CP Club Monthly Mtg Tonight Options

[swizz]

Enter Chat Room tonight @ 6:00 or later to join in! Always fun. Talk mining, prospecting, or whatever....
Click on "Chat Rooms" and enter your CP monthly password to access the Chat Mtg. If you're a paying club member you received the password via email today.
Hope to yuk it up with some of you tonight!

[Caveman]

Russ, I do the same with all my equipment that is equipped with a fuel shut off. These gensets run on propane, though. They are designed as back-up generators for homes
when the power grid fails. For non-grid homes (like mine), they back up the solar power during the night - that is, when the batteries are drawn down to a certain voltage,
the system turns on the generator to bring them back up full. This should not happen very often, but as my current system is now under-sized, it runs every day. There was
something wrong with the old genset, and both the rotor and stator failed. This was probably due to the rodent that got caught up in it a few years ago, and I had to have it
repaired then. It blew a board, and the contacts on the rotor were greased up with rat fat, which caused arcing. The new genset is critter-proofed by fine (1/8") screening.
Ideally, an off-grid home should be equipped with 150w of solar per battery. We don't come any where close to that currently. Plus our current panels are old, and not at
peak efficiency (we are getting around 700w out of 1025w, on a very good day). Things you learn as you go along.... Neither Karen nor I are minimalists either, and we have
3 parrots that need to be kept warm. Plus, our horse waterer has a bowl and pipe heater to keep it from freezing. Add a refrigerator, well pump, pressure pump, microwave,
TV, phones, satellite dvr receiver, dvd player, etc., and you will see that our requirements far exceed what we have now. We have things on timers to reduce load, but it
doesn't reduce it enough. Hence the upgrades to the system. Plus we have added an outbuilding that must be heated (kept at 55F until it is in use), and a sunroom (where
the birds are kept) heated by a pellet stove and kept at 65F during the night. Our upgraded system will better handle the load, plus added insulation to the sunroom this
spring will help. Until then - no lights on during the day, TV use kept to a minimum, power the well pump only when the generator is on, etc., etc., etc. At least I am here
full time now, so when something goes wrong, fails, or starts to fail, I catch it quickly and can usually remedy it before it causes a big hit to the bank. This genset failed
catastrophically. No way to have caught it early - there was no sign other than the occasional blown fuse - when replaced, the genset acted normally, and all readings were
good with no alarms. Even had it looked at twice, and the techs could not find any problems. Then, no start and a VERY strong burnt windings odor. ARRRRGGGH. Even
caused a 120v feedback alarm on the B/U inverter. Fortunately, that was cleared with a complete system reset. It was a very bad day - but STILL way better than Peyton's!
I actually felt sorry for him!