400hz gen sets able to do 60hz?

[gimpyrobb]

I've been watchin it from the beginning. The first couple of posts answered the OP's question pretty well. Now I'm just enjoying the show over what an average size house requires for power consumption.

Well, now you know its, 1.21111111 giggawatts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnqtXOi1iaY

 

[cranetruck]

I've been watchin it from the beginning. The first couple of posts answered the OP's question pretty well. Now I'm just enjoying the show over what an average size house requires for power consumption.

The word "requires" is important. In a power outage situation, the fridge and communications are important the rest can use a little "our-conditioning", an expression my first wife and I used when living in Florida in the '70s (as opposed to air-conditioning, of course).

For an average house power requirements, we must be on the opposite end, no air-conditioning ever, doors wide open to the house from about late April until October during the days and wood heat during the Winter months.
The 10KW genset is nice when welding and power tools when off the grid, but not generally needed here for house back-up power.
Solar heated water should work very well in places like LA and could save a bundle. Ever noticed how hot the water gets in the garden hose?

 

[cranetruck]

One use of the 400Hz generator comes to mind, battery charging using military type chargers. I would be game for one or both, say in the 3KW range.

 

[Speddmon]

Rat4spd and cranetruck are absolutely correct. I have over 15 years of experience in the electrical field, mostly industrial controls (PLC's, motor controls, high voltage distribution and such), some commercial and residential experience as well. One thing I can tell you for sure, is I have seen a LOT of screwball things electrically over the years. Have I seen it all? Not by a long shot.

If you guys want to size your generators on the maximum peak demand running 100% of the time, thats fine and totally your choice. However, your generator, and fuel costs will be higher than they need to be. For myself, my 10KW runs my modest 1200 sq/ft home (3 ton geothermal heat pump, well pump, electric dryer, gas stove and hot water though) just fine. And honestly, that is too much power for my needs, but the price was right on my set and it is an air cooled unit and I have a nice home-made load bank to load it up every now and then, so wetstacking isn't an issue for me. And I never even consider anything in my garage/shop in power calculations, because if the power is out I have bigger fish to fry than worry about doing any shop/project work

 

[PsycoBob]

Is 2 gensets an option? Smaller unit for background loads (AC/heat, fridge, etc) and the larger unit (or just a second one) to run switched loads like hot water/stove?

I mean, some loads are needed 24/7 unless the weather's perfect, but are you seriously expecting to cook while you're asleep? A little note marked "Have you started the big one?" on the shower door will fix that big demand-water heater's load.

 

[cranetruck]

Is 2 gensets an option? Smaller unit for background loads (AC/heat, fridge, etc) and the larger unit (or just a second one) to run switched loads like hot water/stove?

I mean, some loads are needed 24/7 unless the weather's perfect, but are you seriously expecting to cook while you're asleep? A little note marked "Have you started the big one?" on the shower door will fix that big demand-water heater's load.

Absolutely. Also, consider using battery back-up (with pure sine wave inverter) in addition, for a quiet time by the TV/computer. The fridge stays cool for many hours in an emergency.

 

[Ferroequinologist]

I tried to get my boss a 10kw for her farm, but she pretty much said no, that she wanted a 15kw. Not really sure why, she lives all alone. Maybe her plan is to feed her neighbors some power and charge them for it. I even set up a 275 gallon tank for it.

We had 60hz to 400hz converters on the ship- monsterous things. Needed lots of cooling too. Not sure if you could go the other way...

Fun thing to do- plug a standard analog clock into 400hz- watch time fly!

 

[Isaac-1]

Is 2 gensets an option? Smaller unit for background loads (AC/heat, fridge, etc) and the larger unit (or just a second one) to run switched loads like hot water/stove?

I mean, some loads are needed 24/7 unless the weather's perfect, but are you seriously expecting to cook while you're asleep? A little note marked "Have you started the big one?" on the shower door will fix that big demand-water heater's load.

I am all for the idea of having at least 2 generators, and prefereably ones that run on multiple types of fuel. As a practical matter people using generators (emergency backup ones or not) fall into 2 catagories, those able and willing to do manual load management and those that are not. The thing is this goes for everyone living in the household, the wife, the kids, the elderly mother in law, etc. Combine this with the fact that many people have no concept of the amount of power an indivial item draws (when running a modern 8500 btu window air condiitoner draws half the power of a typical hair dryer). The smaller the generator the less play you have in knowing what you can and can't run, a small 1000 watt generator may or may not provide enough power to run a refrigerator or freezer plus a low power CF light or two, surviving in a major power outage with one of these units requires active power management to say the least (in my case it would involve letting the refrigerator run for a few hours, followed by the chest freezer for a few hours, etc.). A good 2,000 watt generator will let you plug in any 1 thing with a standard 15 amp plug on it (and maybe several things with much smllar draws) , a 3,000 - 3500 watt will let you plug in any 2 things, etc. If living with a group of people that don't understand amp draw (most of them) and if you live in an area with a high chance of major power outages, and you have a backup generator that leaves little reserve after running the important stuff, I suggest you purchase an assorted color pack of electrical tape and color code the plugs on the common household appliances, green for very low draw items (cell phone chargers, lamps with CF or LED bulbs, etc.) Red for extremely high draw items like toasters and hair dryers (don't forget the vacuum cleaners, in my experience when confined to a house most women get a compulsion to clean). (yellow and orage somewhere in the middle, maybe use blue to for the critical stuff that should always be powered )

Ike


p.s. on the topic of 2 generators this can be done, but don't expect to combine the power of both

 

[Speddmon]

Ike,

You can combine the power of the two generators and do it fairly easily at that, think about it, the utilities do it all the time. BUT (and this is a very big but) frequency regulation is VERY VERY important!!!!!!

When you parallel two generators, you must make sure they are in "phase" with each other, not a hard task in and of itself but extremely important, especially if you are paralleling with the utility. If they are out of phase and you try to connect them together the one generator (or utility power) will literally yank the other one into phase with the first one. When this happens something could break depending on how badly they are out of phase.

Next, when you have them in phase and paralleled properly, the speed (or frequency) now is very critical. If one generator is running slightly faster than the other it will pull the majority of the load. This isn't necessarily dangerous unless you are maybe a hospital and have life support systems that cannot afford to have a generator shutdown due to overload. In your home it would be a major annoyance to have your one generator taking all of the load and shutting down all the time because it constantly overloads itself. But when phased properly and running at the same speed, they will split the power demand equally and can double your capacity.

 

[Isaac-1]

Spedmonn, as you and I know, paralleling is possible, however the cost of safe paralelling gear is going to greatly exceed the cost of any home standby generrator. Even the relatively small military units that support paralleling are often used in such a way as to provide continuous power and are only ran in parallel for a few minutes while one starts up and the other shuts down for maintenance. (think about what would happen if the engine were to stop on one of these paralleled units)

Ike

p.s. please forgive the typos I have a splitting headache today

 

[rat4spd]

I'd like to see the setup. There's a lot going on to run two generators in parallel.

 

[exbrown]

Ike,

You can combine the power of the two generators and do it fairly easily at that, think about it, the utilities do it all the time. BUT (and this is a very big but) frequency regulation is VERY VERY important!!!!!!

Paralleling generators like the utilities does it is a lot different than trying it with two small generators. When a utility places a generator in service, they are paralleling their generator to the grid, which is immovable. Even the big coal or nuke plants are insignificant compared to all the others out there. There for you are syncing to a known and immovable source. When you have two small generators, it is much more difficult. The two generators will fight for control. One is a little slow, so it pushes. The other is a little fast, so it pushes back. You end up with the generators fighting each other and this can cause very high current loads.

This is possible, but not for the novice. I would not recommend this for most people.

 

[Carl_in_NH]

Easiest way to run multiple generators is to not worry about sync'ing; wire your house with two sub-panels - each with its own (small) transfer switch and generator input connection. Wire it so your critical, must have loads (oil burner, well pump, and a few lights) go to one panel and get powered by one smaller generator (something that sips fuel and can run all night), and another panel with its own input for a larger generator that runs many more things - like freezers, air conditioning, etc) that you can start when you must have those things, but can shut down when sleeping or to stretch fuel supply.

Takes more work and money to make this setup, but it's worth it in some applications.

What I think people loose sight of is what's really important when your power is out for a week during an ice storm or a hurricane. You're camping in your house - having everything work without concern for what's on at the same time is do-able, but you've got to have really deep pockets to pay for the fuel - and potentially spend a lot of time fetching it to feed the machine.

For me, it's all about survival and keeping the pipes from freezing and the food from spoiling - and a little DirecTV to provide distraction from the misery of a long outage.

 

[Isaac-1]

Carl, glad to see you could make it to this little party we are having. You left out one important thing on your example wiring, you need a way to also transfer power of the vital loads to your second larger generator in case the small one dies. It could be rather embarrassing to have TV, lights, etc and no refrigeration or water well.

Ike

 

[Carl_in_NH]

Should have mentioned that, Ike - thanks for pointing it out; simpliest way is to use common input connectors for the two generators outside the house (even if one of them will be larger and more costly than needed for the loads supplied). That way you can mix-n-match the generators outside and feed what you need - even if one of your gensets dies. You do need to be aware of the loads presented and make certain you don't overload your 'little' genset if you need to power the larger load panel for some portion of the emergency.

For me, it will always be about being able to respond to changes during the emergency; those changes could be running low on fuel, having a generator fail, or almost anything else. In order for that to work, there's some amount of knowledge about electrical loads required by the operator. One can do big and foolproof (well, fool resistant), but it locks you into a given configuration and mode of operation.

I keep thinking back to the ice storm of '08. I had one generator, you couldn't purchase a replacement within 500 miles for any price, and I suffered several failures that I was able to work around because I'm a packrat that likes to keep some spare junk around. The ability to have back-ups for your back-ups and mix and match things is a great way to keep from sitting in a cold, dark house. As for generators here at the ranch, I think I've got four now - but I haven't counted in awhile

 

[jbk]

i have a 10 circut 7500 watt transfer swich that i use for my house. i also have a separate 30 amp. single circut for my hot water heater. i use my mep-802a for the house and a mep-017a for the hot water heater when i need it, running it 30 40 min. at a time. i had the hot water heater tied in the 10 cirut panel but i would have to kill almost everything while heating water. this has worked out well for me and i have plenty of generators.

 

[kurtkds]

LOL guys! My house uses a lot more than 15 kw. I have Central Air Conditioning in the Summer and Electric heat pump for winter. uses almost 30 amp 230 volt. Then add the 15 amps for the blower motor. We have 50 amp 230 volt for the stove/ oven. We have Electric dryer at 30 amp 230 volt. On demand hot water heater that uses up to 2 x 40 amp 230 volt circuits. To that add lighting, 3 computers, tv's, 1 large fridge, 1 large freezer, air compressor for the septic system, microwave oven etc. That adds up to a serious load.

i like COMFORT! We could alternate a lot of the loads but why do it if you have the generator that can do most of the loads to live in comfort - while others are just barely running the window A/C and their freezers and fridge.

I have been through a long power outage and it gets boring if you don't have power for the TOYS like TV and computers. You get the picture...

So please don't judge if some of us like the bigger output generator sets.

BTW I took a 15KW 400 HZ generator and turned it into a 42kw generator by replacing the generator head with a new civilian one. I took a bit of wiring because there were components missing from the 400 generator wireing. The head swap was the easy part!

Apparently I'll be the new owner of a MEP113a and I'll be needing to convert it to 60hz.

Could you post the make and model of the generator head you purchased and is it 3 Ph?

 

[daddy2]

Lets think outside the box guys. Having a gen. is great. I am confused with all the 3 phase and running parallel stuf. I love being able to run the house and weld with my toy. You can cool off the house with ac and still fix the bumper or work on the extreme rv with a welder/generator.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Kurt, see here:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/auxillary-equipment/55100-i-think-its-mep813.html

or here:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/auxill...-generator-rally-400-hz-60-hz-conversion.html

 

[flyxpl]

Lets think outside the box guys. Having a gen. is great. I am confused with all the 3 phase and running parallel stuf. I love being able to run the house and weld with my toy. You can cool off the house with ac and still fix the bumper or work on the extreme rv with a welder/generator.

I had a gasoline miller bobcat 250 . As soon as I got my mep003 I sold it . It was noisy and sucked more fuel then the mep003 . I did not really need the welding part of the bobcat though since I allready have a mig and tig welder . I figure if I need to weld in the field I can use the 003 for power .