engine cool. Running it unloaded places less stress on engine and helps it cool down a bit more before shutting down.

 

[ponytug]

Genset warmups have been discussed, but what about cool down? The manuals in several I've looked at recommend running the engine for 5 - 10 minutes with no load before shutting down. This is the manual page for the Kubota GL11000:

View attachment 1690916

I understand the need for a warmup period, but cool down? In any case, an automatic transfer switch takes neither into consideration.

As posted by several others, it may well be that the relatively low run time of a consumer grade genset is low enough to make these warm up and cool down cycles less important. However, IMO, it's the number of start-stop cycles that counts. The actual run time is irrelevant.

The number of recommended monthly, or quarterly, start-stop maintenance cycles will add up over time.

Many (most?) automatic transfer switches have the ability to have warm up and cool down timers on the load transfer. For some reason, lots of folks skip the warm up in favor of an immediate transfer, but that doesn't make it good for the generator. Same for cool down. Most of the bigger generators that I have worked with have a 5-10 minute cool down ramp. Given the cost of the generator, the cool down periods always seemed to me to be a smart thing to do. I think that older engines were not as highly optimized for cooling, and often developed hot spots that needed to be cooled to reduce warping and cracking, but that's just an opinion.

Personally, if I have been running an engine under heavy loads, I give it a chance to idle down and cool off, but check your owner's manual, as I have seen advice to the contrary, especially in new engines.

All the best,

Peter

 

[bdhsfz6]

An automatic transfer switch does take into account warm up and unloaded cool down. But the times arnt very long. Generac uses a temp probe that allows a longer warm up time if ambient temps are very low, but only allows a 1 minute unloaded cool down time.

But one thing, when the home standby is running, and if the enclosure is allowed to remain closed and sealed, the unit pushes a massive amount of air over the engine. This helps keep the engine cool. Running it unloaded places less stress on engine and helps it cool down a bit more before shutting down.

I think this depends on the switch. My brother's Generac has no warm up or cool down cycle.

 

[grsthegreat]

I think this depends on the switch. My brother's Generac has no warm up or cool down cycle.

. ? . Every generac standby, not portable, ive ever worked on has both. The control is not in the switch, its in the generator controls. Now,if the unit has been changed over to a 2 wire start, than all bets are off.