Starter control

[Lada425]

Hello.  I have a Yanmar 2 cyl diesel from a trailer  like to hook up as generator to round out solar and wind  my question is there a way to have it turn on and automatically cut out  The APu doesn't have the ability to sense battery voltage for starting so any ideas as to work around this ? Seen some controllers for store type generators that kick in and out but not sure they work well for this sitiuation.  Again thanks to all the ppl who help out 

[SparWeb]

There are stand-alone inverters that will do this for you.
They have to be set to monitor the battery voltage, and then set to start the generator if the battery voltage goes below a certain value.
My Xantrex 4024 will do this, and I'm sure an Outback and Magnum will, too.  They aren't cheap inverters but many can be found, used.

[Lada425]

Hello thanks.  Little out of my budget range. Lol

[OperaHouse]

I wrote a starter program for automatic remote pumping on a NANO. Never heard back if he got it to work or even tried.

[Lada425]

Hello. Opera house.  This program you mention what would be needed  can it be used to sense battery voltage  to cutin cutout a Diesel engine ?

[SparWeb]

Hi Lada,
Yeah, no worries, here's another idea:

http://ghurd.info/

So the controller that Ghurd came up with is not exactly intended to be a generator starter, but you could modify it to do so.
It has two modes of operation:
1) diversion load when the battery voltage is high (not what you're asking for)
2) low-voltage disconnect when battery voltage is low (similar to what you want)

So if we take mode 2, and hook up a different relay that will turn ON instead of OFF when the LVD threshold is passed, then you can use it as an automatic generator start switch.

Simple, but it would lack some finesse.  One thing you would notice is that if you put on a heavy electric load on the batteries, you could pull the voltage down enough that the generator would start.  This may be good or bad, depending on what kind of load it was, what the threshold is set to, and what you really meant to do.  Ghurd's controller doesn't track the state of charge of the batteries, for example.

If you can live with that, then Ghurd's controller would work.

[XeonPony]

combine it with a 555 timer set for delay on make.

Ghurd controller calls for LVD, timer starts it's cycle (5m) then allows circuit to close starting genset.

the issue is setting the reconnect (turning genset off) We'd all so want a X minute delay on this as well to function as hystarisys (No idea how to spell properly that word, live with it)