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Noisy power from typical backup generators
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james_s:
I'm guessing they mounted it there to make use of the airflow from the engine cooling fan. Heat soak when shutting the unit off probably is an issue to some degree, although I'm guessing in most cases it will not exceed 100C.

I do love inverter generators, mine is only 2kW but has proven adequate since outages are fairly rare here and most of my appliances are gas. If I have it in eco mode the UPS's will kick in for a moment most of the time when the refrigerator starts but that's a small price to pay. I'm tempted to install a ESP8266 relay in there so I can remotely switch it out of eco mode when I know I'm going to fire up a larger load but it hasn't been a priority since I have UPS's on the important stuff.
IDEngineer:

--- Quote from: james_s on April 19, 2021, 11:18:05 pm ---I'm guessing they mounted it there to make use of the airflow from the engine cooling fan. Heat soak when shutting the unit off probably is an issue to some degree, although I'm guessing in most cases it will not exceed 100C.
--- End quote ---
Yep, I thought of that but haven't checked the airflow direction yet. Seems like they could have easily mounted it as a "wall" on one side of this "open frame" unit but I wasn't on the design team, so who knows.


--- Quote ---I do love inverter generators, mine is only 2kW but has proven adequate since outages are fairly rare here and most of my appliances are gas.
--- End quote ---
Ours too - everything that CAN be NatGas is. My motto is "if you want heat, burn something". Electricity is a terrible way to generate heat unless it needs to be very carefully controlled, like in aluminum smelting or soldering or welding. We have NatGas water heater, oven, cooktop, clothes dryer, whole-house furnace, the works.


--- Quote ---If I have it in eco mode the UPS's will kick in for a moment most of the time when the refrigerator starts but that's a small price to pay.
--- End quote ---
As noted earlier, that's why I transitioned to the large inverter. We too have a 2KW "suitcase" inverter but it's not sufficient to power the entire house in a worst case situation (both refrigerators running at the same time, a few lights on, maybe someone uses the microwave, etc.). Since I was buying a new unit anyway I wanted to go as big as possible because our previous 6KW unit would labor once in a while, though that may have just been due to transient startup loading. This is the largest inverter unit I have found, and "I've never wished for a smaller whole house generator" so the more margin the better - and ECO mode means the engine isn't running WOT all the time so it's likely more efficient than a smaller traditional generator anyway.

I've found a small oil leak in the valve cover, but haven't investigated in detail yet. It's maybe two drips per hour hitting the concrete, so it's not going to risk low oil level before I change it regularly anyway.
james_s:

--- Quote from: IDEngineer on April 19, 2021, 11:43:10 pm ---
--- Quote from: james_s on April 19, 2021, 11:18:05 pm ---I'm guessing they mounted it there to make use of the airflow from the engine cooling fan. Heat soak when shutting the unit off probably is an issue to some degree, although I'm guessing in most cases it will not exceed 100C.
--- End quote ---
Yep, I thought of that but haven't checked the airflow direction yet. Seems like they could have easily mounted it as a "wall" on one side of this "open frame" unit but I wasn't on the design team, so who knows.


--- Quote ---I do love inverter generators, mine is only 2kW but has proven adequate since outages are fairly rare here and most of my appliances are gas.
--- End quote ---
Ours too - everything that CAN be NatGas is. My motto is "if you want heat, burn something". Electricity is a terrible way to generate heat unless it needs to be very carefully controlled, like in aluminum smelting or soldering or welding. We have NatGas water heater, oven, cooktop, clothes dryer, whole-house furnace, the works.


--- Quote ---If I have it in eco mode the UPS's will kick in for a moment most of the time when the refrigerator starts but that's a small price to pay.
--- End quote ---
As noted earlier, that's why I transitioned to the large inverter. We too have a 2KW "suitcase" inverter but it's not sufficient to power the entire house in a worst case situation (both refrigerators running at the same time, a few lights on, maybe someone uses the microwave, etc.). Since I was buying a new unit anyway I wanted to go as big as possible because our previous 6KW unit would labor once in a while, though that may have just been due to transient startup loading. This is the largest inverter unit I have found, and "I've never wished for a smaller whole house generator" so the more margin the better - and ECO mode means the engine isn't running WOT all the time so it's likely more efficient than a smaller traditional generator anyway.

I've found a small oil leak in the valve cover, but haven't investigated in detail yet. It's maybe two drips per hour hitting the concrete, so it's not going to risk low oil level before I change it regularly anyway.

--- End quote ---


Who knows, I've seen all kinds of questionable design decisions, I try to assume the engineers knew what they were doing but sometimes it's impossible to say. I would try checking the temperature just to satisfy my curiosity. If heat soak turns out to be a problem then maybe a small battery powered fan could be an option.

One reason I went with the 2000W instead of the 3000W (aside from cost) is that the fuel consumption at the same low load is significantly less on the smaller unit, BUT you're right, it will still be lower than the smallest reasonably sized conventional generator. At constant high load a conventional generator is going to beat out an inverter generator, but in real world domestic use a generator will typically spend 90+% of the time running at less than 25% load and in this case inverter will win every time over the long run.

Is there a local dealer? If it's brand new and you can get it fixed locally I would be inclined to take it in to have it serviced. An oil leak from the valve cover is usually a pretty trivial problem to deal with but it's one you shouldn't have to deal with. In the old days they'd send somebody out to fix it for you but that probably isn't gonna happen.
Renate:
There's no reason a refrigerator or an air conditioner has to start with a big "THRUMMMMM".
The Japanese killed it with their mini-split air conditioners.
For RVs there are mods that fiddle with the currents to the air conditioner windings to make them start easier and make a ginormous generator less necessary.
I think most people with non-inverter generators would be surprised what low percentage of power they are using.

And for that fridge, just use a nice Dometic water/ammonia/hydrogen thermal cycle fridge, nice and quiet.

Does anybody make a VFD fridge???
NiHaoMike:

--- Quote from: Renate on April 20, 2021, 12:23:04 am ---Does anybody make a VFD fridge???

--- End quote ---
Quite a few do, very common in the higher end ones for their superior temperature regulation.
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