Found time to pick up a super nice mep-802a today

[Demoh]

Partner, the best part of the deal is the SwiftE load bank!! Oh man, are they nice. I had one I picked up from someone who was closing down a small Air Defence Site. I was all over it! Sadly, some rat stole it from the back end of my car. That's all he took.

The army just dosnt get into explains things to the soldiers that they don't need to know. Like what's in the coolest. There is a NSN, order that coolest, done. So no help from the TM's.

Since you can appreciate this bank I decided to throw these pictures up for you of me getting tired of dealing with the wires and put a proper inlet on the unit. As you can see the PU trailer makes a great work surface. This unit is my friend's unit, his gen faces forward with the toolbox in front of the control panel with makes a great seat. A little jealous of that.

Im about 20 hours into breakin now, very pleased with how the unit is progressing. It can hold 5kw with no smoke and 7kw without spiraling down. My friend's 5kw just started the process and smokes at 5kw but started clearing up after a few hours. Both units started with 2.3 or 3 hours on the clock.




With all the research about coolant that my friend did added with a little of mine, even though I already flushed with green and added SCA, I may still change my fleet over to Rotella ELC NF which is also silicate free. This would be for my primary units that arent my tinkering units.

Since I havent really seen any real hard data I have also started gathering the supplies necessary to do some true consumption tests. Ive seen a guy on youtube with some testing, but not a test at 30%, 40%, 50%,... ... 100%, 110%, etc... I have a 5 gallon graduated cylinder and a load bank, I just have to get my test methodology in order so I have as many constants as possible.

 

[lindsey97]

A little OCD is good in this hobby. A good MEP-802a will do 6250 watts, because they are under rated at a power factor of 0.8.

On the subject of coolant, flush the unit once or twice with distilled water, then fill with 50/50 green antifreeze, low silicate. No additives needed, the lister petter engine is dry sleeved. Engine oil specs are on the instrument cluster cover, I would run a 10-30w, diesel oil, and add a zinc additive for the camshaft and fuel pumps. Make sure you have a clean fuel system, with fresh fuel. Check to see that your exhaust flapper is functioning correctly, use duct tape to secure it shut so the wind cannot blow it open and rain go in.

If I were to break one in, or do a quarterly load test, I would let the engine warm up with no load to 180F, then add a 50% load for 10-15 minutes, then go to 90-105% load for a couple hours. A used 240v clothes dryer makes a wonderful load bank, it will turn the heating elements on/off creating a true test of the set, making sure all of the functions work.

After running a load, open the circuit, and let the engine run for 5 minutes, allowing proper cooling of the genset.