MEP803a Saves The Day

[tscott8201]

I work for a North Florida utility company and decided to buy my 803a after last years tropical storms left us without power for 3 days on 2 separate occasions. Man did that pay off this year. When the lights go out we are all hands on deck to get everything put back up and I worry about my wife and kids stuck in a hot house with no running water. For Irma though, we lost power around 10pm Sunday night and I was up at 5am the following morning getting the generator plugged in and fired up. She ran for roughly 82 hours straight without a hiccup. The wife had lights, TV, and air conditioning the whole time. ****, she even ran the washing machine while I was out working. I could hear the genset come under load when the AC kicked on, but she would just throttle up and ride through the inrush and settle back down. All the wife had to do was top off the diesel tank every 4 hours or so. Haven't had time to do the math yet, but it looks like we burned right around 50 gallons of diesel which puts us at around .6 or.7 gallons an hour. Given the load, this sounds about right.

I've got a few things I'd like to improve. The fuel gauge, and the % load gauge aren't working so I'll try to get those fixed, and I'm considering adding and auxiliary tank to the trailer to allow longer run times between refueling. Over all, I am incredibly happy that I bought this generator. In my mid it's already paid for itself.

Tom

 

[Bmxenbrett]

Im in the same boat as you. Then stuff happens i still have to go to work, many times longer than normaly. I give my lady a gen stsrt up procedure every few months. When i get a roof over the gen i to am going to get a aux tank setup. I figure treated diesel should last 5-7yrs and i do a 12-24hr load test every 6 months so il just make it hig enough that il burn it all in 5 years.
Happy your set worked out well for you.

 

[Chainbreaker]

Isn't it gratifying when all your foresight, planning and preparation for a power outage come into use! Nothing like having a military generator for back-up power when you need it most!

Regarding adding an aux tank... I am currently in the process of adding a 50 gallon aux tank to my 2nd genset trailer. When I had to take my #1 generator with its aux tank offline due to a high voltage issue and roll in my #2 backup generator on trailer w/o an aux tank I felt lost without having an aux tank topping up the genset during a week long power outage. Lifting heavy Jerry cans up to shoulder level necessary for topping off trailer mounted genset got old real fast. So, I recently found a really nice aluminum 50 gallon diesel "Dura Craft" for $60 off craigslist. I'm in the process of cleaning it up and painting it olive drab to match trailer. I thought about leaving the nice shiny aluminum tank as-is but decided it's shiny aluminum reflection might attract too much attention. Plus, I wanted it to look more OEM like it was part of military trailer.

The nice thing about the Dura Craft tank is that it was designed to be securely hung from a tractor trailer's underbelly; so mine came with heavy duty brackets & cradle that I can flip to mount on top of trailer. In addition, being a refer tank it has all the fittings plus fuel gauge, draw-tube as well as a "return line" and has DOT approved rollover valve vent. So its legal for plumbed in permanent attachment to trailer for road travel to fill up at gas stations. With having all the necessary fittings in place, if I ever were to spring a leak in genset's day tank I could easily disconnect and replumb day tank hoses directly to aux tank & thereby bypass leaking day tank in an emergency power outage situation to avoid any downtime to repair.

 

[csheath]

Pretty much the same deal here. Bought the 803 after Hermine hit us last year. We were not out as long as you were with this storm but enjoyed having power as soon as we needed it. I have actually logged about 40 hours in non storm related outages since I brought mine online. I don't even unplug mine from the house except for the monthly load test and exercise.

On the fuel gauge the ground on those gauges daisy chains from one to the other. Clean ALL the ground wire connections on the backs of the gauges first. Before attempting to pull the sending unit try cleaning the connections at the sender. I wrestled mine in and out then found I hadn't sanded the corrosion off the connectors good enough.

Those load gauges are rarely accurate if they do work from what I've read. You can get a couple of digital volt amp meters off that auction site for about $10 each. I rigged mine right into the front panel. Another person on here made a panel and installed two of them in behind the storage compartment door to keep his panel original.



FYI and 55 gallon oil drum makes a dandy auxiliary fuel tank and can be had cheap. You might even get one for nothing at a car dealership. I didn't think about asking there until I bought a pair. I think I paid $15 apiece and a few bucks for paint.

 

[Guyfang]

There is nothing in life that builds character like refueling generators with 5 gal can. Yes sir. I developed so much character in the early 70's refueling 5-6 generator sets, (45kw's) running 24/7 that I never needed to do it again. If longer term running is in the cards for you, get an aux tank, of some kind. Just makes sense.

 

[SCSG-G4]

The design of my generator shed allows for a 55 gallon drum secondary tank plumbed into the MEP-003 through a concrete block wall, and tertiary 600 gallon fuel tank (pod) under covered storage beside it. We were without power for almost two weeks following hurricane Hugo (1989). The house is 'all electric', so we need the larger unit. Running 1 ga wire from the generator to the manual transfer switch main panel, which is overkill but it was cheaper than the more correct 4 ga purchased locally (e-Bay find). Rated for 119 amps per leg and the generator is rated at 52 amps per leg, so it should not heat up much in operation. Since it actually welder lead fine strand copper (think very flexible), it will probably handle a bit more amperage anyway.