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Automatic - Or Not

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ChrisOlson:
No matter how automatic you try to make your power system, it seems something always crops up that makes it not so automatic.

I changed oil in our standby gen yesterday.  Before a person can even open the access door to the generator you have to deal with the big red and yellow decal on it that says:
!DANGER!
This Generator Equipped with Auto Start System
Generator May Start Without Warning
disable generator auto start before servicing
My wife just called me a bit ago and told me the bank is down to 23.6 volts and the inverter is flashing a Gen Failed To Start Error.

My system needs another decal that says:
!Hey Idiot!
re-enable generator auto start after servicing--
Chris

oztules:
He he he...... my kind of mistake....



.................oztules

rossw:
When I built my genset (egad, yet another project to post details of) and built the controller for it, I made a couple of design considerations in this regard, Chris.

1. When the inverter (or any other 'start' source) requests the genset to start, the first thing that happens is, it turns on a loud beeper for 2 clear seconds before it does anything else. A kind of "get clear" warning.

2. When it's in bypass mode, it gives a short, sharp "cheep" every 5 mins to remind you it's offline. Sounds a lot like a battery smoke detector with a low battery, only louder.

The beeper is also replicated in the house. We know one long beep means the genset is starting. Five short beeps means it's shutting down. Continuous beeping 1 second on, one second off, means the genset needs attention - either it's failed to start, or shut down unexpectedly, or in danger of shutting down (high temperature, over temperature, low oil pressure etc)

It's not foolproof, but it's close.

ChrisOlson:
Our GSM (Trace/Xantrex) has an audible alarm output that does the same thing:



A person can program the inverter for what you want it to for the audible alarms like sound a buzzer or beeper during pre-crank delay, operate a remote status light when the GSM relays are disabled, etc..

Of course, the main problem is that I figured "who needs all that stuff?" when I installed it    ::)
--
Chris

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