Your last generator Maintenance Run

[grsthegreat]

Perfect, if ya got it let it shine!!!

We had a major ice storm several years ago so I started my 25kw pto generator & turned every Christmas light on along with every other light in and on the house.
My wife said that the drive home from work was total darkness until she came around the corner and saw our house lit up like a beacon.
She came in & said you can't do that and proceeded to turn all the lights off.
I was enjoying my creation until she shut me down.
Everyone up & down our road has a generator now.
Just sayin!
90cummins

ya, i have a few neighbors that finally installed whole house systems this year. both told me that there happy they did. we had a 5 hour outage last week and a 2 hour outage last night. My next door neighbor installed a manual system 2 years ago, bit now he too wants a whole house system....he was jealous of my Christmas lights last night. after 19 years of having a manual start up generator it was nice to just sit on couch and have lights back up in 30 seconds. i may have to add battery backup ups system to my satellite and wifi unit so i dont have to wait 5 minutes for them to reboot.....im so lazy

 

[90cummins]

Thanks 90.

High resolution data - good stuff :thumbsup: With that level of instrumentation and a constant load, I wouldn't be surprised if you could distinguish runtime between using pure gasoline, and E10.

Not that I'm wishing E10 on your re-incarnated Honda ! .

Rgds, D.

Thanks for that reminder!!
The gasoline in the tank was premium non ethanol.
Looks like I may need to run another test using regular E10 to see if there is a difference.
That would be a worth while test.
90cummins

 

[90cummins]

ya, i have a few neighbors that finally installed whole house systems this year. both told me that there happy they did. we had a 5 hour outage last week and a 2 hour outage last night. My next door neighbor installed a manual system 2 years ago, bit now he too wants a whole house system....he was jealous of my Christmas lights last night. after 19 years of having a manual start up generator it was nice to just sit on couch and have lights back up in 30 seconds. i may have to add battery backup ups system to my satellite and wifi unit so i dont have to wait 5 minutes for them to reboot.....im so lazy

I have a battery backup system which supports my WiFi, heat & other essential items but I need to manually start & connect my generator for long term outages.
Working towards automation of that.
90cummins

 

[cdaigle430]

My Generac NG 16KW starts every 2 weeks, been faithful for over a year now and it gets cooooold here I n Maine. I keep a Briggs n Stratton Stratton 5.5kw storm responder just in case. Been on loan more times than I can remember.

 

[jmc]

Ran a couple of fuel consumption tests on my Honda EU2000i and I'm quite pleased/surprised at the hours per gallon that I can power the 1/4 hp high efficiency blower motor for my wood furnace along with the living room lights & tv.
The load per my killawatt meter varied between 490 & 594va.
The test ran 202 minutes (3.37 hours) and consumed 31.6 ounces / 894 grams of fuel by weight.
Gasoline per Google weighs approx 6.25 lb/gallon (100 ounces) which it consumed at the rate of 9.39 ounces / 265.54 grams per hour.
To measure the fuel consumed I placed the auxilary 3 gallon fuel tank that was connected to the Honda on my digital postal scale for continious monitoring recording the start and finish weight.
The killawatt meter showed that 1.5 kw of power was used.
According to my calculations with the load mentioned above it will operate for 10.68 hours and produce 4.76kw per gallon of gasoline.
Listed below is the basic data I obtained my figures from.
Hours run = 3.37 (202 minutes)
Grams fuel consumed = 894
Ounces fuel consumed = 31.6
Hours/gallon = 10.68
Gallons/hour = 0.09
Kw consumed = 1.5
Kw/gallon of gasoline = 4.76
Please feel free to check/verify my results for errors, I strive for accurate data and welcome feedback.
Thanks
90cummins

Good information. If I ever get a generator, I will probably do the same test.

Since you asked for feedback, the electric units for load would be 'kilowatts', like you said. But electric units for what the gasoline actually generated would be 'kilowatt-hours'.

John

 

[grsthegreat]

My Generac NG 16KW starts every 2 weeks, been faithful for over a year now and it gets cooooold here I n Maine. I keep a Briggs n Stratton Stratton 5.5kw storm responder just in case. Been on loan more times than I can remember.

you can always add the winter heating options kit if it gets too cold... my generator sounds alot happier starting up on 6f days. also the added heat keeps the snow melted around unit. i need to build a lean to over the generator next year

 

[3930dave]

Perfect, if ya got it let it shine!!!

We had a major ice storm several years ago so I started my 25kw pto generator & turned every Christmas light on along with every other light in and on the house.
My wife said that the drive home from work was total darkness until she came around the corner and saw our house lit up like a beacon.
She came in & said you can't do that and proceeded to turn all the lights off.
I was enjoying my creation until she shut me down.
Everyone up & down our road has a generator now.
Just sayin!
90cummins

She was fearing hordes of zombies ?

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Thanks for that reminder!!
The gasoline in the tank was premium non ethanol.
Looks like I may need to run another test using regular E10 to see if there is a difference.
That would be a worth while test.
90cummins

That scale should give you the resolution on the input (fuel). The tough part may be closely matching the load between the 2 tests - if you can do that, it will be interesting to compare the results.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

My Generac NG 16KW starts every 2 weeks, been faithful for over a year now and it gets cooooold here I n Maine. I keep a Briggs n Stratton Stratton 5.5kw storm responder just in case. Been on loan more times than I can remember.

Auto start/transfer is great to have at home, but a portable gen is plenty handy too.... even just for helping out neighbours or friends.

Rgds, D.

 

[Dakota_male]

Before installing a generator we lost power regularly but It have been over a year Since we installed our std by generator and we have not lost the power, but it tests itself every week so i installed a timer during the cold months to turn the block heater on 2 hours before the engine starts to ease the starting because it is cold in the east . Changed the oil to 5W40 syn. instead of 10w30 , summer tests once a month. I know it will start with old 10W30 at -22 so I have no fear of it not starting anytime it is needed.