About 20 KVA, for domestic and home business standby use. New preferred, but good, low hours used considered.
Weatherproof enclosure not needed as to be installed in a purpose built brick outbuilding.
Push button electric start required, not auto start.
Reliability, and user serviceable at least for minor services, are the most important features.
broadgage:
Installation now completed and ready for use.
A Perkins set was purchased as suggested, but the open frame style as is installed in a weatherproof building. The open frame type looks easier to maintain and less vulnerable to overheating.
UK rating is 21 KVA prime power, or 23 KVA for standby operation.
Run on load for about 4 hours, all good The load was the expected house and home business load plus 5 kw of portable heaters as a crude load bank, varied between 18 KVA and a brief peak of 24 KVA until I unplugged one of the heaters.
Voltage was 245 at the machine and about 235 at the point of use.
Frequency seems a bit low at 49.5 cycles. Almost no disturbance of voltage or frequency when starting a large air compressor.
Is it noisy?
Z.
In a flat I would recommend a decent sized UPS with an external battery for greatly extended run time.
Suggested loads could include
Gas central heating pump and controls, average 50 watts assuming 50% duty factor
Fridge freezer average 50 watts assuming 40% duty factor
Laptop PC, average 20 watts with use limited.
Internet router, 5 watts continuous.
Small high efficiency TV, average 50 watts.
Lighting, installed load of 40 watts of LED lamps, average load 10 watts.
Average load about 215 watts at line voltage, or allowing for losses in the UPS, about 10 amps from a 24 volt battery. A couple of 12 volt 100 amp hour batteries would give 12 hours run time.
Extend run time by reducing the load, candles instead of electric lights, dry battery operated radio as main source of information instead of TV or internet. Use up perishables and turn fridge off.
A large solar module to charge the UPS battery would help also.
You need to organise a supply of red diesel Broadgage, and a tank to put it in. Should be no problem, but much cheaper. Loads of suppliers as it is used for farms, some heating etc. They have a long hose to fill tanks unless access is half a mile away.
If you look at the injector pump carefully you will see a throttle quadrant that has stop screws at each end, worth adjusting the bottom stop to 50Hz or even slightly more. The throttle will move with loading and usually is slightly under-compensated for load. Certain people have been known to add a crystal referenced servo to it, particularly for film and TV use, or even a sync lock input!
This is not my generator, but that of a neighbour. I did the electrical part of the installation and they did the building work themselves.
They have several thousand liters of red diesel stored for heating mainly. Except in an emergency, part full tanks are never “topped up” One tank is used until nearly empty, and then the supply is taken from one of the other tanks. The near empty tank is then filled from a road tanker. After filling and standing for a few days, a liter or two is drawn off from the sump to remove any water or sediment.
Reliability is paramount. Spare parts are stored on site, and I have duplicated the starter battery. The battery in service is kept charged by the charger built in to the control panel. The spare starter battery is kept charged by a solar panel. This protects against charger failure.
Each battery is of twice the recommended capacity, they are of different brands as protection against manufacturing defect. The batteries are NOT mounted on the frame of the machine as I suspect that engine vibration may shorten the life.
Room lighting is duplicated, one circuit from mains and the other one direct from the generator. Each circuit consists of 6 B22 lamp holders, mixed incandescent and LED lamps.
Emergency lighting is four 12 volt 5 watt LED bulbs, supplied from the starter battery and controlled by a Columbus time lag switch to avoid needless battery discharge.
mapj1:
Only if we can store the fuel for it. No use for folks in flats.
Mike.
That depends. There are small suitcase generators that are very quiet and compact. Or, just connect up your car's 12 Volt system and run a long lead into the house or flat for limited 12 Volt emergency equipment. I have a small petrol generator in the garage and an overhead cable to my flat.
Z.
That depends. There are small suitcase generators that are very quiet and compact.
Just for clarity in the case of an unwary reader - this is NOT a suggestion to run any kind of internal combustion generator inside the flat - the exhaust fumes alone would make that a potentially lethal arrangement.
There's also the issue of earthing the system if you're supplying multiple appliances through the fixed installation…
- Andy.
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