Just joined the forum because I'm buying an 802a...

[biz]

I haven't even gotten an 802a yet and I want an 803a already.

 

[rhurey]

Funny, I have a 803 and think how handy an 802 would be. (As a second unit.)

 

[biz]

I've seen fuel consumption threads but they seem to get way off topic. Is the difference between the 802 and 803 that big? I'm going to take a guess and say that they probably burn a close amount when on the same size load. My concern is the consumption difference when under very little load. Does anyone know the consumption of both machines under no load?

 

[Guyfang]

Two cylinders should consume twice what one cylinder consumes. Or there abouts.

 

[TrailLifeBill]

I've seen fuel consumption threads but they seem to get way off topic. Is the difference between the 802 and 803 that big? I'm going to take a guess and say that they probably burn a close amount when on the same size load. My concern is the consumption difference when under very little load. Does anyone know the consumption of both machines under no load?

A bigger concern would be running it very long under very little load. Lots of threads on here about wet stacking. I have an 803, and would love to pick up a spare 802 if the price was right - both as a spare, and for those occasions where 10kw is overkill (not so much for fuel economy, but to prevent wet stacking my 803).

 

[jamawieb]

A bigger concern would be running it very long under very little load. Lots of threads on here about wet stacking. I have an 803, and would love to pick up a spare 802 if the price was right - both as a spare, and for those occasions where 10kw is overkill (not so much for fuel economy, but to prevent wet stacking my 803).

If you're more worried about wet stacking, I would build a load bank and hook it up occasionally. Then you would burn the excess fuel out of the cylinders and exhaust when needed. Save some money. Unless you're like me and just would like to have it, just because.

 

[DieselAddict]

You are not going to ruin the set by running it lightly loaded for a couple of days during an outage. You will collect some junk in the exhaust but its not going to be instant death.

You don't have to run it balls out all the time to keep it tidy. You just have to run it long enough with sufficient load to remove any accumulation. In my opinion the important thing to do is load it up and run it hard at the END of and event and blow it clean BEFORE you put it back into storage. Letting those deposits have a chance to get into places and stick valves and do other bad things is what you want to avoid.

If your house doesn't really load your set during an outage you should load bank it at 100% once your main power is back online. That will tidy everything up and it will be ready for the next event.

When you load it up you'll see what you are dealing with. If it smokes heavily then you know you are doing the right thing. When the smoke lightens up and stabilizes you have it pretty much cleaned out (it is normal to see a light haze of BLACK smoke when you are running it hard). Let it run a half hour longer and you should be good to cool it down and put it away.

Here is a short video clip of one that I was working on. It had a severe case of wetstacking. When I got it it wouldn't even pull 4kw without choking down. The video is the first time putting any real load on it. You can see how much smoke it was making and that it was loosing speed against even a modest load. It took about 4-5 hours of incremental loading over the course of a day to get it cleared out. When I was done it ran perfectly and held a 6.5kw resistive load with the normal light exhaust haze. That amount of wetstacking didn't happen over a weekend. I'm sure it was left idling for many, many hours before it was retired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9cI1l77fbg

 

[biz]

I deal with diesels all day and I'm used to loading them up if they have been idling for long periods or at low load for long periods. My question about fuel consumption was based on overnight usage. Both the 802 and 803 Will barely be working at night while we are sleeping. It's during those hours where both units would be at very minimal load. The fuel consumption at no load is what I am very interested in for both machines.

I also have a 120 gallon air compressor or with a 10 hp three-phase motor rated at 30 A. I'm pretty sure of the 802 would struggle to run this. I'm actually planning on selling the compressor and I figured having the 803 would be nice so I could show that the unit runs to the potential buyer.

There's got to be somebody out there with fuel consumption data for no-load consumption on both units.

 

[DieselAddict]

Under no load conditions expect a 802 to use about 0.15 to 0.2 g/hr. An 803 will use double that.

 

[Guyfang]

]You are not going to ruin the set by running it lightly loaded for a couple of days during an outage. You will collect some junk in the exhaust but its not going to be instant death. [/COLOR]

You don't have to run it balls out all the time to keep it tidy. You just have to run it long enough with sufficient load to remove any accumulation. In my opinion the important thing to do is load it up and run it hard at the END of and event and blow it clean BEFORE you put it back into storage. Letting those deposits have a chance to get into places and stick valves and do other bad things is what you want to avoid.

If your house doesn't really load your set during an outage you should load bank it at 100% once your main power is back online. That will tidy everything up and it will be ready for the next event.

When you load it up you'll see what you are dealing with. If it smokes heavily then you know you are doing the right thing. When the smoke lightens up and stabilizes you have it pretty much cleaned out (it is normal to see a light haze of BLACK smoke when you are running it hard). Let it run a half hour longer and you should be good to cool it down and put it away.

Here is a short video clip of one that I was working on. It had a severe case of wetstacking. When I got it it wouldn't even pull 4kw without choking down. The video is the first time putting any real load on it. You can see how much smoke it was making and that it was loosing speed against even a modest load. It took about 4-5 hours of incremental loading over the course of a day to get it cleared out. When I was done it ran perfectly and held a 6.5kw resistive load with the normal light exhaust haze. That amount of wetstacking didn't happen over a weekend. I'm sure it was left idling for many, many hours before it was retired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9cI1l77fbg

I have been trying to tell people this for a while. Its simply nothing to get your pantys in a wad about. Simple to cure, and if you use a gen set more then a few hundred hours a year, you are in the minority. Yeah, when you all had the ice storm, you ran some hours. But its not like you lived on TAC power for months. If you follow Chris's lead, it will simply never be a problem for you.