Generators

Mashrie said:
Never heard of a gas geyser!
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Mash it's more of a burner than a geyser. Water passes through a series of pipes that are heated by gas burners. The burners only burn when you turn the hot water on, so you get hot water on demand all the time (Provided you have gas - lol) Geysers are one of the biggest electricity consumers in your house.
Lot of people are now converting to Gas ovens and stoves as well.

Sorry going off topic a bit here :whistling:
 
Ahhhh yes now i remember. In some Holiday destinations in South Africa have that. I dont like the fact that you see this flame burning. ANd every time you switch the hot water on the flame kicks in. Am i right DR?
 
Waynan said:
... I am also in the process of building a UPS system with 10+ hours backup potential so that I can shut the genny off at night and then use it to recharge the unit and run the tanks during the day...
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Would you mind sharing the plans and equipment details on this?

Living in Parkview and just had a 3 hour blackout again.
 
The auto start gennys are rather expensive. Ant then you need a control board to switch over the loads. R=This is necessary to prevent you back feeding into the municipal lines. They guys working on the lines will be pretty peed off if they get wacked.

It would be way easier to show someone how to start the genny and phone them if need be.
 
These are normally the larger generators and the swith gear for auto start can cost a fortune as it is a whole board that goes in to protect the genny when the mains switch on again. Awvince are you away from home for days at a time? I am seriously thinking of going the whole hog and fitting a large enough generator that i can run most of my place including tank, geyser and stove with these power failures.
 
Len said:
Would you mind sharing the plans and equipment details on this?

Living in Parkview and just had a 3 hour blackout again.
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As soon as I have sorted it out I will give more details, but for now it is basically an Inverter, trickle charger, and a bank of 12V deep cycle batteries, and then some circuitry to control the switchover. Nothing too fancy, but if I am doing things right it will work well.
 
In theory, you can get an AMF (automatic mains fail) panel for any size generator. But for a 5 kVA genny, you are looking at about 7k for the panel. The AMF will automatically start the generator in the event of a mains failure, and will shut the generator down when normal mains is returned.

Waynans idea of the inverter batteries story is a good one, but unfortunately will not have the protective powers of an off the shelf UPS.
 
Dude what protective powers are you referring to? Inverters have over-current protection, thermal shut down...
 
Wayne, i meant such things as always giving you a constant voltage, with a 2 milli-second reaction time. Frequency regulation etc.

Where are you getting inverters with thermal shut down?
 
They all have thermal shut down at least all the ones I have looked at, frequency is digitally controlled so it is stable 50Hz, the 2ms reaction time is the change over time, I have built a circuit to do this... only generators require frequency regulation as their output is determined by the rate of rotation of the rotor which changes as you load the unit...

The fundamental components of a UPS are :
Inverter
Trickle charger
change over switch

So I am still not seeing the problem...
 
Didn't realise how advanced the over the counter inverters are, apologoes wayne.
 
No problem dude, just bare in mind you do also get the cheap inverters which are crap.
 
Where do you source your inverters? Would like one for my van.
 
Alan said:
These are normally the larger generators and the swith gear for auto start can cost a fortune as it is a whole board that goes in to protect the genny when the mains switch on again. Awvince are you away from home for days at a time? I am seriously thinking of going the whole hog and fitting a large enough generator that i can run most of my place including tank, geyser and stove with these power failures.
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Sorry for the late reply. I don't often go away for long periods, but even when I am at work I would love the security of knowing the generator has started automatically and my fish tank is safe, not too mention my food :lol:.
I think R15000 is not a bad price for having a generator with control board to care of the electricity when I'm not there.

Can you run your entire household with a 5kVA genny???
 
No chance Awvince, you need at least a 15 kVA for a house. Remember that you have geysers, heaters, overns etc in a house.
 
Damn, how much would a switch board for one of those cost. Saw a 14kVA genny for around R14500 in the paper the other day. How do you calculate the amount of watts a genny can handle.
 
Be careful what you buy Awvince. Was the 14 kVA from Adendorff's?

I know that Adendorff's only gives a 3 month warranty on generators, which is rather useless. Get hold of a current clamp and see how many amps your house draws at full tilt (ie. when everything is on).

Then post the draw and we'll let you know.
 
Awvince said:
Damn, how much would a switch board for one of those cost. Saw a 14kVA genny for around R14500 in the paper the other day. How do you calculate the amount of watts a genny can handle.
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A 14KVA is a 14KW wattage is calculated as a product of the voltage and current hence VA... there is actually a little more to these calculations using the complex and real parts of the voltage ;)
 
Dober Man said:
Be careful what you buy Awvince. Was the 14 kVA from Adendorff's?

I know that Adendorff's only gives a 3 month warranty on generators, which is rather useless. Get hold of a current clamp and see how many amps your house draws at full tilt (ie. when everything is on).

Then post the draw and we'll let you know.
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Excuse my ignorance, but where exactly do I put this current clamp to measure the amps.
 
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