Hurricane Beryl with Mep 802 and Light tower back up.

[2Pbfeet]

There's always some new paint...

Congratulations on the new to you generator.

All the best,

2Pbfeet

 

[HamAndEggs]

Notes from running on the Light Tower Marathon 6Kw pancake plugged into the 240v/30a twist lock:
7/8 at 5:30am started powering the whole house, 5198 hours. 4 ton AC unit started and ran fine. Added the neighbor's two refrigerators. The florescent and LED lights would flicker. The microwave just did not heat items as fast. Kept all electronics off.
With the AC running and all the little draws would pull 19-20 amps per leg. The little Kubota would barely change tone with the change in load, every impressed.
7/9 9am shut the Light Tower down to switch to the MEP802. Run time at this point was 31 hours. The crude fuel usage came to ~12 gallons or ~.4 gallons/hour. Really love the 30-gal onboard tank!!!
7/10 Ran heavy power cord from the light tower to the neighbor's panel. Would not start their small AC unit and would trip the 20 amp breaker on the LT. They do not have any Hard Start/Easy Start installed. Ran all their lights, fans, and refrigerators. Easy pulled 10 amp per leg.
7/11 Power was restored, 5265 hours, total run time 67 hours. THANKS TO ALL THE LINEMEN THAT CAME TO OUR NEED AFTER THE STORM HAD PASSED!!!!!!

Post storm review: Pros
The Kubota D1005/Marathon Pancake 6kw generator did not faulter at all even at 19-21 amps per leg.
Very impressed with the fuel usage at ~.4 gallons/hour. MEP802 ~.72 gallons/hour.
Cons: need to "Clean" the power output to maintain 60 Hz and 240 vac. Has anyone in the Forum installed an AVR, line filter, or other devices to "CLEAN" the output?????

Did some testing today, I figured I would add on to this, just for anyone finding this thread from Google

With the light tower completely unloaded, plugging in an Ecoflow Delta 2 resulted in it not charging, it would try and bring the charging circuit online but then it would quit, and try over and over again. However, plugging in a resistive load to the generator, in my case a heat gun, solved that problem. Unsure the science behind that, but its not the first I've read about a non inverter generator needing that treatment

I have a line interactive UPS in my garage. Plugging in the light tower with the heat gun on or off resulted in the UPS switching to battery and back to generator power over and over again. Lowering the sensitive from "Normal" to "Reduced" solved the issue entirely and the UPS was happy with the generator power, all devices plugged into the UPS also didn't mind the generator power

I plugged in a super cheap LED bulb, and you could see a slight flicker, just variations in the light levels

I will do more tests and report back! Its good news the UPS likes the power. If my fridge, freezer and mini splits like the power, then I call it a big win

 

[Toolslinger]

First time I ran at my house with a gennie, I wound up having to throw a 500w halogen light on to get enough base load to let the gennie settle down. Everything else is either a computer, or LED, and they were all very unhappy with power quality until then. All the UPS had to be switched to a very tollerant setting.
'Course that was your typical open frame gas unit with most of the house shut down... The MEP didn't care, and everything was happy with it's quality once I got that functional.

 

[HamAndEggs]

It will be interesting if I have enough base load in my house that I don't need the resistive heater, I will probably try a few more items on their own first before plugging into the house and giving it a go

Going to pre-emptivly replace the capacitor since its old, hopefully I got the right one!

GENTEQ 97F9632 - 25UF, 440V, 6%

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DDF2J5I

 

[2Pbfeet]

It will be interesting if I have enough base load in my house that I don't need the resistive heater, I will probably try a few more items on their own first before plugging into the house and giving it a go

Going to pre-emptivly replace the capacitor since its old, hopefully I got the right one!

GENTEQ 97F9632 - 25UF, 440V, 6%

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DDF2J5I

I think that it rarely hurts to replace an old capacitor like that, especially in a unit of unknown history, and always good to keep a spare on hand. If it were me, I would test load it after changing to make sure everything works. Capacitors aren't the most reliable parts in the box in my experience.

FWIW: If there is not enough load on a capacitor regulated generator, the rotor often doesn't set up enough of a field and the voltage level can sink by a lot as the next bit of load comes on line, causing modern electronics to either drop out completely (like UPS units) or perform poorly for a bit until the voltage comes back up.

All the best,

2Pbfeet

 

[HamAndEggs]

FWIW: If there is not enough load on a capacitor regulated generator, the rotor often doesn't set up enough of a field and the voltage level can sink by a lot as the next bit of load comes on line, causing modern electronics to either drop out completely (like UPS units) or perform poorly for a bit until the voltage comes back up.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I can see how a bad cap would be doubly as bad for these gensets in that case

It will be interesting to test the house, I have a double conversion UPS that powers all my network, computers, TV, etc. The load rarely dips below 900w, so that's a good constant load

If that load would serve in place of the heat gun, then I pretty much never have to worry!

 

[2Pbfeet]

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I can see how a bad cap would be doubly as bad for these gensets in that case

It will be interesting to test the house, I have a double conversion UPS that powers all my network, computers, TV, etc. The load rarely dips below 900w, so that's a good constant load

If that load would serve in place of the heat gun, then I pretty much never have to worry!

I find that an issue / challenge with UPS units is that when they have tight limits on acceptable input voltage/frequency, the droop upon loading can cause the UPS to decide the voltage / frequency is out of range, and drop off line, as @Toolslinger posted above. Then you have a rinse and repeat cycle going. Some, but by no means all, UPS units can be programmed/adjusted to accommodate a wider variation in input voltage and frequency. A few of the brand name units (e.g. Eaton) require the use of their program, or app, to set the allowed values to something non-standard. The flip side and good news is that they can be adjusted to have different values.

Side note: depending on the local grid quality, the voltage / frequency issue is not limited to generators as I have seen the issue occur with poorly performing grids (both over and undervoltage sceanrios), and occasionally on backup systems with solar where the solar panel inverters are turned down/off when the battery and solar controller turns up the frequency. (It is a standard for control.)

All the best,

2Pbfeet

 

[HamAndEggs]

The UPS in my house is double conversion, so it has a vvveerrrryyyy wide acceptable input voltage. As long as it looks like 120vac to some degree, it will accept it, since it gets converted to DC and back to AC again no matter what

All my UPS's have network cards so I can easily adjust all of the settings, no consumer UPS's over here

Model inside is SRT3000RMXLA

 

[HamAndEggs]

Back to power tests, some very good results. Those on here who told me not to worry, were correct. Those who have issues with power out of their light tower either doesn't have enough load on it, or they have some kind of problem they should address. Voltage only really seems to be an issue at very, very low loads.

Plugging in the double conversion UPS in the house (APC SRT3000RMXLA ) of course worked fine given its double conversion, but it did complain "Bypass not in range ; distorted waveform." which I do not care about, I will turn off that alert email. I bought a double conversion so I don't have to use grid power, so why would I want to bypass? Duh.

With only the UPS plugged in, the voltage was low, around 105v

That 800-900w load was enough to convince the other loads to work properly however. Plugged in the Ecoflow Delta 2 and it started charging at 1200w no problem right away. So for my needs, there is no issue there as my UPS will ALWAYS be on if on generator

With the Ecoflow now plugged in, we got to normal 120v~

I tested some more lights with this stuff plugged in. Half way through the tests the Ecoflow charged fully, however no difference in lighting output. Here are the results

GTC LED L8ECOA19927 - FAIL - Flickers - Very, very cheap, very very old LED Light bulb from Grocery store HEB

Feit Electric LED CEOM100/SCCT/4 "100w" LED Bulb - PASS - Sold at Costco, zero flicker, correct brightness

HALO Canless LED HLB6099FS1EMWR, SLDSL6069S1EMWR, HLA406FL9FS1EMWR - PASS - Sold at Home Depot, zero flicker, correct brightness

CDL CDLPS190R13 LED Can Light - PASS - Sold at Home Depot under "Commercial Electric Brand" , zero flicker, correct brightness

Videos

Now, the Ecoflow works good

 

[HamAndEggs]

Light tests

The CDL light test was in the second video with the UPS, after looking at the Ecoflow