Your last generator Maintenance Run

[daugen]

About twenty years ago, after I sold my Radio Shack and was about to go back into insurance, a friend asked me to help grow his specialty instrumentation business, mostly dealing with Schlumberger electronic
pressure, vibration, etc, sensors in the electrical generation field. I'm not a mechanic at all, my boss was a mechanical engineer so he used his technical ability and I used my people skills and we did well together. We picked up the scraps left by GE and Westinghouse. Which took me to jet engine turbine generators, coal fired steam plants, one nuke plant (hard to get in...) and two hydroelectric dams, in Pennsylvania, one of which had 100 year old giant brass analog instrumentation on it. But it just kept plugging along, though it had scheduled outages like all of them. Just seemed like such an incredibly good idea to use the natural power of water and gravity to make electricity. Just like wind energy, despite the unattractive view. Hydros were always quiet, though made a big hum, and there were always fishermen right below.
The nuke plants were the biggest generators of them all of course, though there are some huge coal fired plants too. The only reason the Delaware River in PA is kept dredged in the upper reaches is to allow the coal barge to come up river to the Trenton NJ coal fired steam plant. Lots of folks boating on that river are glad of that.

a bit different than our maintenance runs...everything in a three ring binder, SOP for almost everything.
We were replacing strip chart recorders and networking them outside of the plant's main system for areas deemed unworthy of hooking up or crazy expensive from the main supplier. When the power plant had a little money left over in the budget at the end of the year, we got called for
some smaller jobs and it was a fascinating job for me being surrounded by so much huge machinery, most of which I had very limited idea how it worked. Enthalpy, Entropy, lot to learn...

and now here I am test running my own tiny generators...wish there was a less expensive load bank out there, though rounding up two space heaters isn't usually a problem. With my background in electronic monitoring, it frankly bothers me having engines without adequate gauges.
Even my expensive Kubota only has stupid idiot lights. And we sure don't usually get amperage use, output voltage, oil pressure and oil temp gauges on our generators...much less a pyrometer stuck in the air cooled heads.

 

[3930dave]

About twenty years ago, after I sold my Radio Shack and was about to go back into insurance, a friend asked me to help grow his specialty instrumentation business, mostly dealing with Schlumberger electronic
pressure, vibration, etc, sensors in the electrical generation field. I'm not a mechanic at all, my boss was a mechanical engineer so he used his technical ability and I used my people skills and we did well together. We picked up the scraps left by GE and Westinghouse. Which took me to jet engine turbine generators, coal fired steam plants, one nuke plant (hard to get in...) and two hydroelectric dams, in Pennsylvania, one of which had 100 year old giant brass analog instrumentation on it. But it just kept plugging along, though it had scheduled outages like all of them. Just seemed like such an incredibly good idea to use the natural power of water and gravity to make electricity. Just like wind energy, despite the unattractive view. Hydros were always quiet, though made a big hum, and there were always fishermen right below.
The nuke plants were the biggest generators of them all of course, though there are some huge coal fired plants too. The only reason the Delaware River in PA is kept dredged in the upper reaches is to allow the coal barge to come up river to the Trenton NJ coal fired steam plant. Lots of folks boating on that river are glad of that.

a bit different than our maintenance runs...everything in a three ring binder, SOP for almost everything.
We were replacing strip chart recorders and networking them outside of the plant's main system for areas deemed unworthy of hooking up or crazy expensive from the main supplier. When the power plant had a little money left over in the budget at the end of the year, we got called for
some smaller jobs and it was a fascinating job for me being surrounded by so much huge machinery, most of which I had very limited idea how it worked. Enthalpy, Entropy, lot to learn...

and now here I am test running my own tiny generators...wish there was a less expensive load bank out there, though rounding up two space heaters isn't usually a problem. With my background in electronic monitoring, it frankly bothers me having engines without adequate gauges.
Even my expensive Kubota only has stupid idiot lights. And we sure don't usually get amperage use, output voltage, oil pressure and oil temp gauges on our generators...much less a pyrometer stuck in the air cooled heads.

Very interesting post daugen. You've previously talked about insurance, so I had incorrectly assumed that was where you spent your career.

A bit less today, but Communicating with Humans (Sales) is still a fairly portable skill. Upon reflection, it does also come across in your day-to-day posts about post-retirement activity; you led more of a Renaissance Man career than "insurance" infers, at least to me.

Hydro-electric.... one of the more truly elegant (more importantly - efficient, and ecologically balanced) ways to create power. I haven't dug back through the sordid history to see how the limousine-liberals managed to demonize and side-line the amount of hydro capacity that they have here, partly because I'm already depressed enough about our grid-power landscape. Sense and science tends to get drowned out by other agendas; the few that do pay attention will note that even Stewart Brand has come around to acknowledging that nuclear is needed.

You have to spend time around big-power facilities to truly appreciate the scale of them, and the amount of diligent, precise, and time-consuming maintenance that is required to "keep the lights On" 24x7. Back in the 90's, I toured the generator rooms (Arizona side), of the Hoover dam. I remember standing on the apron by the river (pretty much where they shot that scene in the first Transformers movie), and looking across the river at the twin facility on the Nevada side. It's a vivid memory, partly because sitting on the Nevada apron across from me was a Suburban - it looked like a tinker-toy against the backdrop of that station.

Your time in Instrumentation Sales, combined with personal perception, gave you understanding that is beyond most consumers reach. In the "Cost" thread, I've been blunt about my disgust at our current electricity bills here, not because I resent the money going into needed maintenance; rather because I detest the money wasted on Slush Fund activity, and other vanity projects.....

"Replace Engine Now" lights.... most of on here have little use for them. Stationary generators tend to come with at least a basic instrumentation package, but more is definitely better. In the general market, it is preferred for consumers to do what they do best - consume. Air-cooled engines have simplicity going for them - considering how little maintenance most get, they stand up pretty well. As I've said many times, small generators impress me by having Low-Oil-Shutdown sensors - impressive, esp. when you consider that $100k road-vehicles don't.

If/when I get to owning a "digital" tractor, I'm hoping that tractor digital networks have standardized. In many road-vehicles today, plugging a Scan-Gauge II (now III I believe) into the OBDII port allows you to display a wide range of non-OE-dash data on it's screen. It would be nice to have that kind of a low-cost option with tractors. As small generators become more sophisticated, maybe one day there too.

Rgds, D.

 

[nikdfish]

Dave, thought I'd add this pic to the thread.

I've been using the Champion 7K dual fuel on propane and wanted to keep up with consumption/vaporization rates at higher draw rates (like running an old Lincoln AC-225 welder). I added a two bottle manifold setup consisting of a "Mr. Heater" manifold w/POL male/female ends and a POL -> QCC1 adapter (both from amazon, $32.99 & $12.99, respectively). Multiple manifolds could be daisy chained in for extended run times or for colder weather that suppresses vaporization.

BTW, the bottles are from Costco, a good deal @ $24.99 each & come with gauges, pre-purged and ready to fill.

Nick

 

[3930dave]

Dave, thought I'd add this pic to the thread.

I've been using the Champion 7K dual fuel on propane and wanted to keep up with consumption/vaporization rates at higher draw rates (like running an old Lincoln AC-225 welder). I added a two bottle manifold setup consisting of a "Mr. Heater" manifold w/POL male/female ends and a POL -> QCC1 adapter (both from amazon, $32.99 & $12.99, respectively). Multiple manifolds could be daisy chained in for extended run times or for colder weather that suppresses vaporization.

BTW, the bottles are from Costco, a good deal @ $24.99 each & come with gauges, pre-purged and ready to fill.

Nick

Great info Nick - low cost way to safely expand propane capacity. More of an issue up this way than for you, but it's definitely needed at lower temperatures.

Are those 20 or 30# tanks ? Costco up here has 20#, but often the 30# ones too. They are the lowest cost place to buy propane here..... but in general, they don't have much real competition....

I'd say the only drawback to propane is that the oil hardly changes colour - you definitely have to go by operating hours for oil changes. (Nice "problem" to have).

Rgds, D.

 

[daugen]

Dave, 30 of my years was in insurance and then financial planning. Not having had kids, I was able to hop around a bit and experiment doing different things the other ten years. Sold yachts in Ft Lauderdale for three years when I really got sick of insurance, owned a Radio Shack for five years, and worked in powerplants for two years. Looking at a Pratt Whitney jet engine fire up to run a peaking generator for NJP&L was quite an experience, the air pollution from those things was like the very first jets taking off. Would create a huge ugly cloud of yellow brown smoke, probably noxious as can be. And nuke plants? clean as a whistle. Until they aren't...but I'm all for nuclear. Burning coal is nuts, let's retrain those miners in a safer industry anyway. Been a sci fi fan since I was a little kid, it's time for fusion power. It's how we are going to get off this great big rock some day anyway.

Now, the manual for a fusion generator might be a few pages longer...

 

[check]

Dave, 30 of my years was in insurance and then financial planning. Not having had kids, I was able to hop around a bit and experiment doing different things the other ten years. Sold yachts in Ft Lauderdale for three years when I really got sick of insurance, owned a Radio Shack for five years, and worked in powerplants for two years. Looking at a Pratt Whitney jet engine fire up to run a peaking generator for NJP&L was quite an experience, the air pollution from those things was like the very first jets taking off. Would create a huge ugly cloud of yellow brown smoke, probably noxious as can be. And nuke plants? clean as a whistle. Until they aren't...but I'm all for nuclear. Burning coal is nuts, let's retrain those miners in a safer industry anyway. Been a sci fi fan since I was a little kid, it's time for fusion power. It's how we are going to get off this great big rock some day anyway. Now, the manual for a fusion generator might be a few pages longer...

Well, 60% of the electricity in Ontario comes from nuclear power plants, and yet the electricity prices are still absolutely obscene.

And here's a strange story. The government mailed iodine pills to all the local residents who lived near the nuclear power plants!

 

[Industrial Toys]

I am rebuilding my Onan/Isuzu plant. Bigger project then I intended. Just the new cooling system is giving me great grief. What's the point of having your temperature sensor in the stat housing? You loose a bit of coolant, and that sensor is high and dry! I placed my electric fan stat just beside the upper rad hose on the rad. Same problem! It's the first spot to go dry and the fan quits!

Now, I feel the need for an additional Murphy temp switch/gauge, somewhere on the block in addition to the Dynagen monitoring system.

The good news is that I dug out that old electric furnace and loaded up the set. The dealer that discarded that equipment claimed the rotor and stator was pooched! Apparently not so. I put a used Basler VR on it and it seems to work fine, even though it won't make the advertised 12.5KW, but makes 10 KW fine.

 

[buickanddeere]

Well, 60% of the electricity in Ontario comes from nuclear power plants, and yet the electricity prices are still absolutely obscene.

And here's a strange story. The government mailed iodine pills to all the local residents who lived near the nuclear power plants!����

Check the numbers on what Hydro One has to pay for power from solar, wind and natural gas . No matter if the power is required or not. Are you aware of how many billion we paid NY and Michigan to take off peak surplus power?
Potasium Iodide tablets are stardard proceedure , not a big deal. You forgot the automatic alarm radio's too.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Great info Nick - low cost way to safely expand propane capacity. More of an issue up this way than for you, but it's definitely needed at lower temperatures.

Are those 20 or 30# tanks ? Costco up here has 20#, but often the 30# ones too. They are the lowest cost place to buy propane here..... but in general, they don't have much real competition....

I'd say the only drawback to propane is that the oil hardly changes colour - you definitely have to go by operating hours for oil changes. (Nice "problem" to have).

Rgds, D.

Thanks Nick. I was wondering how we could use our 20 pound tanks after reading customer reviews on our new dual fuel 18 HP generator. I got word today that it will be shipped by FedEX Freight so we should see it in about a week. They said under a heavy load it would burn a 100 pound tank a day or more because a 20 pound tank was good for 2-3 hours.

 

[3930dave]

I am rebuilding my Onan/Isuzu plant. Bigger project then I intended. Just the new cooling system is giving me great grief. What's the point of having your temperature sensor in the stat housing? You loose a bit of coolant, and that sensor is high and dry! I placed my electric fan stat just beside the upper rad hose on the rad. Same problem! It's the first spot to go dry and the fan quits!

Now, I feel the need for an additional Murphy temp switch/gauge, somewhere on the block in addition to the Dynagen monitoring system.

The good news is that I dug out that old electric furnace and loaded up the set. The dealer that discarded that equipment claimed the rotor and stator was pooched! Apparently not so. I put a used Basler VR on it and it seems to work fine, even though it won't make the advertised 12.5KW, but makes 10 KW fine.

Rads are different, but I'm used to seeing gauge temp sensors up high in heads, inside the block loop.

Haven't deliberately played with it, but I suspect low coolant may spike the high-up gauge sensor with "steam" (?). If they were down low in the block, coolant temperature may still read OK, while the head is cooking (?).

If that gen head will reliably produce "only" 10kw, that ain't bad !

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Check the numbers on what Hydro One has to pay for power from solar, wind and natural gas . No matter if the power is required or not. Are you aware of how many billion we paid NY and Michigan to take off peak surplus power?
Potasium Iodide tablets are stardard proceedure , not a big deal. You forgot the automatic alarm radio's too.

Cost trajectory is not good...... tends to make a strong case for either 1) Going off-grid, or 2) Leaving Ontario.

Rgds, D.

 

[check]

Cost trajectory is not good...... tends to make a strong case for either 1) Going off-grid, or 2) Leaving Ontario. Rgds, D.

Yes, and these costs and the new cap and trade policy are a big deal in the media. Everyone is getting really pissed off at the Ontario government.

 

[Rocky J]

Thanks Nick. I was wondering how we could use our 20 pound tanks after reading customer reviews on our new dual fuel 18 HP generator. I got word today that it will be shipped by FedEX Freight so we should see it in about a week. They said under a heavy load it would burn a 100 pound tank a day or more because a 20 pound tank was good for 2-3 hours.

The ambient temperature around the tank plays a big part in a single 20# keeping up in the vaporizing needs. My Toro Groundsmaster 4 cylinder engine runs on one 20# cylinder , some summer mornings I have to avoid the shaded areas while mowing so the sun can make the tank work, in the shaded areas the tank will frost up and the engine slows down until I get back in the sun and the frost turns to water and rpm's return to normal.

 

[check]

Check the numbers on what Hydro One has to pay for power from solar, wind and natural gas . No matter if the power is required or not. Are you aware of how many billion we paid NY and Michigan to take off peak surplus power? Potasium Iodide tablets are stardard proceedure , not a big deal. You forgot the automatic alarm radio's too.

No, I haven't heard that we actually pay them to take our peak surplus power. Would like to read more about it. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

James

 

[daugen]

No, I haven't heard that we actually pay them to take our peak surplus power. Would like to read more about it. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

James

I thought this was odd too, why wouldn't the recipient of the power be paying regular or perhaps discounted rates for the power? Unless there simply is more power than needed, which doesn't make much sense either, although Spring and Fall likely lower demand. Is winter your heaviest usage due to temps? Would think the summer a/c usage would not be as great as far North as you are. There are several members off the grid, very interesting to hear how they do.

 

[TractorGuy]

and now here I am test running my own tiny generators...wish there was a less expensive load bank out there, though rounding up two space heaters isn't usually a problem. With my background in electronic monitoring, it frankly bothers me having engines without adequate gauges.
Even my expensive Kubota only has stupid idiot lights. And we sure don't usually get amperage use, output voltage, oil pressure and oil temp gauges on our generators...much less a pyrometer stuck in the air cooled heads.

A good load bank isn't hard to build and cost isn't that crazy. I built my 13,500 watt load bank for under $200. I actually spent less than a $100 but I already had all the metal and some other supplies. The basis for my load elements were 5400 watt dryer elements bought off that auction site for <$18 each. I put two of them in series to make one leg 2700 watts and ran the other two straight so a total of four elements made up my unit. I ran them through a 100A outdoor panel with 6 spaces for three 240V circuits. With a larger panel and more elements you can make about any size load bank you require. Just make sure you include a fan with enough flow to keep the elements from melting down. I used straight elements without the typical temperature safety switches and just relied on the breakers for switching and safety.



The analog gauges on my military surplus genset were woefully inadequate. I again sourced meters off that auction site to upgrade it to something I could rely on. You have to verify everything with known quality instruments but once you know what you have it makes testing a lot easier to have good instruments hardwired in. None of the gauges on my set were working and the ones I got to work were not accurate. I installed a generator meter that reads voltage, hertz, and hours. On top of that I installed a meter on each leg that reads volts and amps. The generator meter turned out to read a little low on voltage but the hertz was accurate according to my Fluke meter. The voltage/amp meters were accurate on both scales. I add the two voltage value readings on those to arrive at total voltage and use the highest amp reading to determine load. I plug the fan for my load bank into a 120v convenience outlet on the generator so when testing I read one tenth higher amps on one leg. Of course running the house you always have some degree of unevenness on the loads.

 

[buickanddeere]

No, I haven't heard that we actually pay them to take our peak surplus power. Would like to read more about it. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

James

Google search the auditor general's report. Can't understand how anyone can not know about this scandal? Rates up there with the gas plant cancelation and the Korean manufacturing contract . Then there is the recent deal to purchase power we don't need from Quebec. How about the suspect Ontario EV deal via a paid employee of Tesla ?

 

[buickanddeere]

I thought this was odd too, why wouldn't the recipient of the power be paying regular or perhaps discounted rates for the power? Unless there simply is more power than needed, which doesn't make much sense either, although Spring and Fall likely lower demand. Is winter your heaviest usage due to temps? Would think the summer a/c usage would not be as great as far North as you are. There are several members off the grid, very interesting to hear how they do.

Don't blame me for the corruption that most of the public has no clue about. Why do we spill water past the Niagara Falls Beck I and Beck II plants for 5 cents and purchase 17 cent natural gas turbine power ?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

The ambient temperature around the tank plays a big part in a single 20# keeping up in the vaporizing needs. My Toro Groundsmaster 4 cylinder engine runs on one 20# cylinder , some summer mornings I have to avoid the shaded areas while mowing so the sun can make the tank work, in the shaded areas the tank will frost up and the engine slows down until I get back in the sun and the frost turns to water and rpm's return to normal.

That is interesting. In one of the reviews of this new 18 HP generator the owner did say he had to get the 20# cylinder into part of the exhaust stream to prevent/reverse the tank from frosting. About 25 years ago I was talking to an old propane distributor. He said in the days before the 80% fill regulation they would sometimes actually build a small fire under the propane tank to get gas flowing. I guess that would check for leaks at the same time.

 

[3930dave]

I thought this was odd too, why wouldn't the recipient of the power be paying regular or perhaps discounted rates for the power? Unless there simply is more power than needed, which doesn't make much sense either, although Spring and Fall likely lower demand. Is winter your heaviest usage due to temps? Would think the summer a/c usage would not be as great as far North as you are. There are several members off the grid, very interesting to hear how they do.

Good article in the Sun today, recaps some of the back-story:

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/301721-what-earth-does-electricity-cost-45.html#post4695685

Create a(n alleged) Crisis, to Drive an Agenda...... age-old scam.....

Take the economic engine of Canada (Ontario), and wipe out the manufacturing base - guaranteed that you now have a massive surplus of electrical capacity. On that basis alone, no tax dollars should have been spent on Green - considering the massive general deficits we run here (California is more fiscally responsible, I kid you not....).

If you then want to drive monstrous new Green Energy capacity into the market w/o totally mothballing existing major generating capacity (even the normally inattentive and docile Canadian taxpayer might notice that going on......), then you have to give away, or worse yet, pay adjoining jurisdictions to take your power to drive baseline minimum loads for the older plants.

Unfortunately, many of the unwashed masses here have no clue as to what is going on..... but more are starting to clue in that part of their 80% increase in electricity costs is being used to pay somebody else to take free power.

There's more, but that's probably all my BP can take for one night....

Rgds, D.