Generator Question

Agreed...the only ones I've ever seen/heard of that needed to be flashed had sat for years...but even then pretty rare.

 

Exercising a generator monthly is honestly not for the armature losing its charge so much as it is keeping the moisture out of the windings, as they don’t have a heater you can turn on.

 

I watched a YouTube vid that showed how to disable the sensor on my generator. Its easy once you know where it is and what it looks like.

 

Plus, it keeps oil on the moving parts and flushes fresh fuel from the tank into the carburetor. As you know, Efree goes bad too. The smaller the amount, the faster it will. Just without the corrosion of corn squeezinz. Lol

 

Edzachery, shameless plug for red stabil, it won’t take care of 85% White Lightening from going bad, but it will stop the carb corrosion…

 

I may have to rethink my 2 stroke and 4 stroke additive strategy after PF’s stabilizer video…

On edit, I have rethunk my 2 and 4 stroke fuel additive strategy which is actually cheaper. Gotta love science!!!

 

For an 8500 watt generator, a 60 watt light bulb is too small of a load for break in, exercise, or to even warm the engine much. Perhaps that lady thought you were running a tiny generator. On my similar size genset I exercise with two 1500 watt space heaters, one on each leg at the same time for 30 minutes. That gets the oil hot enough to burn off condensation, lubes all of the engine innards, keeps the electrical end dry and clean, and assures me that the generator is ready when I need it.

You don't want to find out that your carburetor is plugged up when you need it during an outage. Happens all the time to those that don't exercise. To be honest, I exercise on propane and keep the gas tanks and carbs dry on all 4 gensets currently in operation. Gasoline is not my first choice for a generator.

 

Mine is a dual few as well but I haven't run it on propane yet. I'm just trying to keep the thing in top working condition so it performs when I need it during a power outage. I was thinking I could plug a fan in and maybe also a shop vac and vacuum my car and my wife's. I also have a treadmill I could run a cord to and plugin. I'm assuming that draws more power than a fan.

 

Seems CO2 bypass is doable? Also seems to be a common gen problem.
https://www.youtube.com/results?sea...+switch+on+8500K+Champion+emergency+generator

 

Plug in something that makes heat...portable electric heater, toaster, hair dryer on high, etc...stuff like that can pull 1500W, still not a huge load, but it's not nothing either.

 

Yeah, these things (the big ones) are noisy and I don't like to stand next to it while exercising it which is why I like the basic little 1500 watt heaters. I've also used my pair of 500 watt halogen flood lights on a stand. Those are pretty old school and basically little heaters. I don't even know if you can buy them anymore since LED is much safer.

Your generator makes 240 volts and I believe it is smart to use both legs of the 120. If you just plug in a single 120 volt load to one leg then the other leg never gets used. Maybe no big deal but I would think you want to heat up the whole electrical system on occasion.

I recommend using propane for exercise because it doesn't pollute the oil as much as gasoline and the fumes are more pleasant. Also, you want to at least test that the genset can run on propane. I just use the BBQ size tanks. Used them during the last outage with the genset to charge up the 4500 watt electric water heater along with the rest of the house's base load. So the little tanks work fine.

The question I have is do people change the oil on these things every year whether it needs it or not? It's not much oil and there's no filter but I just don't know.

 

If you exercise it monthly to keep the moisture out of everything and run a quality synthetic oil, no. I used my gender in my camper a lot, so I just changed it every 100 hours. My welder only ran 32 hours in like the last 9 years. I changed it every 3 years. (It did only hold 2 quarts though)

 

Same here. I don't change the oil yearly either. I run quality synthetic oil, exercise them regularly and call it good.

 

"just trying to keep the thing in top working condition so it performs when I need it during a power outage".

Thought I'd share my 2 cents on the only 2 issues I've had using Honda 2000w & 6500w gennys, since 1998s bad ice storm. The 2000w gen was totally destroyed by mice... , they chewed the wiring harness to shreds. Stored it in the cabin's outhouse. Would have been cheaper to replace gen rather than just the wiring harness. We didn't do either. The 6500w is in our garage now, runs perfectly... but, when we built our cabin in 2011, we used it each weekend, and then slid it under the cabin, covered with a tarp. After about 6-7 weekends... went to start it and it wouldn't turn over. Turned out, moisture had built up in the exhaust port and had stuck one of the pistons. The gen mech we took it to, luckily, was able to free it up easily... and away we went. Has run fine for 14 years since. I made a rubber plug for the end of the muffler for the rest of that summer/fall. Mech's idea.
So, some sort of muffler moisture plug for larger gens stored outside and... armed guards, traps and machine guns ... to protect small "tasty" genny's from mice...