CP Club Monthly Mtg Tonight Options

[Dypheron]

Dang it D! The superbowl is gonna be on ya know. I gotta watch it... if not for the Broncos, for the $4 million dollar commercials, lol. It's a once a year thing.
I'm a Vikes fan but, GO PEYTON!

And what a waste of time that was when you could have been chatting with us!

[swizz]

You are so right.... that was a horrible suberbowl blow out. The commercials weren't even good.

[Caveman]

I spent most of it fighting with a blown-up generator, and had a better, more enjoyable day than did Peyton. And I did not have an enjoyable day. Not by a long shot.

[Denise]

That really stinks Caveman! We understand how important the generator can be when living off grid. I hope you are able to get it taken care of soon.

I'm still trying to get over the fact that it was snowing where Dypheron is, and Burrell had a house full of people for the Super Bowl and had snow the week before in Florida.

[fenixsmom]

Now remember, global warming is a myth ;P

[Caveman]

Blown up generator gone, new generator in place - pockets considerably lighter. New genset quieter than the old genset, and rated less than it too - 14kw vs 16kw - but
the new genset doesn't get de-rated for altitude, so it is actually 14kw! The old one did get de-rated, so it was only 12kw. Same maker (Generac), so it has the same
engine, but I get a solid 14kw now. We are doing a solar upgrade here, too. 3900kw of Sunpower panels on a Wattsun tracker. Also going to a 48v system and putting up a
Bergey 1000kw wind turbine. We had just signed the contract for this on Saturday, then Sunday, the generator died. ARRRRRGH! Went into hock for the power system,
then had to dig a little deeper a day later. Drat. We are good to go now, for the moment. Ground to be broken sometime this month for the new array, and we
hope to have it all done by April. Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.......

[swizz]

That sounds like an awesome power grid Scott, I like your plan and equipment. It should pay off in the long run too. It just sucks that the gen blew on ya now.
The ranch blew up a big generator last fall too, it must be going around.

[russau]

an important suggestion is to find out what went wrong with the genset and be prepaired to prevent its occurance in the future. for my gens (i have 3) i always mix my fuels with Sta-Bil or another type of fuel preservative and i go out and run my gens atleast every three months. plus when i want the genset to stop, i turn off the fuel and let it starve and stop on its own. that way ill not have any fuel to gum up the carb and the sparkplug burns clean on stopping. i do the same to my 2 dredges.

[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!

[Caveman]

I'm going to repost this in "Living off the Lands" - "Solar Upgrades".