generator preheater for cold weather

[ChrisOlson]

Been getting signs that winter might be coming - down to 4.2° F at 5:57AM last Monday.  So I decided it was time to get some sort of generator preheater set up.  I was going to put a small 50 watt silicon pad heater on the engine block.  But there's no real suitable place to put one.  So I put a 75 watt heat lamp on it instead:



2 hours of preheat with that heat lamp and the cylinder and block are nice and warm.  That Honda fires up just like summer at 10° F.

I don't need to keep the generator preheated 24 hours a day because the generator never, in the two years since we put in our new battery bank, has ever run after 8:00 at night until about 7:00 in the morning. The only time it will run that early in the morning is if we had a "bad" power day so the bank is hanging about 70% SOC at sundown the night before, and the wind is not blowing so the turbines don't hold the bank up during the night. We get up and make breakfast, which uses a lot of power (coffee maker, induction cooktop, toaster, etc..) That will make the generator start around 7:00 AM sometimes.

Our inverter has what is called "Quiet Time" in it for the generator.  I programmed that so the generator will never try to start from 8:00 PM to 7:00 AM. Now I just needed a way to turn the heat lamp on automatically in cold weather.  I need to keep the generator preheated all day when it's cold out because that's the peak times that we use it for Load Start.  And I like automatic stuff so I don't have to baby sit this system all the time.  I picked this thing up at Menards:



I set it to turn on the heat lamp at 5:00 AM (for two hours of preheat in the event the generator wants to start at 7:00 AM), and turn the lamp off at 7:00 PM. And it will only turn it on if the temp in the gen enclosure gets below 14 degrees F, and it will turn it off if the temp in there gets above 19 degrees F.

How's that for Wisconsin Northwoods Crude?
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Chris

[Frank S]

Crude is good. Next you will want a 2 color LED & maybe a piezo alarm buzzer mounted in your house panel to tell you if your lamp has burned out back in the mid 70s a friend of mine wired 2 color LEDS to every lamp circuit in his wife's 66 mustang an all green board meant all lights worked amber meant a fault like a burned or broken bulb the system actually won her a law suit once when a guy rear ended her car. His lawyers tried to say that she didn't have any brake lights. but an all green board and a demonstration with a hammer at the expense of a tail light lenz proved otherwise.
 The LED would tell you if your heat lamp was functioning even if switched off if wired correctly.
 Eventually I think you will come up with a system for automatic watering of your bank

[ChrisOlson]

Crude is good.

We have a VGPI (Visual Generator Preheater Indicator) already installed.

Look out the kitchen window and we can see the light from the heat lamp thru the air intake screen on the enclosure.
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Chris

[Frank S]

Those VGPI's are pretty dependable about the only time they don't function is if they are covered in Snow I f that happens then you have to use a MSRR ( manual snow removal routine)

[ChrisOlson]

Nothing is manual about snow removal around here:



--
Chris

[Frank S]

Somehow I can't visualize you getting very close to your genset with that rig

[ChrisOlson]

Oh yeah.  I'm a highly skilled operator.  No problem.  I even plow the sidewalks off with it.  Sometimes, in the spring, I have to go retrieve some pieces of concrete after the snowbanks melt and put 'em back in the sidewalk where they belong.  But I use the skid steer loader for that, it saves a lot of work overall.

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Chris

[dnix71]

In south Florida it doesn't get cold like that, but on near freezing days I have resorted to dragging an extension cord outside at night and leaving a shop light on under the block of my vehicle. Doesn't take much heat to make a big difference the next morning when it's time to go to work. The hard part is blocking the wind on both sides of the light to keep the heat in.

Saves batteries, too. More than once I had a battery short out internally when trying to start a vehicle on the first cold morning of the year.

I had a Canadian Ford van that had a block heater with a pigtail plug under the hood. Never needed to use it. I think that one was wired like a probe to keep the oil warm.

[JW]

I had a Canadian Ford van that had a block heater with a pigtail plug under the hood. Never needed to use it. I think that one was wired like a probe to keep the oil warm.

Most likely the block heating was tied into the coolant passages. Heating the oil wouldnt be able to heat the engine unless it (the engine) was cranked over.

Heating the piston cylinder walls and cyl head using coolant would work without having to be cranked over. Thus saving the battery from extended duration when cranking over to start.


JW

[dbcollen]

You do understand the basic principal that heat rises right? Heating the oil pan is a viable method for keeping an engine warm. Also the primary reason for pre-heat is to keep the oil thinner and easier to pump. The secondary reason is to help with the heat of vaporisation. On a diesel engine, if the oil is warm and easy to pump, the starter can turn the engine fast enough to create enough heat to fire the diesel fuel through adiabadic temperature rise along with glow plugs or grid heaters.

[XeonPony]

lets not forget the fuel pre-heater in the filter head on some models

[12AX7]

Nothing is manual about snow removal around here:

(Attachment Link)

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Chris

*gasps*   Tell me that that isn't THIS SEASONS SNOW!

[ChrisOlson]

You do understand the basic principal that heat rises right? Heating the oil pan is a viable method for keeping an engine warm. Also the primary reason for pre-heat is to keep the oil thinner and easier to pump.

This is a Honda iGX engine.  I don't have no oil pan, there is no suitable place to put even a small silicon pad heater on the crankcase where it will warm the oil, and it does not pump any oil because it's a splash lubed engine with ball bearing mains.

The heat lamp works good.  For reliable starting in extreme cold it's more important to have the carb, intake and cylinder warm than it is the crankcase.  They make 5W-30 synthetic oil for the crankcase, which flows freely even at -50.
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Chris

[klsmurf]

You do understand the basic principal that heat rises right? Heating the oil pan is a viable method for keeping an engine warm. Also the primary reason for pre-heat is to keep the oil thinner and easier to pump.

This is a Honda iGX engine.  I don't have no oil pan, there is no suitable place to put even a small silicon pad heater on the crankcase where it will warm the oil, and it does not pump any oil because it's a splash lubed engine with ball bearing mains.

The heat lamp works good.  For reliable starting in extreme cold it's more important to have the carb, intake and cylinder warm than it is the crankcase.  They make 5W-30 synthetic oil for the crankcase, which flows freely even at -50.
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Chris

Read the quote Chris, instead of pulling something out of context. db was referring to JW's remarks.

[ChrisOlson]

Then he should've quoted what he was talking about so it was clear.
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Chris

[ghurd]

"I don't have no oil pan, there is no suitable place to put even a small silicon pad heater on the crankcase where it will warm the oil, and it does not pump any oil because it's a splash lubed engine with ball bearing mains.

The heat lamp works good"

Double negative ignored,
so where is the oil?

Solid to gas to solid to gas to solid to liquid is not efficient heat transfer in an open system.
And a heat lamp makes it worse.

[ChrisOlson]

I'm not heating oil with it.  There's no need to heat oil in this type of engine.  It has 5W-30 synthetic in it for winter and the oil provides adequate lubrication with no problems at -30F.

I'm heating the cylinder head, intake and carb with the heat lamp.  It only takes two hours of preheat (150 watt-hours of energy expended) and that iGX270 fires off at temps close to zero F with just a bump of the starter - one second crank time and it's running.

Being an all-aluminum engine, and aluminum transfers heat really well, shining the heat lamp on the head also provides the benefit of the cylinder and entire block warming up.  Warm enough to be able to feel that the block is warm on the opposite side of the engine where the low oil sensor is before starting it.

So basically I don't really care about "solid to gas to solid to gas to solid to liquid is not efficient heat transfer" because it provides a reliable starting generator in cold weather on very little energy input, and it works damn good.  If it was a liquid cooled engine a person would probably have to come up with a different method.
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Chris

[kevbo]

Chris, if you wire two lamps in series then the voltage (and current) is halved, so they run at 25% power each, half total.  Cheap flood lamps become infrared heat lamps with a lifespan of decades.  Of course you will need four (two series strings in paralell) to get the same watts as one purpose made heatlamp.

Just a thought if the durability of that heat lamp doesn't work out for you.