Gentleman! Had some bad storms roll into east of Dallas, Texas where we live and took out many powerlines . Infact, many are still without power after over I think 36 hours.
My setup is an Mep-803, a generac ATS, and @kloppk 's 802/803 remote start controller with the 2 wire/generac controller board.
I want to first say that the 803 handled everything wonderfully and makes me so thankful for the expense and work I've put into to get to where I am with the system.
A few notes before I get into the meat of it:
1. My sister in law came over and was grateful to be in a home that was running as if on grid power (with some minor load shedding). My father-in-law (she still lives with her parents) had gone and bought a big box store generator, and had extension cords running throughout the home to keep the essentials running. She was amazed at the quiet reassuring hum of an MEP compared to the absolute racket caused by my FIL's generator.
2. My wife was so happy! I've mentioned before on SS that while in college at UT, she experienced the terrible ice storm that Texas went through a few years ago. She was living alone in a small apartment at the time and I was living in the North Texas area. She was without power for 6 or 7 days and many pipes burst, causing the apartment complex to shut water off completely. All of this on her birthday no less! We now are married and have 2 small children(2 years old and 1 month old). She was so thankful that we had power. Infact, her hierarchy of needs was so elevated due to the reliable power that the new complaint was lack of internet! so maybe a new slogan for mep's "Power generation so reliable that makes even outage scarred wives complain about lack of internet!" But on a more serious note, she was extremely happy to know that we were GOOD in these situations, all thanks to MEP's and gentleman like you who carry on the support of them.
Okay back to the meat of it!
There are a few things to discuss here and im not sure how to best organize it. I could see the thread going in multiple places, but I think if others have a similar problem it will serve them well, although I might have a bit of a niche set up (803/ATS).
Here's what happened:
1. Lost power.
2. generator started automatically (Thanks Kurt!)
3. ATS flipped to standby, running on gen power
4. 5 minutes pass, generator shuts off (hmm strange)
5. attempt to connect wirelessly to start remotely (The rain and wind was absolutely torrential)
6.brave the weather and manual start, power is back and never quit.
Ive determined that the controller is shutting down the generator due to low oil pressure. it sits around 20 psi when warmed up.
Ive read on other threads that this may be less than ideal but "Ive seen MEP's run for year making 20 psi oil pressure". I should say that ive gone through and completed the calibration, and that the controller is reporting psi in accordance with the MEP's oil pressure gauge (which from what ive read is questionably accurate). I think though that the resolution of the controller is in 5 psi increments (at least that's all that's reported)
So whats the solution here? I could recalibrate to make the controller see 25 psi, when the mep reports 20, but i feel like thats sort of a recipe for disaster, as its my understanding that im relying only on the controller to monitor the health of the generator.
But while operating manually, the 803 seems to be perfectly happy with the reported oil pressure.
Another solution is fix the low oil pressure, which based on my reading the forum isn't actually dangerously low yet.
And the nuclear option, is get another lower hour unit cause 2 meps is better than 1!
Let me know what yall think!
My setup is an Mep-803, a generac ATS, and @kloppk 's 802/803 remote start controller with the 2 wire/generac controller board.
I want to first say that the 803 handled everything wonderfully and makes me so thankful for the expense and work I've put into to get to where I am with the system.
A few notes before I get into the meat of it:
1. My sister in law came over and was grateful to be in a home that was running as if on grid power (with some minor load shedding). My father-in-law (she still lives with her parents) had gone and bought a big box store generator, and had extension cords running throughout the home to keep the essentials running. She was amazed at the quiet reassuring hum of an MEP compared to the absolute racket caused by my FIL's generator.
2. My wife was so happy! I've mentioned before on SS that while in college at UT, she experienced the terrible ice storm that Texas went through a few years ago. She was living alone in a small apartment at the time and I was living in the North Texas area. She was without power for 6 or 7 days and many pipes burst, causing the apartment complex to shut water off completely. All of this on her birthday no less! We now are married and have 2 small children(2 years old and 1 month old). She was so thankful that we had power. Infact, her hierarchy of needs was so elevated due to the reliable power that the new complaint was lack of internet! so maybe a new slogan for mep's "Power generation so reliable that makes even outage scarred wives complain about lack of internet!" But on a more serious note, she was extremely happy to know that we were GOOD in these situations, all thanks to MEP's and gentleman like you who carry on the support of them.
Okay back to the meat of it!
There are a few things to discuss here and im not sure how to best organize it. I could see the thread going in multiple places, but I think if others have a similar problem it will serve them well, although I might have a bit of a niche set up (803/ATS).
Here's what happened:
1. Lost power.
2. generator started automatically (Thanks Kurt!)
3. ATS flipped to standby, running on gen power
4. 5 minutes pass, generator shuts off (hmm strange)
5. attempt to connect wirelessly to start remotely (The rain and wind was absolutely torrential)
6.brave the weather and manual start, power is back and never quit.
Ive determined that the controller is shutting down the generator due to low oil pressure. it sits around 20 psi when warmed up.
Ive read on other threads that this may be less than ideal but "Ive seen MEP's run for year making 20 psi oil pressure". I should say that ive gone through and completed the calibration, and that the controller is reporting psi in accordance with the MEP's oil pressure gauge (which from what ive read is questionably accurate). I think though that the resolution of the controller is in 5 psi increments (at least that's all that's reported)
So whats the solution here? I could recalibrate to make the controller see 25 psi, when the mep reports 20, but i feel like thats sort of a recipe for disaster, as its my understanding that im relying only on the controller to monitor the health of the generator.
But while operating manually, the 803 seems to be perfectly happy with the reported oil pressure.
Another solution is fix the low oil pressure, which based on my reading the forum isn't actually dangerously low yet.
And the nuclear option, is get another lower hour unit cause 2 meps is better than 1!
Let me know what yall think!
If the oil doesn't smell strongly of diesel, and if the oil level isn't high, it is probably something else.