Generators & Battery back up

[Old Navy]

I also lived in hurricane country once. So solar and wind was out of the question. I would assume tornado country would be the same thing.
I built a solid concrete bomb proof gen room and put in the smallest genset I could use to power my entire house. It had a 5 ton cental a/c and I installed a giant quick start capacitor in it so my puny 7.5kw Northern Lights - Kubota could start it. My system was fully manual and it sipped fuel. Can't remember the rate but it was so low it was not an issue. I was able to keep all my treated fuel in 5 gal plastic cans so I could rotate them by using in my diesel vehicle. It worked great and was a lifetime system. The cheap part of the project was the cost of the generator. If I had to do it again out of hurricane zone I would still go diesel. And of course always have a Honda 2000 for backup. You can back feed it into your house and run everything selectively. Thats what I do now. View attachment 1634776View attachment 1634777View attachment 1634778

Great looking setup and some good engineering involved also.

 

[FNSafari]

Not trying to nit pick but I think you should invest in UL approved metal safety cans. More puncture resistant and vapor leak proof. Just a thought. A friend of mine's brother was killed when he flipped a light switch on in his mower shed. Gas and vapors had leaked from a plastic can the the mixture with air was right and it went off like a bomb. Sad thing and so preventable.

 

[Old Navy]

Leaking diesel is not a concern. It's flash point is five times higher than gasoline. And five times harder to clean off my garage floor also.

 

[jackieschmidt]

I also lived in hurricane country once. So solar and wind was out of the question. I would assume tornado country would be the same thing.
I built a solid concrete bomb proof gen room and put in the smallest genset I could use to power my entire house. It had a 5 ton cental a/c and I installed a giant quick start capacitor in it so my puny 7.5kw Northern Lights - Kubota could start it. My system was fully manual and it sipped fuel. Can't remember the rate but it was so low it was not an issue. I was able to keep all my treated fuel in 5 gal plastic cans so I could rotate them by using in my diesel vehicle. It worked great and was a lifetime system. The cheap part of the project was the cost of the generator. If I had to do it again out of hurricane zone I would still go diesel. And of course always have a Honda 2000 for backup. You can back feed it into your house and run everything selectively. Thats what I do now. View attachment 1634776View attachment 1634777View attachment 1634778

Nice.

 

[FNSafari]

Leaking diesel is not a concern. It's flash point is five times higher than gasoline. And five times harder to clean off my garage floor also.

True, but your choice.

 

[Tesoro]

Great looking setup and some good engineering involved also.

Thx. Back then I lived in a world where the KISS system ruled!

 

[ELR LVR]

Hopefully you had a hall-effect clamp on or it won't read DC amperage. LiFEPO4 12 volt batteries need a special charger that outputs at least 14.2-14.4 volts. A regular lead acid charger will never charge them correctly. If you have a solar charger, you need to change the profile to LiFePO4 or they won't charge correctly. When they are fully charged, they'll be a little over 13.8 volts. A lot of the LiFePO4 batteries BMS (battery management system) has a bluetooth interface and you can monitor with an app on your phone.

I took a couple pics of the clamp meter reading on one 12 v DC leg coming from the battery bank going to Inverter showing it hovering between 5.0 and 5.1 Amps
An easy inverter circuit could be to switch on and off incoming 12 V at a rate of 60 hz and run it through a 1:10 step up x-former.....with a Cap or two to smooth out the square waveform.
Anyway I disconnected one of the batteries from the bank to check to see if maybe one of them was drawing the Whole Bank down, and sure enough
I then was able to run a 7 amp water pump plus 5 amps to the inverter for the TV which is approx a 60AH total draw
And 5 hours later my batteries still showed 13.02 V which is about right according to the Chart being at 50% charge
The DC House 100 AH LIFEPO Battery is a good deal for approx $165 for anyone interested

 

[fkimble@charter.net]

Battery Minders, at least that cheaper one mentioned above are terrific. Had one on my RV, battery would only last 2 weeks sitting and still crank. A drop cord and the battery minder cured that. Made a double male adapter, ran cord to outside AC outlet on RV, then put the Battery Minder inside out of weather plugged in inside AC outlet an connected to battery via cig lighter outlet. Also had one on riding mower. Battery lasted 8 years.

Frank