Power Logging and Generator Hours

[thirteen]

If it is liquid cooled put a small propane heater plumbed into the water system and you could turn it on and it will warm up the engine in about 45 minutes. It circulates the water with no pump. You could leave it on all of the time when it is getting real cold it operates on a thermosat.They do not use very much feul.  Put twovalves and two quick couplers in the grill that is hooked up to your heat lines that go to your automobile heater and circulate warm engine water from your truck engine and also run it on the fuel lines so they heat up also. Buy a propane/deisel  fired space heater and blow warm air onto the engine. If you position it right it would take only 15 minutes and be warm enough to start. It could be put on a relay like a remote car starter.  Put a hole in the house and put a small fan in the house and plumb it out to the genset and you could push warm air from the house onto the front of the engine thru the radiator onto the oil pan.  Just a few ideas to worh with or toss.  13

[Frank S]

13; sorry but his main problem right now is the fact that when the temp turns South it gets colder than LPG will generate gas yes heating a storage of water either by a diesel or gasoline or propane heater could keep an engine warm enough to start but the amount of fuel or electrical energy it would take to keep the engine at full operating temps, which he must have for the on demand loads when something like  the clothes dryer or the cook stove is switched on to protect the inverters and battery bank would cost him more than leaving a generator running full time..
 As much as I like liquid cooled engines over an air cooled one and by far prefer diesel over gasoline. After doing hours of research on my own as if it were my problem I'm afraid that the way it looks from the stand point of economics, longevity, simplicity, and near instant power his choice of the Honda or something similar is most likely his better choice. I won't say best because there is always something that will come along after a choice is made that might have been even better.
  Smidy; the Eberspächer company is a great company they have been around since 1865 and started to get into the electrical industry as far back as the1920s I used to own a VW van in Germany that had a petrol fired space heater in it made by Eberspächer . The only thins was it used a lot of fuel to heat the van.

[thirteen]

the small propane heater is hooked directly to the engine that heats the engine water  has no moving parts andit uses no electricity the ones we use will go thru a small propane tank . Barbarque grill size in about 25 - 28 days. But we do not use it on weekends so it would take more. Ours in in the open outside on a trailer but does have a tarp thrown around it at night. It does not keep it at operating temp but around140 at -10 -15 last year. If he has the time to let things heat up things would work better but for a cold quik start unless it is put into a heated building or a under ground shed where things would not get as cold. Maybe I should go back and read the whole site. I am probably missing some things and that would clearify them. 

[smidy]

yes Frank it will use fuel, but i think you had a air/petrol since you had a vw van and i think they are not so eficent as a liqvid/diesel. at the company i work they monitor our fuel use and i really like when it is hot in the cab in the winter as i drive a grabage truck, so it is alot of in and out, so in winter it will run al day to help the engine heat the cab. if it was terebly on fuel i think my boss would have tell me i'm using to much fuel. yes some of my workinfellas been there so it is a realyty. so i think they are pretty shy on fuel use. in Chris case i dont think a decent(truck) eberspächer have to run 24/7 to maintain a smal petrol/diesel 2-3cyl engine at 70-80 C more like 15m in an hour if you never alow it to cool down when it is pretty cold

[ChrisOlson]

When I was at the CarQuest auto parts store the other day I seen these KATS oil pan heaters they got there.  They're a flat flexible silicon pad that sticks to the oil pan with an adhesive and they got a thermostat in them that cycles them on and off at 125 degrees.  I had the parts girl look up how small of a one you can get, and they make them down to 25 watts for only 20 bucks - scroll down the page aways here:
http://www.fivestarmanufacturing.com/Kat_s

I already got 120 volt power run in the underground conduit to the Generac because it required 120 volt power for its battery maintainer**.  A 25 watt heater would only pull 600 watt-hours a day.  Just stick it to the crankcase alongside the low oil sensor and it would maintain a Honda GX engine at a comfortable starting temperature even in the coldest weather.

If I get a EM6500 I have to build a generator house for it anyway because it doesn't have a housing.  The one I built for our Champion generator keeps it protected from the wind and extreme cold so the heat wouldn't be dissipated faster than it accumulates in the engine.

I don't think a heater would be needed unless the ambient temp is below 0 degrees because the generator runs every day in super cold weather.  And even an air-cooled engine does not cold-soak all the way to the core of the crankshaft within 24 hours if it's kept out of the wind.

A Honda EM6500 would not need to be maintained at operating temp like a diesel would.  Just warm enough so it starts and stays running within 3 seconds of crank time and it will be fine.

** incidentally, the battery maintainer in the Generac was another joke.  120V power has to be maintained at the T1 terminal in the connection block or the Nexus controller in it will drain the starting battery stone dead in 3 days.  This is an off-grid generator, mind you.  That battery maintainer in that damn thing draws 60 watts around the clock.  That generator was a bad purchase from the word "go".  But it sure looked good on paper.
--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

As much as I like liquid cooled engines over an air cooled one and by far prefer diesel over gasoline. After doing hours of research on my own as if it were my problem I'm afraid that the way it looks from the stand point of economics, longevity, simplicity, and near instant power his choice of the Honda or something similar is most likely his better choice.

I pulled the trigger on it and bought the Honda.  The dealer said they need a couple hours to get it out of the box, pre-deliver it and test run it.  They're open till 4:00 today and said I can pick it up any time after lunch.

One thing about Honda, and I've owned plenty of Honda stuff over the years, is that they pride themselves (and have pretty much built their reputation) on engineering excellence.  Take your standard everyday portable generator and it's just an engine driving a gen head with an AVR in it, mounted to a frame with a gas tank on it.  Right?  Well, turn Honda engineers loose on it and you get a portable that's every bit as sophisticated and reliable as a 2.0 MW certified prime power generator.  LOL!

--
Chris

[DamonHD]

Ha!  I gave up watching the Honda ad fairly quickly, but I'm glad that you're getting a resolution to your quandary in good time for winter.

We had a chilly (+7C, down to +2C fairly near us) evening just to remind us which season is coming up...  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[DanG]

Beware with Honda they are so over eager to avoid dealer-caused statistic problems they'll double fill the oil.  Seen it more than once.

[ChrisOlson]

Ha!  I gave up watching the Honda ad fairly quickly, but I'm glad that you're getting a resolution to your quandary in good time for winter.

Me too.  They're giving me a "free" remote cable with it too.  For auto-start all it takes is to plug in the control cable to the plug on the generator, cut the connector off the other end that would normally connect to Honda's remote stating panel, and hook it into the generator controller.

I only got one problem - all the wire is underground in conduit and how the hell am I going to pull that 25 foot control cable thru that underground conduit?  I tried to pull the Generac's control wires out, thinking I could use them to pull the Honda cable thru.  They won't budge.  Might have to trench in another conduit with the control cable in it.
--
Chris

[bvan1941]

Chris,
IF---- your going to trench another cable run, consider running 4" PVC and run extra control wire for future options.

It saved me many times in my business.

My two cents.
Bill

[thirteen]

you might be able to barrow a fish tape from and electician or rent one and push it thru the pipe to run (pull) another control wire. I think they comein and are around 100ft and smaller or larger which ever you need. It might save alot of digging. I agree that a bigger pipe will let you pull other wires in the future.

[ChrisOlson]

I got my new generator home this afternoon and measured it up so I can build a new generator house for it.  Have to go to Menards tomorrow and get some building steel to make it.

The conduit is 2 1/2" and it should be big enough.  But I think what I did was tape the control wires to the big conductors so they're not going to move.  I'm going to try pulling the whole works out when I get the gen house built for it, and pull a fish line thru at the same time.  Then pull the ground, neutral and 240 conductors, plus the 120 volt that feeds power back to the gen house, plus the new control cable all thru at one time.

I'm pretty sure I taped that in at least a couple or three places in there to keep it in a tight bundle, and that's why it won't move.  When I pull on it, the whole works moves easy enough though.

The remote control cable for the Honda has four wires in it:
-a common (ground - white)
-a start wire (blue)
-a stop wire (yellow)
-and a signal wire for the LED on the Honda Remote Control Box (pink)

The remote control cable will be the biggest of all the conductors in the conduit because it has a thick insulation on it like a heavy duty extension cord, plus it has a square plug on both ends of it that plugs into the generator remote control plug and into the control box.

Rather than cutting of the square plug on the other end to hook it into the generator controller, they gave me a short pigtail of cord with a female plug on it that I can wire into the controller and simply plug the end of the control cable into the plug on the pigtail coming out of the controller.  This gives me the option of unplugging the Trace controller and plugging in the Honda Remote Control Box to start it if I want.

No, it did not come over full on oil and was still hot from being test run when I picked it up.  I started it and ran it when I got it home and what a beautiful running generator.  That Honda engine sounds more like a sewing machine than than the GX-series Honda's I'm used to.  I don't know what they did in these iGX engines but it is so smooth and quiet, even plugging my 5hp air compressor into it and running it under load, that it's almost hard to believe it's "just a portable generator".
--
Chris

[thirteen]

you might take a ohms reading on the control wires and voltage reading put them down on paper and put it in the control panel for 10 years down the road. And a short record of what you did and why. 13

[ChrisOlson]

I got a loose-leaf binder with all the manuals for all of our equipment that stays in the utility room.  The manual for the EM6500SX has a complete wiring diagram for the generator with all that data in it.

I figured out that for using an EM6500SX as an RE standby auto-start generator I have to install a small double pole relay with a 12 volt coil to make the connection between EXT (+) and EXT (-), which is used to enable the Digitial CDI ignition, plus BAT to LO, which is power to the engine ECU.  Those two circuits have to be kept separate, which will require a double pole relay.  Breaking either circuit stops the generator.

Without that extra relay the engine switch would have to be left in the "ON" position which will drain the battery because it leaves the engine ECU powered up all the time.  The engine ECU directly controls throttle and choke (there is no mechanical governor like a regular GX-series engine has) so as long as it is powered up all that is needed to start it is a one wire start signal.

So, basically, the factory supplied remote starting system can't be used for an RE application.  It is designed for RV's and other such applications where the engine switch would be switched "ON", draining the battery, and gives the operate the convenience of remote start and stop.  But it only a temporary thing because the key switch on the generator has to be turned to "OFF", breaking both of those circuits I mentioned above to prevent draining the battery until the next use.

So - just providing the information here for anybody else who might buy a Honda EM Deluxe-series generator for their off-grid system, and want to use as auto-start.................

On the back of the key switch there is a plug with five wires going to it:
-white
-black/yellow stripe
-black/white stripe
-red
-black

You have to solder in a pigtail on the wires in that plug - the pins come out easily if you have the AMP connector tools to work on those style plugs.  You have to send 1 amp fused 12VDC from the genset battery to the Run Relay Common in the generator controller.  Run a control wire back from Run Relay NO in the gen controller to the DPST relay installed at the generator.

At the generator the control 12VDC coming from the gen controller goes to one coil terminal on the DPST relay, the other coil terminal goes to frame ground on the generator.  White at the key switch plug is connected to black/yellow thru one set of contacts in the DPST relay.  Red is connected to black thru the other set of contacts in the DPST relay.

In the gen controller you jump Common to Common from the RY7 Run and RY8 Start and send the start signal back to the generator from the RY8 NO in the gen controller to the black/white at the key switch.

It works.  The generator can be manually started with the key switch at the generator.  And the inverter fires it right up and brings it online in auto mode with the gen controller.  The key switch can turned "OFF" and the key removed from the generator for automatic operation.  I double checked and there is zero draw on the genset battery with the generator in standby mode waiting to start.

Don't have to change any wires in my conduit - the existing control wiring for the old genset works fine.
--
Chris

[DamonHD]

Lovely.  Mr Murphy must still be on holiday...

Rgds

Damon

[thirteen]

thats ok my  nieghbor found him in his front yard. He was on his roof repairing the kitchen vent cover and dropped a 6 lb hammer and it bounced off hitting the tire in the back of his pickup. He told me it bounced up hitting the big window in there livingroom and it just shattered and fell upon his wife prize flowers destroying them. She enters them every year and has won several prizes for them. The fair is next week. OUCH!! She is not home yet and if you knew her and her flowers you do not want to be around when she gets home and he tries to explain it to her. I helped him cover the window. But the flowers are history. I told him that my couch is avaiable if he needs it. He did not laugh even one little bit. 13

[Frank S]

 I suppose telling her that if you cant eat them they are nothing but weeds that smell funny wouldn't be the thing to do. I treat flowers like women and men who wear perfume I stay the heck as far away as I can from them. Men's after shave and just about every scented deodorant and just about all of the rest  those smelly things will send me into a sneezing fit

[ChrisOlson]

My wife has a lot of flowers and I kind of like them.  The hummingbirds have been sucking stuff out of them lately and I like hummingbirds too because they're cool.

It was after dark by the time I got my generator house built for the new generator.  Still have to build the roof for it, put the ventilation system in it, install the exhaust outlet, and get everything wired in it.  But I'm getting there.  The generator house for that Honda is 4 feet long x 38" wide and 36" high.





The generator is going to set on the gravel pad that the Generac used to set on.  There's no floor in the generator house - only the gravel.  I got a 1/3hp 14" fan to force fresh air into the house and got a nice grille from Menards that I have to install yet to let the warm exhaust air out.

The ventilation fan is powered off one of the 120 volt plugs on the generator and I got a duct stat that I can set at 70 degrees so the fan will start when it gets up to 70 degrees in there (as long as the generator is running).  That will help regulate the temperature inside the generator house for the air-cooled iGX engine so it runs at the right operating temperature in really cold weather.
--
Chris

[thirteen]

My nieghbors house was real quite last night. I think he took her out for dinner. I thought about going outside and listen when she got home but changed my mind. I feel sorry for him but it will get a good laugh in a couple of years.
My mom had a flower shop until I was 17. so I like flowers and always will. The mountains and meadows on and near my property changes color evey couple of weeks during the spring and summer.  They are nice to see. I plan on trying a couple of bee hives next year. I will have to build a rebar cage to put them under for we have a good population of bears that come thru.

You might want to put a wire mesh over the grill to stop insects from building nests inside the
H&H = Honda House. Wasps are really good for finding little places to hide. They are good machines and with a little care will last you many years.

[Frank S]

I know my gen house requirements are a world away different than yours but here are a couple of pics of the enclosure for our 350 KW . Pretty much typical of any enclosure you will see from most generator manufactures in fact it is one of them with ONE exception the sound insulation was replaced with BASF's versatile melamine resin foam Basotect®with chopped rockwool mixed in. The enclosure was a burned out salvage we found

 

 it took me a long time to convince folks that a generator will actually run cooler when it is contained in its enclosure with all panels or doors closed you can stand beside of it and talk on  your cell phone without having to shout.

[ChrisOlson]

Using what I learned from building the enclosure for my little Champion generator, most of the heat is generated by the muffler, not the engine itself.  The layout of the two generators is the same.  The fan has to force air in the top of the enclosure on the engine end of the set and be blowing straight down on the generator.  If you blow air in from the side or the end of the enclosure it won't circulate the air properly to pick up the heat off the muffler.

The cooling fan on the engine itself blows air over the engine and generator head and forces the air thru the generator, sucking air in the engine end and blowing it out the gen head end.  You don't want to counter, or try to assist, that natural airflow in the generator set, just enhance it by the ventilation fan forcing air around the engine end and sides of the set, then exhaust the air on the gen head end of the enclosure thru the end sidewall at a point just slightly higher than the generator set.

For the exhaust I use a 3" double wall stainless steel vent pipe and cap - it rained here last night so it's wet this morning:



The exhaust goes straight out thru the sidewall of the enclosure, inline with the outlet on the muffler.  The muffler has  to simply blow the exhaust into the end of the vent pipe and there has to be a gap of about 3" between the end of the vent pipe and muffler outlet.

I think you see now what happens - the ventilation fan pressurizes the enclosure and the air has to find a way to get out.  It goes out both the exhaust vent pipe and the warm air exhaust grille.  The muffler being a little ways from the end of the vent pipe has a venturi effect from the pulsing of the single cylinder exhaust, and roughly 50% of the air being forced into the enclosure exhausts out the engine exhaust vent pipe.  In the process the air has to flow around the muffler to get out thru the vent pipe and it carries most of the muffler heat out thru the vent pipe as well as engine exhaust.

If you seal up the vent pipe tight to the muffler it don't work worth a crap and the muffler gives off heat faster than the ventilation system can handle it.

Incidentally, this works the same way as an expansion chamber on a two-stroke engine.  Or if you've ever worked around heavy equipment that has an exhaust pulse pre-cleaner for the diesel engine air intake.  The exhaust pulse pre-cleaner uses the sound waves in the exhaust to suck 90% of the dirt in the air out and send it up the exhaust stack before it ever gets to the engine air cleaner filtration element.
--
Chris

[Frank S]

You are using turbulent flow inductance convection or convection inductance depending on how you look at it. you small fan is not strong enough to disrupt the natural flow of the engine fan therefore the cool air is picked up and carried along at the same time the engine fan would be pulling a portion of the fan air to be forced over the engine then past the head.The exhaust like you said mounted near the vent tube is actually doing a lot of the work to keep the cabinet from overheating  by using the pulsating thermals of the exhaust creating a low pressure zone drawing the air out
 Does that pretty much sum it up?
I wonder what RPM the fan is turning when it is not under power?
 and what fan  run time versus outside ambient air temp would be.
It sounds like a really cool design you have worked out and apparently it must work since you have used this before.
 Inquiring minds and all of that

[ChrisOlson]

Yes, that's basically how it works.  And it cools the genset more efficiently than having it standing in free air.

The fan has a standard 1725 rpm 120 volt 1/3 hp motor on it, and it's axial flow.  The fan doesn't turn when the power is off to it because there is also another warm air exhaust vent that allows air to come into the enclosure when the ventilation fan is not powered, so there's not quite enough air flowing over the fan blades to make them turn.

I had to play with the distance of the stainless steel vent pipe from the muffler outlet on the Champion to get it to move the most air.  And I suspect the Honda genset will be slightly different than the Champion so I won't permanently fix the vent pipe to it until I get that set right.

For some reason I can't explain, it don't work without that cap on the end of the vent pipe, that I showed in the previous photo.  I tried a dryer vent cap on the Champion and that didn't work either.  All those holes in that vent cap must do something to the pulses to make it work.  It's just a standard vent cap for a LP water heater.
--
Chris

[Frank S]

[
For some reason I can't explain, it don't work without that cap on the end of the vent pipe, that I showed in the previous photo.  I tried a dryer vent cap on the Champion and that didn't work either.  All those holes in that vent cap must do something to the pulses to make it work.  It's just a standard vent cap for a LP water heater.
--
Chris]
 I imagine if someone had a thermal imaging or infrared video set up you would find that as the exhaust hits the end of the cap splashing into a turbulence to exit the vent holes has a lot to do with the how the pulsation convection actually draws the air out 

[ChrisOlson]

Well, I got this project completed pretty much.  Just have to bore the hole for the exhaust vent and get that tuned and our new generator project is done.  It's raining and wet outside today so I'll wait until the rain quits to finishing the exhaust.

I decided I have no need for two permanently installed generators once I have one that will actually start.  So I removed the enclosure for the Champion generator and wheeled it into the shop.  It can stay nice and warm in there in the winter and be used for backup in the event the Honda would have a problem - just wheel it out and plug it in to the service panels that are mounted on two wood posts by the generator.

This is how I constructed the enclosure - some folks may find it interesting to see how I built it to use a portable generator as a permanently installed standby generator.  Our township ordinance requires a permanently installed residential generator be enclosed in a metal housing.  I read the ordinance before I placed the new gen house and it requires it be at least six feet from the house and at least 10 feet from any windows.  So I built the frame from green treat 2 x 4's and the covering is all steel.  The electrical service and control wires are buried in underground conduit to the outside service panels that stand by the generator.  The generator plugs into the service panels with Type SEOW cord.

I wasn't happy with the air flow from the 14" fan I bought.  That fan works fine in the smaller enclosure for the Champion generator, but this enclosure is twice the size and a much bigger generator.  So I put in a 20" window box fan for ventilation instead.  The 20" window fan moves 3x the air that the 1/3hp 14" fan did.



The enclosure is sound-proofed with fire retardant 1" thick foam with aluminum facing.  I installed a Suncourt DuctStat to regulate the temperature at 70 degrees in extreme cold weather to insure the air-cooled iGX engine runs at the proper operating temperature.  In cold weather a -30° F blast of cold air from the ventilation fan would provide way too much cooling air and cause high fuel consumption due to the engine running too cold.  Rather than try to use louvers or restrict airflow for cold weather, a thermostat is simple.  The DuctStat plugs into one of the 120 volt outlets on the generator and the fan plugs into the DuctStat so it can turn the fan on and off.  The DuctStat will handle up to 8 amps - the fan only draws about one amp.



The air is pulled in thru screens on the side that will help keep animals, birds and rodents out of the enclosure.  Rodents can still dig in underneath it and get inside.  But I think once the generator starts they will decide that was not such a good idea.  The main thing is to keep them out of the fan.  Never had any problems with rodents in either of the other two generators - the cats are hard on the rodent population around here.  But birds will try to build a nest in there without the screens.



The enclosure is properly placarded as required by our ordinance for an auto-start standby generator.



The top is in two pieces - the air intake cover and a smaller service cover that I can take off to fuel the generator.  The side of the enclosure where you check the oil on the engine simply lifts out.  Take the covers off the top, unscrew 8 screws and it slides out the top.  That way I can change oil in the generator without moving it.  I am going to add a small access door in that side cover to check and add engine oil in between changes.

The end panel of the enclosure by the fan also slides out the top by removing 8 screws so the generator can be wheeled in and out of the enclosure.



I was going to add an external fuel tank, however, this opens up a new can of worms with the ordinance.  A generator set, either diesel or gasoline, with an integral fuel tank is no problem.  But if an external fuel tank is used it has to be located at least 25 feet from any building.  The generator has a 6.2 gallon tank on it and will run for 10 hours at full load and 16 hours @ 50% load.  So this introduces a new chore - fueling the generator once a week in the winter.  But I suspect that it will be a lot less work than a generator that continually refuses to start.

There is 120 volt power to the service panels with an outdoor outlet there.  I am going to buy one of those KAT's 25 watt silicon pad heaters for the engine and plug it in when the temp drops below zero F.  Keeping the crankcase/block and oil warm will make it crank and start easier in extremely cold weather.  It will not work to try to heat the enclosure because the heat will simply rise and be lost out the air intake, which is directly above the engine.  But one of those pad heaters should work great.  They're only 20 bucks so if the 25 watt one turns out to be too small I'll get a 50 watt one instead.

One of the final things to do is fabricate a nice aluminum bracket to hold my little VW solar battery maintainer that I got from TomW some time back.  I had that installed on the old generator and it worked great to keep the battery up.  This new generator does not have any draw on the starting battery like the old one had to keep electronics alive in it.  But the solar battery maintainer can't hurt, especially if the generator sets for long periods without running.

It amazes me that Generac, building a so-called "off-grid generator", didn't think of that and instead requires 120 volt power from your inverters be used to run a battery maintainer in the genset.  I think Generac needs to get a serious grip on reality before they're going to be able to build an off-grid generator that actually works.  Just because it's two-wire start and burns LP gas does not make it an "off-grid" generator.
--
Chris

[Frank S]

Nice. I like the idea of the Kat 25 pad on the engine block.  over the years I couldn't count all of the silicone heat pads or tapes I have used to provide heat for the tanks of  hydraulic power units.  since oil is such a poor conductor internal tank heaters did little more than cause oil char contamination.
 In the past I have used a lot of the duct-board as sound reduction and insulation.
 Maybe Generac doesn't understand the meaning of off grid yet.

 I was thinking since before you had to have your LPG tank located a fair distance away from your house of  I would assume code mandated it  be located some distance away from a structure. Mounting a 100 to 200 gallon gasoline storage the 25 feet away wouldn't be all that bad of course with gasoline of Diesel you have to consider a 100% containment that would in no way allow seepage into the ground in the event of spillage or damage also the supply line would have to be routed in a conduit  and if this were a commercial installation leak detectors and sniffers would have to be used
 but a dug containment area lined with the appropriate lining material then covered with gravel and sand then the pad for the storage tank would be no hill for a stepper like you. It would be a matter of is your time filling a generator in -30 weather when you really had other plans worth the hassle and cost

[ChrisOlson]

I think I'm going to stick with the gas tank on the genset for now.  I'd have to check state law and building code, but I think there's a gallon limit on above ground diesel and gasoline fuel storage tanks before it has to have a concrete dike.  We got a 7,500 gallon tank for our 250 kW genset and that wasn't "grandfathered" when the new laws went into effect in 2004 for agricultural fuel storage.  We had to pour a concrete containment dike for that tank.

Our other tank that we fuel tractors and combines from is 2,000 gallons and we also had to put in a dike for that one.

A small 25 gallon tank would run our house genset for a whole month with no problem in the winter and I think that size is exempt from having a dike.  But the other issue is that winter blended gasoline goes bad within a month without a stabilizer added to it, so you don't really want the stuff sitting around in the tank all summer when the genset hardly ever runs.

The genset has a fuel gauge on it and it's easy to check the fuel level, and I made the enclosure so it's really easy to be able to fuel it.  So I think it will be fine as it is.  It's probably a 5 minute job to fuel it once a week, which is a hell of a lot less than several hours a week this past winter fiddling with a generator that won't start.  I got so tired of switching gensets back and forth to have one that would start in cold weather and have one that puts out enough power to run our stuff in warm weather, that I was ready to give up on the whole frickin' deal.

--
Chris

[mbk]

   Would it be worth the time and extra money to run your new gen set off of LPgas in the months that arn't so cold? The carb/LP kits aren't to bad on price.For gas and LP use the gas when its really cold and cheaper LP when warmer just a thought since you have your own LP tank maybe more trouble than its worth.We had one of ours that ran on gas or LP with quick connect hose.You could run it on gas or LP small tank in the field or quick connect it back to big LP tank.Our big tank has hose on it so we can refill smaller bottles or 100 lb bottles.

                                                                                            mbk

[ChrisOlson]

I don't think so.  LPG don't have enough BTU's in it compared to gasoline and engine efficiency really suffers because of it.  I can get recreational gasoline from my fuel supplier that doesn't have any ethanol in it and it has 33.56 kWh/gallon @ $3.56/gallon without the road tax on it.

LPG is 24.75 kWh/gallon @ $1.90.

So the cost per kWh for gas is .016 and LPG is .076

LPG costs 4.8x more than gasoline for the same amount of energy and when burned in an engine reduces the thermal efficiency of the engine even further than the 4.8x difference in energy content per dollar.  There is only one reason to use LPG for a standby generator engine and that's storage stability.  However, that can be also be dealt with in gasoline by using Sta-bil or a similar product to prevent oxidation of the hydrocarbons.  With a suitable treatment the shelf life of gasoline is measured in years instead of months, and as long as it is in a tank that prevents water from getting into it from condensation on the tank walls, stores as well as LPG.

The fuel consumption numbers that Generac provides for their off-grid generator are bogus.  I was a little disappointed when I learned it burns WAAAY more fuel per hour than what they said it does in the specs.  When I did the thermal efficiency calculations on the thing I discovered they used perfect conditions with a calculated combustion chamber efficiency to come up with a kW rating for the engine, which does not reflect real-world conditions.  It is rather common to come up with calculated ratings using this method in the engineering business.  But using it to predict BSFC is purely bogus.

Anybody who has ever done a side by side comparison of LPG vs gasoline in the same engine on a dynamometer will tell you LPG is a farce as a motor fuel.
--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

I ran the first fuel consumption test on my new generator this morning.  It will put out 27 amps @ 240 volts for 10 seconds, as advertised, which is 6,480 watts.  Way more surge power to start anything we got than the Generac could do on its best day.  With both the generator and the inverters at full surge power (they are also rated at 10 seconds surge) we have 21 kW surge power available for 10 seconds.  We can turn everything at once and it will start it all.

I set the inverter charger amps at 20 and max gen amps to 27 in the inverter menu.  20 amps to the inverter charger is 4,800 watts of charging power and plenty of reserve to the max continuous rating of the generator for running normal loads while charging batteries.

The batteries were down this morning so I shut everything off to the house and ran it at 20 amps output for 1 hour.  I had filled the fuel tank to the lip and after the one hour run I refilled the fuel tank to the lip, measuring the gas with a graduated measuring cup that I got.  It took 84.3 ounces of gasoline to refill it, which is .65 gallons.

The gas is presently $3.56 without road tax so fuel cost/kWh is 48.2 cents.  That's damn respectable - 64% of what it cost to run the Generac.  And it starts.  The starter just bumps that Honda thru one compression stroke, with the engine bone ass cold, and it's running.  No extended crank time (up to 7 seconds) like required with the LP engine when it's cold.

The Honda was about the same cost as the Generac but it tests out to be a much better performing unit.  So I'm happy   

Anybody want a used Generac EcoGen?  I got one for sale.  And I'll throw in a 500 gallon LP tank on the deal too.  You have to come get the whole works because about the most energy I will expend on that thing from this point on  is what fuel I burned in the skid steer to carry that generator to the shop and dump it on the floor.
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Chris

[thirteen]

13 here where are you located Montana, USA

[ChrisOlson]

I'm in Wisconsin USA about 1250 miles east of Montana USA.  I got the thing on Craigslist for three days now and a half dozen calls on it.  Everybody wants the LP tank.  Nobody wants the generator yet.  I got the whole works listed for 3950 bucks.  Both were new in April 2011.
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Chris

[thirteen]

It is just a little  too far by a few miles HAHA. My mom lives in Viroqua, Wis. 35 miles from LaCross, Wis. I drove back there last year for Christmas and took my sister a pickup load of wood. She has a fireplace and likes to entertain. Wood was just for some intertainment conversaton.  She liked it for it was half pine / half red fur.