My generator came today, a week early!

Actually it's the butane fraction that causes problems. Propane's good down to -40°F. My concern was only that domestic cylinders are usually a blend rather than single gas.

Anyway, just putting your hand over the regulator for 5 minutes should get things moving.

Weren't the famous long bows of England olde made from Yew?

Personally, I'd make sure those wires are completely covered.

You need to balance the load on your generator. I'm guessing you have three outputs available? If so, each output needs the same load. Ideally this means that circuit A, B, C are the same load. 2000 Watts on one channel means 2000W on the other two outputs. Not 2000 Watts on A, 600W on B, 1000W on C. A slight difference is OK, however.

I've never heard of automatic load balancing. Read the manual, ok? Yes, this makes you less than a REAL American Man. So what? This generator is a substantial investment.

Ok I've had time to read the thread properly.

Load balancing: generators, including ones in power stations, typically produce 3 phase power. To get the maximum performance out of a generator, the phases need to be balanced as close as possible, in terms of power consumption, otherwise the energy produced in the windings for the under-used phases manifests itself as heat, which may damage the generator. To mitigate this, power companies do two things (in the UK/Europe at any rate. American power standards are weird*). First, in any street, each house is connected to each phase in sequence - you might be connected to R phase, your neighbour to Y phase, next house to B phase, then back to R for the third house along. On average, people use roughly the same amount of power, so in any given block, the substation should be roughly balanced. The next is load shedding - unwanted power from under-utilised phases is passed through a resistive load (basically an electric heater) to get rid of it outside the generator.

Some better domestic generators can manage a certain amount of automatic load shedding - typically not enough for the full power off a winding, though.

It's useful that you plan to supply 3 houses as then your best bet is to put each on a separate phase. If you need to keep your 220V sockets running, that's also simple. (house 1: R+Y, 2: Y+B, 3: B+R)

50% is maximum load: as noted above, phases need balancing. If you have unbalanced loads, the output must be derated to avoid overheat and/or over-current. Domestic generator manufacturers know they're not selling to engineers, so they de-rate it first, in order to prevent you from letting the magic blue smoke out of your generator the first time you use it. In principle, with a properly balanced load you could get the full 15kW out of it, assuming the breakers are up to it.

Winterisation for propane: check the datasheet, or label on the side of the cylinder - if it's 99% propane you're fine. If it's 90% or less, insulate the regulator and hoses. Do not put the bottles next to the generator - they don't like getting too hot.

Now get back on eBay and look for an Automatic Transfer Switch with generator start contact and you could have the generator fire up automatically on power failure

Thank you Kaitain! Hope this is helpful to Dan. Good to know that SOME generators can shed out of balance loads automagically, with luck Daniel's will have this feature.

This is wonderful news Daniel. Please remember to ask about load balancing. I have had thoughts of obtaining a generator (I have lived in houses. Some of them had gardens in the basement or spare bedroom) yet the balancing load requirement always put me off. And I never had a power outage that I can remember out in the 'burbs.

Glad that a professional is coming to visit!

Good on you, Dan! You actually cracked open the manual. Yay!!


"Add up all the running voltage of each trailer"? I find this to be confusing. All voltages will be the same, I think. 117 V. Or 220 V.
The Wattage is what must be added up, I think. AFAIK. Let's ask danrok for a mathematic formula that must be used. If not danrok, that sparking engineer Sir Kaitain that we are so fortunate to have as a Member will probably help. I hope!

Of course, Amperage may be the crucial number here. But I don't know. I used to fix little electronic things and install miles and miles of wiring for bigger electric things. I dunno how to design them. Or I've always been terrible with mathematics if I must be honest.

AC power is weird and annoying. To get it absolutely correct, you not only have to know the power consumed by equipment, but also how the equipment consumes its power. This is why I never studied electrical engineering, but went from chemical to control systems...

In terms of the above, there's not a lot of point in being exact - just have a startup checklist instead of sheets of numbers.

Any forwarder with your generator, Dan? Sure hope so. I'm guessing you may have thought that a generator would solve all of your going without power from your utility company without further hassles?

Looks like things become much more difficult when you become your own power company. Drat!

Could you let us know how your adventures in generator land are going, please?