I need more details for transfer switch and voltage control onMEP803A

[jl240z]

Hello I have been lurking and combing thru the archives but I still need some help. I purchased my 803A a couple months ago for my whole house backup. It said 7 hours on the meter but I know its a reset but I am not sure of the tier level if there is one. The guy I bought it from replaced all the fluids and filters and did a load test and it seems to operate fine. All the accessories were gone. I drove 500 miles one way to pick it up and now after a month, it is ready for hook up to the house system. I did start it again after I bought the new batteries and it started instantly with just one puff of white smoke and ran smooth showing 60 hz. but I had no load on it except for a hand grinder plugged into the accessory outlet. The electrician is coming this Friday to connect it to the house. I did the upgrades suggested by the forum concerning the safety fuse and VOS. I have installed a 100 gallon aux tank and completed the fuel line hookup. At this point let me say my knowledge of electrical is that I know it exists and things happen when you plug things in or flip a switch. I have read thru the operators manual and will do several times more but even after going thru the archives I cant find anything about the setting for the transfer switch, at least in a way I can understand. Also the manual identifies the voltage knob but doesn't explain how to set it or if it is something to set once and forget or adjust as needed. All the other controls are explained well enough to get me started. Can someone direct me to a reference in the archives or another manual or book to explain the transfer switch setting and the voltage control. I will be running the 120/240 setting on the inside of the control panel, Also I read on this site I will need to remove the bar connecting the ground and neutral since ill be using the house ground. I have learned a lot on this forum and I appreciate all the knowledge shared by you all. My plan is to have the unit hardwired into the house system with a disconnect between the generator and the house system. Then when I disconnect from the grid I can start the generator and make sure all is running right and then actuate the switch to connect the generator to the house. I am in Naples Florida part of hurricane central. Irma;s eye passed right over the top of us and really hit the infrastructure hard. NO power for 2 weeks doesn't sound bad until the temp hits the hi 90's at nite. I was really lucky no damage to the house but it took the county over two months to haul away all the downed trees and stuff. I have lived here since 1957 and never seen a storm do so much damage. I always thought about getting a generator and have been thru a lot of storms but that one did it for me. I am getting old I guess. So any and all suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help

 

[Light in the Dark]

Welcome. First, lets make sure you have a functioning enter key (it helps to kill the wall-of-text effect). Helps make reading it easier for folks here too, to break future messages up into paragraphs.

So you want to run 120/240... excellent. Very common. So you are aware of the voltage selection switch behind the gauge panel? If you flip that down, you will see a large black handle pointing to one of three voltage selections. Pick the one you want (do not make this adjustment while the set is running!).

With that selected, flip the gauge panel back up, and secure. For the gauges on the front to work, you will need to set your AM/VM switch to the correct position (should be 3 o clock). The indicators on the gauge panel should lend themselves to this information.

So if you are hard wiring, which you are... yes, you will want to remove the grounding bar. Make sure the generator is off, and preferably, that the batteries are disconnected (first time users need to be particularly careful when they setup, for safety sake). If you open the lower left control door (where the electrical lugs are), you should see the 5 lugs (L1-3, N, G). To the bottom right of this lug panel, is a small bar attached to two posts (And secured by hardware). Loosen the top bolt and the bar will tilt to the right, sliding out of its position. Your N and G are no longer bonded in the machine (which is what you want when you are running it freestanding, with no house tie in).

All pretty simple stuff. So when your electrician comes, he should decipher the correct lugs to wire up for your needs (but its going to be L1, L3, N, and G).

Have you mouse proofed the machine yet? You really need to, if you havent done so. You should also take the top cover off over the operator cube, to make sure you don't already have something nesting in the machine (which can corrode the **** out of the connections back there, and cause a machine to experience a catastrophic failure under the right conditions).

 

[Bmxenbrett]

It sounds like you have the volt switch behind the pannel set right and the ground bar should be disconnected for hooking to your house.

As far as the fine tuneing volt switch/gauge u want that set to 240v.

The rest of the hookups the electrician should do.

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,

Wow, great 1st post. You have done your homework.

Welcome to the forums.

Yes, the forums are a great resource for what you need.
It sounds like you have all the operating procedures checked. I hope you found the thread about checking the aux fuel function and testing. A lot easier in nice weather at your convenience instead of under threat of weather issues. Same thing goes for operating, the unit likes to have a load 50% or higher to keep it happy. It also sounds like you have gone through this thread too. MEP-802A MEP-803A Filters and Parts

MEP-803A is a 10KW generator which can handle much more since it is very under-rated. So the electrician understand that it can be hooked via a 60 amp connection (wiring and circuit breaker)

A lot could depend in what your local government and utility allow. Which your electrician should be familiar with. A manual inter-lok breaker, a break-out generator box, a Generlink meter collar type, and other methods out there.

Generator connection choices

Good luck with your setup, and here's to hopefully not needing it.

 

[jl240z]

Hello
Thanks for replying to my request. It was very helpful and I am sure I will be asking further questions. I do wonder if it will be necessary to disconnect the outlet line of the aux fuel pump and run it until it starts delivering fuel or just let it run until the sound changes. I think there is to much fuel in the tank for it to run very long if the sensor is working properly. I am sure the pump runs as I can hear it on aux prime but I didn't want to run it very long until the bulk fuel delivery comes next week.. oNce the tank is full how long should I run the pump and should I try to put some fuel in the line first to prime it? I looked for the thread mike mentioned but there are a bunch of them so I don't know which one he referred to.

There are two green squares taped to the bulkhead in back of the control panel. Could they be references to tier level maint? They look like dates one looks like 8-5-10 followed by a number 12025 the other looks like 18-20032 with a date 9-28-06. the unit was built in 2006 so that puzzles me. also there are the letters FD over 21 inside a circle. To further confuse me there is FZ36226 written on the frame. Anybody know what this stuff means?

I looked for the thread on testing the aux pump in the archives per mike. I found some but am not sure which one he referred to. I hear the pump run in aux prime but don't want to run it until the bulk fuel guy fills my tank next week. should I disconnect the output line from the aux pump and run it until fuel comes out or just run it in place until I hear the tone or sound of the pump change? I don't know how long it will run as the main tank has at least 6 gallons in it. So I suspect it would shut off if the sensor is working? I read one posting saying to let it run for a long time but I don't want to damage the pump before I even get started

If all goes well Friday, I should be able to do a load test from the house panel by the end of the day or Saturday morning. I plan to start with some of the minor circuits and then cut in the A/C and see what happens. Then if there is no mushroom cloud ill hit the water heater and maybe the cook top. I was going to run it for about an hour to make sure the batteries get charged. Ill keep the A/C set low so the load stays on it. The water heater will likely shut off. I don't know what else to turn on the well pump will already be on. Anything else will not run constantly to keep the load up. Should I bake a cake?

 

[uniquify]

To further confuse me there is FZ36226 written on the frame. Anybody know what this stuff means?

FZ36226 resembles a serial number. Does it match the serial number on the data plate above the fuel filler cap?

 

[uniquify]

If all goes well Friday, I should be able to do a load test from the house panel by the end of the day or Saturday morning. I plan to start with some of the minor circuits and then cut in the A/C and see what happens. Then if there is no mushroom cloud ill hit the water heater and maybe the cook top. I was going to run it for about an hour to make sure the batteries get charged. Ill keep the A/C set low so the load stays on it. The water heater will likely shut off. I don't know what else to turn on the well pump will already be on. Anything else will not run constantly to keep the load up. Should I bake a cake?

If it were me, I would not hook it up to the house panel until I'd proved it was making 120/240 volts and holding near 60Hz. I'd start with resistive loads like lights, heater, oven, etc., before moving on to something with a motor. Verify the readings with a good multi-meter or a kill-a-watt. I'd much rather fry something cheap than risk everything in the house.

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,

The thread is somewhere here in the forums.

Anyway, testing the aux fuel can be done with 2 5 gal cans. Have the unit running with aux fuel selected. Have the aux fuel line in the 5 gal fuel container. Siphon fuel out of the fuel tank in another container, at some point the aux fuel pump will kick on and fill the day tank to approx. 90% full and then shut off. testing complete. It's just easier to test it out before a emergency arrives. This way you can seek answers here, or go about getting parts.

The day tank has a few level floats which do different things. 1 is a fuel level gauge. 1 is for kicking the aux pump on and off, and 1 is a fault light to shut down (Low fuel level)

Sticky post in the top portion. Generator AUX fuel connections shows what the hose is, and the 5 gall/55 gal drum adaptor is

 

[jl240z]

Yet another reason to go to this forum. Ill do the aux fuel check and check the number with the plate on the unit an I guess before I involve the motor driven circuits ill actually bake a cake. Using the oven should give a good reading. and turn on the lights and turn off the pump circuit and A/C circuits to start. Don't want to burn out those because its a submersible pump down about 40 feet. Lot of work to replace that!! I don't think any of the other circuits have motors on them that I don't already have turned off. Ill turn off the 240 circuit my compressor is on to be safe as well. Ill also ask the electrician as well. He probly has the proper test devices. I think I have a multimeter or two but don't know how to use them for much except checking batteries. Anyway the electrician works for a company that does a lot of commercial stuff so he probly can do all the tests for what uniquify said to do. Thanks again. Ill let you know what occurs.

 

[jl240z]

Greetings
I thought I would catch you all up with my 803A hookup. With the recent storm activity I think I was cutting it pretty close altho I am still waiting for the bulk fuel guy to bring my diesel juice. I did go mouse hunting in the area just above the generator part. No evidence of previous tenants but it was pretty dusty. What I did find was another set of green tags with the 9-2006 date on it. What is puzzling is that date precedes the manufacture date on the metal tag which is 10-2006. I guess maybe the factory did some repairs before it lelt for delivery?? The FZ number written next to the panel in white is the serial number as speculated by uniqify. I did replace the piano hinge on the panel door so it closes better now. Also started to replace the rubber weather stripping around the doors and stuff.

The electrician came and ran the conduit and wiring pretty quickly. I have 2-200 amp panels so he had to connect them for the generator to run them both. Once that was done he disconnected from the grid and had me start the generator and did a multimeter test at the new disconnect panel which he placed on the wall next to the panels in my garage. At first he could get no reading at all. Turns out I had forgotten to set the AC circuit interrupter to closed. After doing that we got the 240 volts at 60hz steady reading.

Then he gave the go ahead to start flipping breakers. At first we couldn't get any reading on the percent meter. Just a tiny bit so we flipped on all the breakers one by one and it finally went up to about 37% The A/C unit has a time delay before it kicks back on after a power stop. So we went to the compressor and looked to see if it kicked in yet and just then it did. The generator burped for about half a second and powered up. Just a very tiny bit of white smoke. Ran smooth and showed 240 volts and just a dash under 60HZ. I gave the knob a nudge to 60 even and it purred away. The meter showed about 65-70%. I don't really know what else was running at the time. I was planning to do some more tests with the WH or the washer but I wanted to finish hooking up my aux tank fuel line and filter. I only ran it for about half an hour because he wanted to do something else in the panel to restore my 50A plug socket that I use for my plasma cutter and used to use to plug in my now retired 45KW gas generator.

So all in all I think success was achieved along with a few beers as well. The real test of course will be when I have to do an extended run for a power outage, which I hope never comes. We usually have power outages every day this time of year but haven't lately. I think all the damage caused by Irma had forced FPL to do some upgrades while making all the repairs they needed to do. Albert gave us a bunch of needed rain and some wind and moved on., Actually I think the guy I bought the generator from up near Panama City got more than we did.(Sorry Larry) But he has about 6 or more gensets so he is ok I am sure. That's about it for now. I am sure ill be lurking in the backround and will come up with a question or two sooner or later. Thanks guys