Wondering what the fuel consumption per hour is under about a half load on one of these . Just bought one and plan to run a vacuum pump for maple sugaring that requires 17amps. Any info about running this days on end, what I should watch for and what fuel consumption is would be greatly appreciated.
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Mep 831a
- Thread starter jeremy_b
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Mep-831a
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The Fuel consumption should be listed in the operators TM.
Manuals for the MEP-831A
Here are the manuals needed to work on the MEP-831A. Please ignore the schematics in the TM 9-6115-639-13&P. The more readable copy is the last uploaded file, Courtesy of Member Kurt Klopp.
www.steelsoldiers.com
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TM indicates: Four-gallon fuel tank (allowing 8 hours of continuous operation at full load)
You'll want to mouse proof it to keep those Bastids out.
Running for days on end will require an auxiliary fuel tank for it to draw diesel from.
Oil is supposed to be changed every 100 hours of operation per the TM.
You'll want to mouse proof it to keep those Bastids out.
Running for days on end will require an auxiliary fuel tank for it to draw diesel from.
Oil is supposed to be changed every 100 hours of operation per the TM.
Yes but I was just looking for more real accounts of what it uses for fuel drawing around 17amps at 120v
As far as fuel consumption, mine was running my house on about 5 gallons per day, give or take. I couldn't tell you what I was drawing (my KW gauge was broken) but I'd guess 10-12ish amps on average. I have a VP race jug with a cap rigged up as an auxiliary tank, and had no problem going 24 hours on it... I was leaving it while I was at work, and when I got home it had the jug almost empty, and the tank almost full.
As far as what to watch out for... uh... most things? It is impressively finicky. My last outage was my first real longer-term test of it. After about 12 hours it kicked off with an overheat light. Ended up disabling the fault monitor to keep it going... afterwards found the grommets on the shroud had turned to gum, and I guess that bit of movement they allowed was enough to trigger the overheat.
Then there's the throttle control (a fixable issue)... and the inverter not being the most robust (a kinda fixable issue... if you want to disassemble it to seal the potentiometers inside, and perhaps also replace a few components with more overbuilt ones)...
As far as what to watch out for... uh... most things? It is impressively finicky. My last outage was my first real longer-term test of it. After about 12 hours it kicked off with an overheat light. Ended up disabling the fault monitor to keep it going... afterwards found the grommets on the shroud had turned to gum, and I guess that bit of movement they allowed was enough to trigger the overheat.
Then there's the throttle control (a fixable issue)... and the inverter not being the most robust (a kinda fixable issue... if you want to disassemble it to seal the potentiometers inside, and perhaps also replace a few components with more overbuilt ones)...
Thanks for the reply. When you say 5 gallons is that in 24 hrs?
Yeah it was right around there... maybe could have been as high as 7 gallons, my fuel gauge was dead & the fleabay special I bought worked for about an hour & now just reads slam full... so that was pretty much based on me eyeballing the strainer.
I've only really run it the one outage, which was pretty much exactly 72 hours. I started with the race jug full (which is 6 gallons) and the tank full, I filled the race jug twice right around 24 & 48 hours, and ended up with the race jug almost empty & the day tank close to full when the power came back on.
I don't know what I was pulling though, probably not a ton... which would lead me to my next question, is your vac pump really pulling 17A? (And not just that's the LRA or FLA) Cuz if it actually pulls 2kw, I'd kinda question whether an 831A will start the motor... that's in the realm of what my well pump draws (actually it's about 20% higher) and I had to do some... interesting... things to get the generator to start the well pump. (So, uh, my well pump now has a contactor & voltage-ramping soft-start in the control circuit, instead of just a switch)