Generator opinion

[Pete VanderLaan]

I have found the following ad for a generator and want some feedback. I am interested in potentially using it to run a moly or other studio application since the power failures up here are frequent. My moly will not be more than 20KW. Power is sufficiently expensive up here that the price can be halved running on diesel.

"STAND BY Generator 30KW 1&3 phase. 109-480 Volt , either delta or wye configuration, residential muffler inc. Complete control panel with auto start mounted on the generator. Used 47 hours. $3,000 or best offer. "

Thoughts?

[Edward Dluzen]

Good price depending on condition. Is there a low oil shutoff or warning? If they were using it as backup and hence the low time then did it self test every week? You should check with the manufacturer to see if it is rated for continouus duty, unless you are thinking of it as a backup.

Our neighbor has one that worked well during our week long power outage, however it ate oil and they had it shut down about every couple of days due to low oil. They were told that it will eat some oil but that was too much and they did some repair. I don't know the result of it since we have had power since then.

We ran our company on a semi-truck generator (I have a picture somewhere) that used diesel. It had a 300 gallon tank and work wonderfully for the day we needed it. However it was not cheap to run at about $3.00 per gallon (at that time). It used 150 gallons every 12 hours to give you an idea. However it was MUCH bigger then the one you are talking about. Several hundred KW.

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[Pete VanderLaan]

Electricity is profoundly expensive up here, second highest in the country next to Hawaii. My neigbor has a machine shop on a generator and he says it cuts the electric bill in half. It's the demand meter penalty that is the killer.

[Barb Sanderson]

Let me preface this by saying I am no expert on generators or any kind of electrical BUT we have a generator that we use in outages. The power is there but they say it's "dirty power" - do you know if this will affect your equipment? All I know is that dirty power fried one of my computers before I got a surge protector.

Also they aren't the quietest machines in the world to run...

Barb

[Lia Howe]

We just got a generater to run everything during outages. It was from a lab and it needed to have a lot of cleaning done to it. The carbs needed a through cleaning and some of the wiring was being used as a mouse house. We were warned about the low oil issue too. We have an alarm on it to help. I have heard the "dirty" power stories but the scarier stories are about the linesmen being thrown back by the back feeding of the system during the repairs. We live in the boonies and we got a letter explaining how to use the generater properly from our power provider. They were very helpful. We had three tornados in one day this summer. 7-10 days with no power. I love my generator. Expensive but a great investment. PETE, why is power so much more expensive where you live?Lia

[Jim Huston]

Pete:
A lot depends on what engine it has and if it is a 2 cycle or 4 cycle. Also what RPM does it run at - 1800 or 3600. A few more facts and we may be able to better inform you.
JimH

[Paul Hayworth]

http://www.kohlerpowersystems.com/onsite/onsite_gas_lp.html
http://www.kohlerpow
ersystems.com/onsite/onsite_gas_lp.html

LPGas Generators And Water Pumps

Gasind technologies make silent gas LPG Generator

[Victor Chiarizia]

best gens iv'e seen have the system start it's self ,do a test and run for a while and then shut down. had a deere diesel and cost about 20k new. but thats all for backup power. your deal for 3k seems good. remember there is a shit load of surplus up north and no doubt lots of buys out there. i'm going for a 40kw lpg to run my entire place when i can afford it. ~12k new.

january 14---- think i'll ride my harley today..after all it will be in the high 60's today. how you like new hamsha :<) Vic

[Glenn Randle]

Pete,
You're in a strange situation. You are thinking about burning diesel to make electricity to melt glass. Generators require frequent maintainence, especially when run constantly. Of course your best advice will come from your neighbor who's actually running his shop with one.

Maybe your best option is to sell your moly furnace and use one which operates on whichever fuel is the most affordable where you live. A new moly furnace seems to go for $15,000-20,000 and you know that you can construct a gas or diesel furnace for a fraction of that. The difference you pocket (selling the moly, not buying & maintaining a genset, and finally the fuel savings) will allow you to take the family on a nice vacation. And that's why we work so hard in the first place, isn't it?;)


peace,

[Pete VanderLaan]

While I plan to run a moly furnace occasionally, my real interest is now in big castings requiring annealing cycles up to two months. The power outage issues here loom large in that scenario. I simply want a big enough generator to cover whatever the project is.

Our cost per KWH is reasonable at 8.2 cents per. What is not reasonable is the delivery fee and the demand meter usage fees if you use too much per hour. Then it bumps to about 16 cents per hour.

Beyond those bits of info, which I didn't include earlier, your observations are reasonable. Unfortunately burning diesel will make the cost about 8.4 cents per hour, a good deal less than the current charges. ( current... har har... pun, urf).

[Terry Crider]

Pete,
Does the "demand" usage include your
residental meter ?
A while back we had a new breaker box put
in the house and a new meter on the out side.
The power co. was then going to put a "demand" meter at the shop.
We trenched a line from the house to the shop and then no "demand" usage.

[Glenn Randle]

Originally posted by Terry Crider
Pete,
Does the "demand" usage include your
residental meter ?
A while back we had a new breaker box put
in the house and a new meter on the out side.
The power co. was then going to put a "demand" meter at the shop.
We trenched a line from the house to the shop and then no "demand" usage.




Ditto. That was my exact thought. Or get another meter for a "well pump", barn, or some other BS excuse.

[Pete VanderLaan]

I will have two separate services, one 200 AMP residential and a 400AMP commercial.

[TC Robertson]

That sounds like a deal, if it's in decent shape.

After 4-5 power outages this fall/winter, we got a nice little Honda EU2000 gen. The power is very "clean", with a better sine wave than line power. Good for tv's and comps. We can use it at some shows to light up our lamps. But it is real nice to have light and satt. tv when the powers off. The eco-throttle doesn't go above idle till you use more than 750 watts. At that rate it uses 1 gallon of gas in 15 hrs. They can be hooked together for double power and will charge 12v systems. I may be a be to keep the shop on with them, using a gas fired annealer.

What is the wattage needed to start/run a 1hp blower motor?
Later, TC :rolleyes:

[Pete VanderLaan]

It has 47 hours on it- brand new. 300 cu in Ford six cylinder industrial engine run on propane at 1800 RPM. It pulls 20KW on single phase and 30KW on three phase. I am going to go look at it tomorrow or wednesday.

[Pete VanderLaan]

well, it turned out to be an Onan 30KW with auto start run on propane. It was the backup generator for a water pumpng station , built in 1988 and has been run a total of 41 hours. It is skid mounted and is rated for continuous duty. It should run both the shop and the house unless I am running the moly which will be occasional. It will run for two days on 7 gallons of propane. I bought it for 3K. I ran it and it is very sweet. Thank you all for the advice.

[Mike Firth]

8 cents per KWhour, 16 cents for demand, 2nd highest for hawaii?
Texas is 15.5 cents for every one through the wall, save 1.5cents if you sign up for something. Electric company got special permission to raise rates when gas went way up on promise not to return with another request for 9 months. Turns out they meant they wouldn't lower the rates when it went down "because we said we wouldn't come back with a rate request for 9 months"

[Pete VanderLaan]

I don't think of Texas as being in the United States. It's more Corporate America Headquarters. I would agree that I remember Matt La Barbara having profoundly high rates in Austin. In actuality I think Massachusetts just shot past .16 cents per KWH. Then again, they say they will raise the rates here again soon. All of the Co-ops here are about half the going rate and they buy their power from New Hampshire Power. It's those nice republican run corporations always thinking of your best interests. Now in Massachusetts, the sales of lottery and powerball tickets has collapsed in the last year. The speculation is that fuel costs are so high that the notion of buying a discretionary lottery ticket is more than many budgets can bear. It's all this great economy we keep hearing about.

[Lawrence Ruskin]

I have a Texas story.

I was in Dallas visiting some friends of girlfriend.

This was about 25 years ago. The guy we stayed with was a construction carpenter, just like I was at the time. Same level of expertise.

It was clear he had no money, so I asked him how much he was getting per hour.

He was working his butt off doing high rise costruction for $5 per.

I was getting four times as much when you figured in the taxes, and I was doing renos, much better work than high rise concrete stuff.

He had a wife and kid too, there was no way that guy could do anything but have a very hard life and end up with a broken body.

In BC we have unions that try and keep the wages up.

In texas the government didn't allowed them, at least back then.

That might have changed, but it was quite the revelation at the time.

.....L

[Scott Novota]

Anyone ever notice the upswing in gas that is tied to the price of sweet crude per barrel is so fast you see it change at the pump before you hear oil spiked on the television/internet?

Now think about how long it takes for them to change it when prices are falling. We pay the upswing for about 3 week to a month after the prices falls back down. So on average about 7 bucks a fill up on a 5 dollar change to the cost of a barrel of sweet.

Just interesting they can make a 5 minute change when it makes them money but a 3 week change when they are loosing it to iron out the delta so it does not hurt.

Scott.
.

[Steve Stadelman]

Here in Oregon within three days of the November election gas went up over thirty cents.