Re: Emergency power generators

[Seth Mattinen <sethm () rollernet us>]

Joe Greco wrote:
> > On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Mike wrote:
> >
> > > site owners a solution to test and verify generator operation. Does anyone 
> > > have any pointers to possible solutions or vendor white papers I could look 
> > > at? We probably want to verify start, read voltage to verify output, and 
> > > maybe even gauge fuel in the tanks if thats possible.
> > Start with the generator owner's manual.  You'd be amazed at what helpful 
> > maintenance suggestions can be found there.  Sometimes they're even 
> > online... :)
>
> Seriously, "talk to your vendor."  You can frequently get gear with 
> remote reporting, some of it will do dry contact or even talk RS232.
> If you can not, a lot of it can be measured anyways.
>
> If your gear doesn't "support" it, talk to generator service guys who 
> are well-thought-of in your area.  I'd place good odds that they'll be
> happy to outfit you with a computer-readable fuel level indicator, 
> oil pressure, remote test, etc., etc., though they may be smiling their
> way to the bank and thanking you for all the custom work.

Many automatic generators have provisions for a remote annunciator which 
are typically just wired up as voltage out for each warning light/alarm. 
You could easily put a tiny relay on those and make it contact closure. 
It might not give you "the temp is 151" but it could give you "pre-alarm 
high temp" before "high temp shutdown" for cheap.

~Seth