Emergency power generators
Seth Mattinen
sethm at rollernet.us
Thu Jan 21 22:00:01 UTC 2010
Joe Greco wrote:
>> On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Mike wrote:
>>
>>> site owners a solution to test and verify generator operation. Does anyone
>>> have any pointers to possible solutions or vendor white papers I could look
>>> at? We probably want to verify start, read voltage to verify output, and
>>> maybe even gauge fuel in the tanks if thats possible.
>> Start with the generator owner's manual. You'd be amazed at what helpful
>> maintenance suggestions can be found there. Sometimes they're even
>> online... :)
>
> Seriously, "talk to your vendor." You can frequently get gear with
> remote reporting, some of it will do dry contact or even talk RS232.
> If you can not, a lot of it can be measured anyways.
>
> If your gear doesn't "support" it, talk to generator service guys who
> are well-thought-of in your area. I'd place good odds that they'll be
> happy to outfit you with a computer-readable fuel level indicator,
> oil pressure, remote test, etc., etc., though they may be smiling their
> way to the bank and thanking you for all the custom work.
>
Many automatic generators have provisions for a remote annunciator which
are typically just wired up as voltage out for each warning light/alarm.
You could easily put a tiny relay on those and make it contact closure.
It might not give you "the temp is 151" but it could give you "pre-alarm
high temp" before "high temp shutdown" for cheap.
~Seth
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