HF Generator

[milomilo]

The generator I got at HF last year has issues. It is a 9000 watt unit, predator engine. Not a inverter generator.

After hooking it all up to the house and testing it everything was good. Powered the whole house for an hour. Ran it again last month without hooking to the house.

Had a 1 hour power outage last Wednesday. Have a written checklist to follow for startup and shutdown.

When throwing the safety switch it briefly put out full power then after 10 minutes the engine kicked way down on RPM and was shaking, the lights were flickering instead of full bright. Turned off the safety switch and the engine returned to full RPM. Turned on the safety switch and it was back to low engine RPM and flickering lights. Did this twice. same results. Waited 10 minutes and did it again and left the unit running for 3 minutes with flickering lights and then it went up to full rpm and lights were not flickering. 15 minutes later back to low engine rpm and flickering lights.

I am going to run it again tomorrow and check voltage out put with my meter with no load, then hook it to the house with a load and check voltage again with the flickering lights.

Before someone asks the warranty was for 90 days and that expired a few months back. My check list says turn off power at the incoming pole 1st, then connect the generator to the house. Shut down is reversed.

I will report back with the results of the tests.

[Ironman]

Check for water in the fuel. Not uncommon on a seldom used engine. It will run fine but starve trying to pull a load til the water gets burnt out. It only takes a small drop to make those symptoms.

[Samcord]

I would shut off half of your load and see if it keeps having problems. Start with anything that is a high amp draw. Pumps, heating elements, motors, etc. Putting an ammeter on it would let you record the actual draw. Then keep dropping loads, or adding loads back in to see where the problem starts.

This is really more of a sanity check than anything else. It is possible that one of the loads is drawing more than it should.

[Whitetrash]

Originally Posted by Ironman

Check for water in the fuel. Not uncommon on a seldom used engine. It will run fine but starve trying to pull a load til the water gets burnt out. It only takes a small drop to make those symptoms.

The wife and I have been debating on a backup genset. Her gut told her the other day we need one. No problemo with that thought. She was ready to go to HF for one when I told her I would prefer dual fuel that could be run on propane . A choice has not been made yet. I will say one thing given Chris's locale I "Seriously Doubt" it's moisture in the fuel. We are in a drought I would be willing to bet his average humidity in Wheatland has run no higher than 27-30% since he bought that genset

[astronut]

I may be wrong but it sounds to me like your load is more than what the generator can handle.

[Norm W]

If you have a 100 amp service, you still have more power than the generator will produce. If you are lucky you get 90 amps. More than likely you have a 200 amp service. It is time to figure what you can do without, to lighten the load.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Ironman

Check for water in the fuel. Not uncommon on a seldom used engine. It will run fine but starve trying to pull a load til the water gets burnt out. It only takes a small drop to make those symptoms.

The genny has been stored inside a water tight box and it had new ethanol free gas in it. I did add Stabil a month ago since it would sit over the winter and filled the tank. Never heard of Stabil making an engine run bad.

Originally Posted by Samcord

I would shut off half of your load and see if it keeps having problems. Start with anything that is a high amp draw. Pumps, heating elements, motors, etc. Putting an ammeter on it would let you record the actual draw. Then keep dropping loads, or adding loads back in to see where the problem starts.

This is really more of a sanity check than anything else. It is possible that one of the loads is drawing more than it should.

That is another thing I plan to do, because after thinking about the first test where it ran perfectly, it was not winter time with the electric heaters on.

Originally Posted by Whitetrash

The wife and I have been debating on a backup genset. Her gut told her the other day we need one. No problemo with that thought. She was ready to go to HF for one when I told her I would prefer dual fuel that could be run on propane . A choice has not been made yet. I will say one thing given Chris's locale I "Seriously Doubt" it's moisture in the fuel. We are in a drought I would be willing to bet his average humidity in Wheatland has run no higher than 27-30% since he bought that genset

I think you are right. I will do the load test stuff first, then we will see.

Originally Posted by astronut

I may be wrong but it sounds to me like your load is more than what the generator can handle.

Test results tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Norm W

If you have a 100 amp service, you still have more power than the generator will produce. If you are lucky you get 90 amps. More than likely you have a 200 amp service. It is time to figure what you can do without, to lighten the load.

It is a 200 amp service. I have a 5KW electric heater in the wood shop that will be part of the load test. We have seven 1500 watt electric heaters throughout the house.

[toprecycler]

7x 1500 = 10,500. More than your generator is alone. That would definitely make it grunt, and electric heat is a direct short resistance.


But, how many heaters were actually on?




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[greywynd]

Don’t expect to power the whole house with that unit. A fridge, freezer, and a few lights will take care of close to 3000 watts.

You may have to do some figuring, and ‘rotate’ thru the heaters as necessary to heat the portions of the house you need to keep warm.

Since we ended up getting a 3000W honda inverter, for the rv trailer, current plan if needed would be to simply run cords to the essential stuff in the house. I’ll add a plug/receptacle sometime in the near future to the furnace so that it can also have a turn on the genny if needed.


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[milomilo]

Originally Posted by toprecycler

7x 1500 = 10,500. More than your generator is alone. That would definitely make it grunt, and electric heat is a direct short resistance.


But, how many heaters were actually on?




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We had turned off the well, 3 heaters and the water heater. I did not urn off the wood shop heater. It is a 5kw.