[NSRCA-discussion] Contest Results

Tue Aug 30 06:29:17 AKDT 2011

When I bought my Honda (for RC) my wife thought it great that I bought a gen for hurricane season. Hmmm.

Even a 2kW Honda will power a lot in a home if connected properly. A 12 ga. extension cord isn't going to get it! NEVER connect a gen to house wiring without a disconnect that prevents feeding power back into the grid! Be sure not to run afoul of local codes. 

To cover that I installed a ProTran power side transfer panel.  http://www.steadypower.com/catalog/rc_intro.php     These things connect between the individual home circuit breakers and the loads. They're prewired and are available with different numbers of circuits. Simply, they have a switch for each circuit that allows connection to the normal supply line (breaker), off, or connected to the gen via a breaker equipped circuit in the panel (and disconnected from the grid). There's also a meter to monitor power consumption levels. The next step is connection to the gen, hard wired or extensions cord arrangements are available for the panel. The trick is to use heavy enough wire to handle the load for the distance involved with minimal voltage drop. I opted for an 8 ga. extension cord. In operation you fire up the gen & switch the connected home circuits to the gen at the panel. 

Pretty amazing what that little Honda will handle. Continuous use of fridge, ceiling fans, lights, TV, & computers is no problem. Need to switch off everything but fridge / fans to use microwave / garage door opener. All this for about a gallon of gas every 8-10 hrs. Of course you can forget about anything requiring 220v - central air / electric range / etc. (A 110v window AC unit for the bedroom is a wise investment.)

The only issue I observed is that the gens run fairly rich A/F for best power and this produces a lot of carbon monoxide. The gen must be located so that the exhaust gases don't enter the house (a CO detector is advisable), and the gen will then likely be exposed to rain - not good. Some sort of "dog house" to protect it from rain and yet allow cooling / exhaust egress is necessary.

Of course it's best to have this all in place before needed.

Earl

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stuart Chale 
  To: General pattern discussion 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 8:41 AM
  Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Contest Results

  Yeah really at least you have a generator that can operate a few items maybe even a small fridge, charge your laptop., cellphones etc.  Since my home field has electric all I have is a 12 volt deep cycle battery.

  I hooked that up to a UPS computer power backup and charged my laptop and cellphones with it :)
  Next step if the power remained out was to make an adapter to plug between my 5 cell packs (hope they are charged) and my laptop power input.  The transformer puts out 18 volts so the 5 cell packs should have worked well :)

  On 8/30/2011 8:01 AM, Joe Lachowski wrote: 
    Lucky. As of this morning I still don't have power.

    > Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:50:52 -0400
    > From: schale1 at verizon.net
    > To: nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
    > Subject: [NSRCA-discussion] Contest Results
    > 
    > I have power back on and D4 Ohio Valley contest results are up :)
    > 
    > Stuart
    > _______________________________________________
    > NSRCA-discussion mailing list
    > NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
    > http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion

_______________________________________________
NSRCA-discussion mailing list
NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion

    No virus found in this message.
    Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
    Version: 10.0.1392 / Virus Database: 1520/3866 - Release Date: 08/29/11

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  _______________________________________________
  NSRCA-discussion mailing list
  NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
  http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.nsrca.org/pipermail/nsrca-discussion/attachments/20110830/9ec69563/attachment.html>