goeduck
Super Star Member
I know a woman who was out in a canoe with her significant other and the canoe went over. She made it to shore, he did not. :scratchchin:
Your last generator Maintenance Run
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cqaigy2
Super Member
On of my UPS's does that, the other, an APC doesn't complain, but i have no idea why.
Could be just an orifice change for the conversion on that gen ? Can't remember the wattage on that donated unit. Adding muffler stages may derate the output slightly, but when budgeting power off-grid, likely not enough of a derating to matter. You'll find articles in Homepower where people who budget/design/build serious full-time off-grid systems find that they end up running their generator very little. I wouldn't want to be off-grid w/o a reliable generator (being on-grid, and having 2
), but most of the time, it's just insurance.You'd know how efficient propane fridges are.... I find it impressive how little propane they need..... and COLD..... I find I have to be careful with my RV one; set it too low and I'm making ice in the fridge section.
If they are staying with electric refrigeration, make sure they know about Sunfrost. Not inexpensive (past 10 years, even that is debatable, given the failure rates of modern appliances), but highly efficient. For a from-scratch off-grid design, one of their DC models would be my first choice - some efficiency gain (vs AC), but simple is appealing.... even if your inverter dies, you still have refrigeration. Sunfrost got their start designing vaccine fridges, for middle-of-nowhere use..... I'm hoping that by the time I buy one, their original design priorities are still locked-in...... as of yet, I have not heard otherwise........
Energy Efficient Refrigerators - SunFrost.com
Guessing your relatives have high sun-hours/year. With a decent PV array, I'd look at a diversion controller (switches to load X, once batteries are full), heat hot water as the diversion load, and backup the hot water with a propane heater. (Assuming no grid-tie at all; completely off-grid).
So no wells at all ? Really good passive solar design will get you a long way in those temperatures, but for anything close to conventional construction, I'd be checking out ground source heat pumps. I'd be curious about what they end up with for a cooling solution.
Rgds, D.
In WVB's case, I'd probably play around with isolating units a bit, while on a generator test. Meaning....start with one UPS, one load, and start adding combinations of UPS's and loads till Things Go Wrong.
Sometimes you can get an EMI situation between products, that may not show up while on line-power.
Rgds, D.
cqaigy2
Super Member
I actually got off my back end to check them both out, and i believe the difference is that the APC load capacity, as labeled, is more conservative then the other UPS. I think they are both labeled as having the same capacity, but i had to really pull a lot of load off of the UPS i can't see the name of, before it stopped complaining.
ultrarunner
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Could be just an orifice change for the conversion on that gen ? Can't remember the wattage on that donated unit. Adding muffler stages may derate the output slightly, but when budgeting power off-grid, likely not enough of a derating to matter. You'll find articles in Homepower where people who budget/design/build serious full-time off-grid systems find that they end up running their generator very little. I wouldn't want to be off-grid w/o a reliable generator (being on-grid, and having 2
You'd know how efficient propane fridges are.... I find it impressive how little propane they need..... and COLD..... I find I have to be careful with my RV one; set it too low and I'm making ice in the fridge section.
If they are staying with electric refrigeration, make sure they know about Sunfrost. Not inexpensive (past 10 years, even that is debatable, given the failure rates of modern appliances), but highly efficient. For a from-scratch off-grid design, one of their DC models would be my first choice - some efficiency gain (vs AC), but simple is appealing.... even if your inverter dies, you still have refrigeration. Sunfrost got their start designing vaccine fridges, for middle-of-nowhere use..... I'm hoping that by the time I buy one, their original design priorities are still locked-in...... as of yet, I have not heard otherwise........
Energy Efficient Refrigerators - SunFrost.com
Guessing your relatives have high sun-hours/year. With a decent PV array, I'd look at a diversion controller (switches to load X, once batteries are full), heat hot water as the diversion load, and backup the hot water with a propane heater. (Assuming no grid-tie at all; completely off-grid).
So no wells at all ? Really good passive solar design will get you a long way in those temperatures, but for anything close to conventional construction, I'd be checking out ground source heat pumps. I'd be curious about what they end up with for a cooling solution.
Rgds, D.
All good questions... not sure what my little one lung Generator is... 5,000 Watt I believe on NG and de-rated for propane... the manual goes through how to adjust for propane.
Utility power is all around the build site but the 5 acres is a flag lot... originally, one of their neighbors agreed to let them trench down the property line... they have 6 acres and the cost of power would be only a third or less... but, the man's son is now in charge and said not interested... so going along the easement is much long and PGE requires setting several poles since no power on that side of the property...
They are actually excited to go solar and the county has a full set of requirements in place... plenty of sun in Paso Robles... plenty!
daugen
Epic Contributor
Obviously, you guys were doing it all wrong...... should have had a gas powered generator on-board !
well Dave, all I can say is you could have six generators and ten motors and because of this
there was no happy ending:
accompanied by a woman that hates you
as a long time boater thankfully blessed with wife that loved boating, and a multiyear liveaboard, sometimes witnessed the marital unhappiness playing out in little soap operas on other boats. Comes to a peak when male captain is yelling at wife berating her for not handling lines properly. Usually caused by his coming in too hot to the dock and expecting her to correct it. When you hear those engines getting gunned at the dock, you just know someone is getting rattled.
That wife will be as cold as one of your Sunfrosts when she gets home...
Using my Champion 3100W inverter to run lighting and stereo in garden shed, waiting on electrician to come rewire the born to burn wiring in there and find the break in the underground line. Need to put heater on the gen while running, LED lights and a radio draw nothing
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Industrial Toys
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My APCs even don't mind my little Yanmar 3.7 Air cooled Diesel Screamer. Just a beep when the water pump comes on.
Mind you APC has different levels of protection. Not even sure, what mine are. I have never bought one, and just get them out of back rooms from my customers who don't care to replace the batteries. The highest levels may be very fussy about power, which is exactly what they are supposed to do.
Mind you APC has different levels of protection. Not even sure, what mine are. I have never bought one, and just get them out of back rooms from my customers who don't care to replace the batteries. The highest levels may be very fussy about power, which is exactly what they are supposed to do.
After replacing some fusing on a relatively heavy-duty UPS (for the day) in one lab I worked in, I made it clear "No more plugging in solder stations !".
It's easy enough to overload even larger ones.... sometimes it's just a matter of re-balancing between the battery-backed outlets, and the ones that are only line-filtered........ Do I really need to battery-back the lava-lamp ?
UPS specs aren't as intuitive as many common consumer products, and like gens, the better ones are going to have a bit more headroom built-in.
Sometimes, it's just an aged battery....
Rgds, D.
