Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Diggin It]

What time does it exercise? I set mine for 2 pm.
genmon changed time on my unit automatically.

7AM, so it should have updated some time between then and 2AM.

But I seem to remember that it doesn't have full time connection. It only connects at some interval or when it needs to send a status change. Since it updated around the time it exercised or just after, it may have gotten the command to do so at the same time it sent the status.

Just guessing though.

I don't remember what happened last fall and it wasn't on line for the change last spring.

 

[3930dave]

My old habit of throwing in a
few spare conduits once the ditch is open will pay off. I've got 1 or 2 open at that pedestal that goes back to the house to operate a light off of the street side of the transfer sw.

You don't like doing the same job twice ? Me neither.....

Garden Gnome caught my eye.... thinking if it was line-sight to house, stick a light-saber in his hand as an indicator..... might get the mothership to land though.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

7AM, so it should have updated some time between then and 2AM.

But I seem to remember that it doesn't have full time connection. It only connects at some interval or when it needs to send a status change. Since it updated around the time it exercised or just after, it may have gotten the command to do so at the same time it sent the status.

Just guessing though.

I don't remember what happened last fall and it wasn't on line for the change last spring.

Worst-case - updated by next day..... sounds all good for what I'd need.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Alan W.]

Well I'm giving my generator it's maintenance run as we talk;

Sitting at the table drinking coffee thinking about breakfast when about 9 the power went out, took a drive around and saw several generators running.
Came back home and fired up the IH 574 on the pto generator and she is purring away as I type.
After I started it, I logged into National Grid to report the outage.
Then seeing as how I hadn't had breakfast went ahead and made biscuit sausage and egg sandwiches,
now just sitting and drinking coffee #3 for the morning, expect I'll be making several trips to get rid of it

Oh, for any that wonder I generally leave the generator right up by the house covered up with a piece of heavy plastic.
Also during the winter I try to leave a tractor hooked up to it. So this morning I started the tractor and let it warm up while I
released the garage door, did my transfer to generator switch, unrolled the cord and plugged it into the generator, engaged the pto ran the throttle up to 60 Hz on the front panel meter, went to the generator and flipped the switch.
And heat, lights, kitchen stuff and water pump up and happy.

The worst thing about my setup is knowing when the power has come back on.
What I often end up doing is bypassing the safety to open the cover and measure voltage on the utility feed,
one of these days I am going to wire in a switch and light or volt meter.

I admire anyone who under the duress of a situation still takes time to eat. A motto I live and waddle by.

 

[5030]

7am sharp this morning just like every Sunday morning at 7 sharp.

 

[check]

Worst-case - updated by next day..... sounds all good for what I'd need.....

Rgds, D.

Dave, are you in Ontario, and if so, doesn’t Hydro One text you when power has been restored?

 

[daugen]

went to start gen yesterday and no joy. Dead. Battery was fine, but I charged it anyway. Light below electric start switch does not come on when rocker
switched to ON, so somewhere between battery and there is an issue. Need to pull panel off and look behind, everything seems tight and clean from what I could see.
Plus the one inline fuse looked fine, not blown, no corrosion. My friend Paul (Popgadget) is coming over this afternoon to put a meter on the wiring to figure out what the problem is.
Going to spray all connections with DeOxit while we are at it.
I was able to manually start gen and it ran fine but starting a very cold 457cc single is not easy and not smart for my bad back.

 

[LouNY]

I don't know what happened to it,
but years ago some lawn mowers had spring powered starter.
It was a small crank on the end of the flywheel that you wound up
and then it had some release mechanism that allowed the spring
you had wound up to crank the engine over as if you were pulling the rope.
Seems like something like that would be nice on a generator.

 

[not2old]

We got our first gas mower in 1960 and it had this type of starter on a Briggs motor. They didn't start so easily in those days and I remember times when you needed to crank and try starting many many times before it would fire. Those problems disappeared when we installed the shroud and recoil off another motor. You could give it a stronger spin with the rope.

 

[Rustyiron]

I remember those "recoil"? starters. I can hear the clicking noise as you wound it up. I can't remember the trigger for releasing it.