Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Industrial Toys]

I would just be concerned that a warranty claim might not be covered if other oil is used. Gosh, all kinds of equipment is using 10/30 these days in much heavier service than that.

 

[vvanders]

Success!

Got a hold of IMD this morning. No hold on their line and soon as I started talking gear oil the guy knew exactly the problem as it's apparently a common question they get. If anyone buys one in the future 85W-90 and 80W-90 can do in a pinch.

Now with that sorted thought things would be smooth sailing. The "kit" they sell comes with a PTO and seemed like a good deal compared to buying a separate PTO shaft. What they neglect to mention is that the PTO they include is quite possibly the worst one I've ever used. Instead of a side-button like all my other ones it's a "ring" that needs to be pulled back(opposite of the direction of insertion) equally along all 3 points. The shields are so large that there's no room to fit your hand in and after ~40minutes of fighting the thing I gave up and grabbed the PTO shaft off of our flail mower.

2 minutes later I had it all hooked up. Needless to say this PTO shaft is going on craigslist in the morning(it's also way too long) and I'll replace it with a proper one.

After that turned it over and spun it up. Generator doesn't energize until about 400rpm or so and then lit up:

Threw the kill-a-watt on it and 520rpm matches 120v almost to a tee. If I get a bit of time tomorrow I'll put a proper load on it and see how it holds up under stress.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Any idea on the frequency? I'm not suggesting it's that critical like some people seem to think. Within a couple of HZ each way is fine. I'm just thinking that at 520, it might be a tad low at around 57.777 HZ. Many generators, have an adjustment for what the Voltage Regulator is set to, but the HZ is dependent on the rotational speed. Inverter style units are not.

 

[vvanders]

Yeah, I was running out of daylight so I didn't have a chance to dig into it a ton, I'll spend a bit more time with it and do a proper breakdown in the next day or so.

 

[dragoneggs]

Yeah, I was running out of daylight so I didn't have a chance to dig into it a ton, I'll spend a bit more time with it and do a proper breakdown in the next day or so.

Easy to run out of daylight around here this time of year! But as you know, the summers are magical.

Looking good.

 

[ultrarunner]

It was years before I saw Mt. Rainier... was to the point I could predict each visit... "You should have been here yesterday... Rainier was clear as a bell... or the day after you left the weather was magnificent..."

It got to be a standing joke... but, I finally did see it and it was truly impressive!

We have also been without power in Olympia but more localized... branches take out a line and out where I am is not exactly high priority...

Being all electric means no power no nuttin except for the wood stove and insert.

 

[Fallon]

Any idea on the frequency? I'm not suggesting it's that critical like some people seem to think. Within a couple of HZ each way is fine. I'm just thinking that at 520, it might be a tad low at around 57.777 HZ. Many generators, have an adjustment for what the Voltage Regulator is set to, but the HZ is dependent on the rotational speed. Inverter style units are not.

Ya, you are going to have more problems if the frequency is a bit off than the voltage being a bit off.

 

[3930dave]

Success!

Threw the kill-a-watt on it and 520rpm matches 120v almost to a tee. If I get a bit of time tomorrow I'll put a proper load on it and see how it holds up under stress.

Nicely done vv :thumbsup:

Rgds, D.

 

[vvanders]

Managed to steal a few minutes to get it hooked up to the house today. The good news is transfer switch works fine and no problem running well plus mini-split. Dropped the RPMs a bit as 520 was about 61Hz.

That said not everything in the house was happy with it. Empty load I had it about 60.3/60.2Hz however under load it climbed up to 60.9Hz. At that point all of our dimmer based lights decided to flicker like crazy so I decided to shut it down. Did some looking into them after the fact and they're rated for 50-60Hz so I may try again with a slightly lower RPM and see if that sorts it out.

I will say no problems at all with capacity. Well takes ~3.5A when full tilt and running both of them barely took even 25% of the capacity. This should sort us out pretty well even if we can't run everything right now.

 

[Industrial Toys]

What problems with frequency? I run 60 hz motors on frequency drives from 25 to 90HZ! Some UPSes may not like it and won't accept it. Beyond that, are you running scientific equipment? Maybe a Hydron Collider? sp? Not too sure how modern TVs handle, out of band frequency. They probably have switching supplies so they would not care. As far as voltage goes. 95 to 130 wouild work most stuff here. Some motors may not like the low voltage. Most importantly, you are not syncing up with anything.