GENERATOR, NOW WHAT ?

You could pick up an oil #2 heating oil tank somewhere ... that would give you plenty of fuel ... or rig up a couple 55 gallon drums.

You could remove that switch/button & connect a relay in there, & hook it up in a way that it cuts power when the engine starts. I think that would work & be fairly cheap.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:Now as far as the automatic transfer swicth, I like the idea but, this generator has a pre heater that you have to hold a switch for(as it stated, 1 minute) and then hit the start button. I started it cold at 50 deg. and tried 30 seconds, had to hit it again so it would start. Do they have a switching gear to take care of the preheat cycle before start on a diesel, this unit also has an oil pan heater, guess that would solve this but I don't want to use excessive electric . Also, do the start switches use oil pressure to keep the starter motor going till it is running ?

Sounds a lot like the preheat on my 580 c backhoe. In colder weather it is needed to preheat the air being forced into the cylinder. They therefore do not recommend the use of starting fluids. Wonder why ????

You could just plug in the block heater whenever bad weather arrives or power outages are forecasted.



Rick

Its air cooled tho......no block heater me thinketh....

Poconoeagle wrote:Its air cooled tho......no block heater me thinketh....

It does have a oil pan heater.

yes that keeps the oil thin enough to allow it to crank. keeping the cylinders warm as with liquid coolant and block style imersion heater makes a big difference but your air cooled is .....air cooled.

nothing wrong with it. either or system has little relevence to the speed at which the glow plugs heat up. they are little heating elements,functioning like the element on your electric stove, that get red hot and enable the cold diesel fuel to explode and then shut off. some of the heating elements glow red in 1 second or less (fast glow) and others take 30 seconds or more (slow glow)

You might want to study what's done in modern diesel engines. I know in my new Silverado diesel when commanding a start in cold weather using the remote control there is a delay. Obviously there is some kind of timer circuit which has powered the glow plugs before powering the starter. I would also expect a similar setup on modern diesel farm tractors. A visit to a full service tractor agency could likely point you in the right direction. I'll bet there's a commonly used electronically controlled glow plug controller for tractors.

My water cooled diesel generator has a 1 KW electric coolant heater. It was intended to be continuously powered. I didn't want to do that. While the engine had glow plugs installed, there was no controller. I just made a manual one using parts from my tractor dealer. Works well for me. The automatic transfer switch that came with my generator has all kinds of electronic timers and monitoring circuits. Way beyond my simple needs. I didn't install it. The electronics in the switch are powered from the 12VDC engine battery.

240D and 300D mercedes had slow plugs 240 had mechanical "pull to glow" control. the 300 went to electronic timer relay glow still 30 sec .

the improvment of the glow plug to be able to almost instantly heat and glow red is where the modern engine is . point is if the glow plugs in the engine are the older style, all the fancy quick relays and controlers wont do a thing as the plugs them selves need mega amps and time to heat thus the need to hold the heat switch for 30 sec or more.

if you pull a glow plug out and find its bosch and can determine the thread size,diameter and legnth of heating element then a conversion to quick heat plugs is possible and thus a more "automatic" controler can be adopted to work with a transfer switch device. IMO


most all small single,dual,and triple low hp diesel's are all based on the kabuta block design.
the heads and fuel systems and electronics are the biggest difference between manufactures.

at least if the power goes out you can now fire up and still enjoy quality of life albit it might take 30 seconds to a minute to do so!!!

What manufacture is the engine? Deutz?

How old is the fuel in the tank?