Question about wet stacking

[AlexV]

How many hours is it safe to run an MEP 803a under a light load say 2700 watts? My house has two 3.5 central A/C's. I would't be worried about wet stacking if the power went out in the summer with the two A/C loads, but in the winter if I needed the generator the load would be very light around 2700 watts continuous, and maybe up to 4200 with the microwave and coffee machine running, or the washer and dryer.

 

[NATCAD]

Is your water heater electric or gas, howabout the dryer?, electric stove? What kind of furnace do you have?

 

[AlexV]

City water and natural gas for everything so no electric stove or electric heat.

 

[155mm]

clothes dryer was asked about.

 

[AlexV]

Sorry its also gas.

 

[155mm]

I need a button that says 'does not pay attention to detail'

Your question is how long is safe under a light load. My uneducated answer is a very long time, because you said you could load 50% and that will help. There needs to be about an hour a day of all the load you can throw at it, even if you have to hook up halogen lights and electric heaters to get 80%+

If you do have a time of heavy load, that would be preferred before you shut it down, that way the carbon has no time to harden.

 

[DieselAddict]

The general advice I give in these situations is to run it as you need to then load bank it when you have time. This stuff doesn't happen in a few hours. The more load you do run on it the slower it happens.

Its good to be concerned about it. Its pretty easy to manage if you have access to a load bank.

 

[155mm]

I have an 005a that probably spent its whole life under a 'less than favorable' condition on a water purification unit, 3300hrs.

Here is the thread if you want to read

https://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?164640-3-The-smoker-MEP-005A&highlight=

Even under the worst conditions for a long time, these genny's are very tough and can be brought back.

I am going to guess on your worst case situation, you will probably run less than 150 hours at low load, that will easily be cleaned up with a full load like DieselAddict said.

 

[Guyfang]

Alex,

How long do you anticipate running your gen set? If its house back up, then don't worry about it. If you lose power for a week or two, it's not going to kill you. When you are on city power, hook up a load bank. You can make one easy. Or buy one, (costly) if you look around. I personally wish some of the folks here in SS would go into business. Or while running on backup power, use a load bank. But you are not going to blow it up with a few hundred hours at light loads.

 

[Guyfang]

I need a button that says 'does not pay attention to detail'

Your question is how long is safe under a light load. My uneducated answer is a very long time, because you said you could load 50% and that will help. There needs to be about an hour a day of all the load you can throw at it, even if you have to hook up halogen lights and electric heaters to get 80%+

If you do have a time of heavy load, that would be preferred before you shut it down, that way the carbon has no time to harden.

That was good. I needed that.

 

[155mm]

Maybe we need to brainstorm a cheap/junk yard load tester and open source it here

 

[Bmxenbrett]

I wouldnt worry about wet stacking when your power is out. You wont wet stack enough to lower the units performance. Load test it clean when the power comes back on or you notice some signs of wet stacking. But its not something i would worry about durring a power outage.

Mabe a smaller generator would better suit your needs?

 

[98G]

Or just get some electric space heaters to add load during winter outages.... this serves 2 purposes - it brings the genset up to optimal load, and it'll cut down your gas bill too...

 

[csheath]

Maybe we need to brainstorm a cheap/junk yard load tester and open source it here

Electric stove. Cheap and sometimes free for pickup on craigslist. Or you can build a snazzy one like I did for under $200 using dryer elements.

 

[NATCAD]

Electric stove. Cheap and sometimes free for pickup on craigslist. Or you can build a snazzy one like I did for under $200 using dryer elements.

Your local appliance store may give you an old one from out back that was traded in.... take a cord off another one if you want an extension cord.

 

[Daybreak]

I have an 005a that probably spent its whole life under a 'less than favorable' condition on a water purification unit, 3300hrs.

Here is the thread if you want to read

https://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?164640-3-The-smoker-MEP-005A&highlight=

Even under the worst conditions for a long time, these genny's are very tough and can be brought back.

I am going to guess on your worst case situation, you will probably run less than 150 hours at low load, that will easily be cleaned up with a full load like DieselAddict said.

Howdy,

Not the same animal.

The MEP-802A and MEP-803A being a Lister-Petter (ONAN) 2 cylinder and 4 cylinder design, with sloppy precision, liquid cooled, 1980's design diesel engine.

You only need to worry about it when you see all the black goo start running out of all the exhaust ports.

 

[155mm]

Howdy,

Not the same animal.

The MEP-802A and MEP-803A being a Lister-Petter (ONAN) 2 cylinder and 4 cylinder design, with sloppy precision, liquid cooled, 1980's design diesel engine.

You only need to worry about it when you see all the black goo start running out of all the exhaust ports.

I fully understand these are two completely different sets, but wetstacking is the same problem in any diesel fired motor and the way to repair it is the same.... load it, heat it up and blow out the cob webs.