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Generac iX2000

D

Dan Lanciani

Jan 1, 1970
0
I picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
lights. With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the lights
flicker slightly but annoyingly. For a normal generator I'd let it slide,
but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean" power. Is
slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad one?

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
 
L

LSMFT

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dan said:
I picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
lights. With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the lights
flicker slightly but annoyingly. For a normal generator I'd let it slide,
but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean" power. Is
slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad one?

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

Inverters put out a crappy sign wave. Looks like a stepped pyramid.
 
C

Chief Two Eagles

Jan 1, 1970
0
picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
lights. With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the lights
flicker slightly but annoyingly. For a normal generator I'd let it
slide, but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean"
power. Is slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad
one?

Should not flicker. But most generators specify not to return it to the
point of sale if there are problems. Call the number in your owner's
pamphlet before you do anything.
 
S

steamer

Jan 1, 1970
0
--Next time you buy a genny (and there will be a next time!)
research the brand, re: service and spare parts. I bought a used RV with an
ailing Generac and I found it was *impossible* to get a response from
Generac. Best I've been able to determine: the company's been absorbed into
another company and new co doesn't give a shit. Also there's no place in
*my* neck of the woods that will service it. Get a better brand next time;
what's that quote... '..the bitterness of poor quality remains long after
the sweetness of low price is forgotten'. Heh.
 
T

Tony

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dan said:
I picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
lights. With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the lights
flicker slightly but annoyingly. For a normal generator I'd let it slide,
but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean" power. Is
slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad one?

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

If it doesn't put out a real sine wave instead of a stepped one you
could probably do better with a cheaper brushless AC generator.
 
T

Tony

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
that shouldnt affect an -incandescent- .
at 60hz,the filament will average out the waveform.

Ah, I read that wrong. I guess I was just assuming fluorescent.
 
D

Dan Lanciani

Jan 1, 1970
0
| On Jun 20, 3:51=A0am, ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote:
| > I picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
| > lights. =A0With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the light=
| s
| > flicker slightly but annoyingly. =A0For a normal generator I'd let it sli=
| de,
| > but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean" power. =A0I=
| s
| > slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad one?
| >
| > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Dan Lanci=
| ani
| > =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 ddl@danla=
| n.*com
|
| Did you check the voltage it puts out loaded, is that unit like the
| Honda inverter that varies rpm to keep voltage constant. On constant
| speed units to get 120v 60hz you need 3600 rpm .

It is basically a clone of the Honda, but the equavalent of econo-throttle
was off. The voltage was something reasonable, 118V I think. I actually
have a smaller Honda (1000VA) but I never used it for lights. I suppose I
could take it to the site for comparison. I was tempted to order the larger
Honda, but the Generac was available and in stock on a direct line from
where I live to where I needed it. :)

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
 
T

The Daring Dufas

Jan 1, 1970
0
I use a light bulb to load UPCs that I'm testing, and noticed that the
bulb brightness is very sensitive to the voltage and width of the
square output pulse. The bulb responds to changes that are barely
visible on the scope.

jsw

"UPC's" Universal Product Codes?

TDD
 
D

David Nebenzahl

Jan 1, 1970
0
If it doesn't put out a real sine wave instead of a stepped one you
could probably do better with a cheaper brushless AC generator.

By "stepped" you mean a square wave, no?

But even if the inverter outputs a square wave, that still shouldn't
cause flickering with incandescent lights. I'm going to guess that
you're going to need a signal with a frequency down around 10 Hz or less
to see that. Dunno what that could be.

OP: you don't happen to have access to a 'scope or a signal analyzer, do
you? Maybe know someone who owns one? It'd be interesting to connect a
scope and see what the waveform actually looks like.
 
D

Dan Lanciani

Jan 1, 1970
0
| > ...
| > that shouldnt affect an -incandescent- .
| > at 60hz,the filament will average out the waveform.
| > Jim Yanik
|
| I use a light bulb to load UPCs that I'm testing, and noticed that the
| bulb brightness is very sensitive to the voltage and width of the
| square output pulse. The bulb responds to changes that are barely
| visible on the scope.

Indeed. I once got a Best FERRUPS online UPS because everybody told me
the quality was spectacular. The first thing I tried was a 100W light
bulb, and interrupting mains power caused something way beyond a flicker,
almost to the point of a double blink. I was disappointed, but then the
same everybody told me that lights were very sensitive and I shouldn't
worry about it. If this is the same kind of thing I don't want to spend
a lot of time trying to "fix" it. In particular, I don't want to end
up with the maufacturer swapping a "reconditioned" unit (that behaves
the same but is all beat up) for my nice new one because they don't want
to admit that the lights flicker...

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com
 
R

RamRod Sword of Baal

Jan 1, 1970
0
z said:
ddl@danlan.*com (Dan Lanciani) wrote in


return it ASAP. You bought it to run some simple lights and it didn't do
the job -- so the various reasons why it failed don't help your lights.
Get another one and if it fails get a different brand.

just saying what i'd do is all.. best of luck



I find the flicker in incandescent lamps is caused by low frequency in my
case.

I have a 28 Kw Diesel generator and when I load it quite a lot the frequency
(Hz) drops a bit, as the diesel engine governor lets the motor slow down a
bit on heavy current draw.

Now it is not all that much, here in Australia we have 50 cycle power and as
my 4 pole genny has to maintain 1500 RPM to hold that.

I have set up the speed slightly to try and keep it up, so lightly loaded it
runs at around 53 cycles per second, but under heavy load it may drop down
to 48 cycles, and although that is not much, I note there is a slight
flickering in the incandescent lamps when it is heavily loaded.

It does not worry me as the generator is simply an emergency standby unit.

There is no problem with the voltage and it remains quite steady, within a
couple of volts of the requires 415/240 volts.

If you have flicker in your lights while running on your genny, if you can
get hold of a frequency meter, it might pay to check and see if it is
holding at the requires frequency while loaded.

Maybe the inverter is not putting out the correct frequency. If you are in
the USA the frequency (cycles) should be 60 Hz.

Sorry, I have no idea what the effect of 'square sine wave' has on the
incandescent lamps, that is if your generator is supplying' square sine
wave'.

I have been told some electric motors do not like square wave power supply,
especially refrigeration motors.

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

I do have a 2.5 Kw inverter (24/240 volt) and have had no problems running
the fridge and a small window air conditioning unit from it, but it is a
'true sine wave' inverter. My only problem is that I do not have enough
battery power with 4 x T 105 batteries (4 x 6V 225 Ah) , but that is
another story.

I have never checked the output frequency of the inverter, but I do not have
lights on the circuitry.

If I ever get around to installing that small transfer switch which I have
for the inverter, I will find out, I guess.
 
V

vaughn

Jan 1, 1970
0
How to you measure the Amp-Hour capacity of the batteries to know when
to replace them? I know the laboratory methods but not a simple one I could
suggest for
'civilian' use.

I use a plain old automotive load tester (Around $20.00 from HF). Yes, it does
nothing to test the actual amp-hour capacity of the battery. What it is
actually doing is testing the internal resistance of the battery, which seems to
give me a usable reading on the battery's overall condition, especially if you
bothered to write down last year's reading. If gives me far more information
than a simple voltage reading!

Vaughn
 
R

RamRod Sword of Baal

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Wilkins said:
How to you measure the Amp-Hour capacity of the batteries to know when
to replace them?

I know the laboratory methods but not a simple one I could suggest for
'civilian' use.


No idea, sorry, I have this set up as a standby system, and it is hardly
ever used, I put it in before I installed my diesel generator.

The batteries have only been used a few times and I just keep them charged
up and occasionally use the system to run the computers in the house.
 
J

Johnny B Good

Jan 1, 1970
0
The message <[email protected]>
from "RamRod Sword of Baal" <[email protected]> contains these words:


I find the flicker in incandescent lamps is caused by low frequency in my
case.
I have a 28 Kw Diesel generator and when I load it quite a lot the
frequency
(Hz) drops a bit, as the diesel engine governor lets the motor slow down a
bit on heavy current draw.
Now it is not all that much, here in Australia we have 50 cycle power
and as
my 4 pole genny has to maintain 1500 RPM to hold that.
I have set up the speed slightly to try and keep it up, so lightly
loaded it
runs at around 53 cycles per second, but under heavy load it may drop down
to 48 cycles, and although that is not much, I note there is a slight
flickering in the incandescent lamps when it is heavily loaded.

====snip====

That sounds like an issue due to the prime mover. The issue being the
effect on rotational speed by the power stroke of a single cylinder 4
stroke engine when loaded close to its maximum torque limit. An effect
that's quite possibly aggravated by the VR's dynamic behaviour under
such rapid modulations of rotational speed imparted every other half
revolution by a single cylinder 4 stroke prime mover.

It's even possible that the speed controlled govenor arrangement may
have some overshoot in its response curve under heavy loading, an effect
that's more difficult to tame at 1500rpm or slower speeds than at
3000rpm unless a proportionally heavier flywheel is employed.

Any such modulations at half frequency (25 or 30 Hertz) become readily
apparent in the light output of incandescent lamps. The effect is more
obvious with 240v lamps than with 120v lamps due to the longer and
_thinner_ filaments required for the higher voltage supply.

HTH
 
Y

You

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Wilkins said:
How to you measure the Amp-Hour capacity of the batteries to know when
to replace them?

I know the laboratory methods but not a simple one I could suggest for
'civilian' use.

jsw

The "Big Boys" use a Battery Impedance Meter.... But most regular folks
just do a 1 Hour Discharge Test at 20 Amps and see where the batteries
voltage comes in compared to when they were NEW.....
 
R

RamRod Sword of Baal

Jan 1, 1970
0
Johnny B Good said:
The message <[email protected]>
from "RamRod Sword of Baal" <[email protected]> contains these words:







====snip====

That sounds like an issue due to the prime mover. The issue being the
effect on rotational speed by the power stroke of a single cylinder 4
stroke engine when loaded close to its maximum torque limit. An effect
that's quite possibly aggravated by the VR's dynamic behaviour under
such rapid modulations of rotational speed imparted every other half
revolution by a single cylinder 4 stroke prime mover.

It's even possible that the speed controlled govenor arrangement may
have some overshoot in its response curve under heavy loading, an effect
that's more difficult to tame at 1500rpm or slower speeds than at
3000rpm unless a proportionally heavier flywheel is employed.

Any such modulations at half frequency (25 or 30 Hertz) become readily
apparent in the light output of incandescent lamps. The effect is more
obvious with 240v lamps than with 120v lamps due to the longer and
_thinner_ filaments required for the higher voltage supply.


In my case I am sure it is just the governor, as I am running a 28 Kw 4
cylinder Harz Diesel, but as I said I am not concerned about a few cycles
difference and certainly not worried enough to change the governor.
 
R

Robert Green

Jan 1, 1970
0
Dan Lanciani said:
I picked one of these up at Lowes to temporarily power some incandescent
lights. With a couple of hundred watts of load I notice that the lights
flicker slightly but annoyingly. For a normal generator I'd let it slide,
but I thought the point of these inverter designs was "clean" power. Is
slight flickering typical of the iX2000 or did I get a bad one?

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

Dan,

Why does a generator need an inverter at all? Doesn't it put out pure
sinewave A/C to begin with?

I would <groan> call Generac to see what they say (their web site was pretty
silent about the inverter technology) but refuse a rebuilt, who knows what
happened to it, unit and return the item to the store where hopefully you
can either try a new one of the same model (which they will probably gladly
do since it means you weren't trying to scam them by using it as a free
rental) or get your money back and try another brand.

What a pain, though. I suspect that you'd need something like the big
toroidal transformers made by Sola we used to use in the color darkroom to
keep the enlarger lamps at precisely the right color temperature. I still
see those types of transformers (huge - about 18" in diameter and 12" deep)
on This Old House when they are doing high end AV installs. You would think
modern microprocessor technology could compensate for rotation and load
variations enough to "smooth out" the output so it wouldn't cause
flickering. I would be interested to see what happens if you add more
lights.

Have you tried CFL lamps instead of the incandescents or mixed in with them?
It could be that their internal electronics will overcome the flickering.
Hey, stranger things have happend!

Besides, in a few years, the Greenie Police will confiscate your illegal
tunsten filament bulbs and fine you for your inefficiency.
 
J

Johnny B Good

Jan 1, 1970
0
The message <[email protected]>
from "Robert Green said:
Why does a generator need an inverter at all? Doesn't it put out pure
sinewave A/C to begin with?

====snip====

You'd think so, wouldn't you? However, the reality is that a cheap
standby generator puts out a rather distorted waveform on load (it looks
ok without load) but this isn't the issue. The real problem with a
conventional alternator is its suceptability to overvolting with even a
modest capactive loading which becomes a problem with certain models of
UPSes that switch a large amount of capacitance across the line when
they return to pass through mode.

About two years back, I bought a cheap 2.5KVA petrol(gasoline)
generator from my local Aldi store to supplement the 2KVA APC
SmartUPS2000 that I use to provide a protected supply to my computer
kit. After much testing, it turned out that it was basically useless for
this purpose since even a modest 4.7 microfarad capacitor was sufficient
to make the generator output jump from its regulated 230v to some 275
volts.

The UPS was switching twice that amount of capacitance across the line
every time it saw the generator voltage return to normal and tried to
revert back to "mains" power which caused it to immediately switch back
to battery as the generator voltage shot back up to some 270 volts, a
process that would go on ad infinitum until I reconnected back to the
PSU power.

An inverter type of generator drives a high voltage version of a car
alternator with a permanent magnet rotor which feeds a 3 phase fullwave
bridge rectifier and capacitor smoothing pack and uses throttle control
to maintain its DC output voltage feed to the Sinewave inverter which is
immune to this capacitive loading issue.

It wasn't the 5Khz noise ripple from the cogging effect of the stator
windings, nor the gross amount of harmonic distortion, nor even the
subharmonic content due to the speed modulation effect of using a single
cylinder 4 stroke prime mover nor even the +/-5% speed/frequency
varations between no load and full load on the generator supply as I
initially had suspected, it was simply the total lack of voltage control
in the face of capacitive loading variations.

It took nearly a year before coming to this startling conclusion and
many hours of rigging up test solutions to combat the problem. One
solution I tried was to rig up a parallel inductor to cancel the
capacitive loading but this didn't entirely solve the problem.

Another solution I'm considering is to use a bunch of universal 150W
laptop chargers to create a 54v 2KW battery charger to allow the UPS
inverter to run indefinitely off its battery pack, float charged from
generator power, (in 4 or 5 banks of three wired in series to make up
the 54 volts from 3 times their 18v output setting fed from an
autotransformer set to supply them at a nominal 190vAC from the genny's
230v so that even if the genny voltage jumps up to 280v, they'll not
suffer any overvolt damage).

This, unfortunately depends upon a local fleamarket trader coming good
on his promise to be able to supply me with 15 or so such laptop
chargers at a low enough price to make it a worthwhile proposition. Even
supposing I managed to get hold of the chargers, this still leaves the
issue of uprating the ventillation on the UPS (not a difficult task ;-)
in order to allow it to run in this mode indefinitely.

TBH, I'm now on the lookout for a secondhand 3KW inverter type
generator to replace the cheap 'n' cheerful pile of crap I've currently
got. I couldn't really justify the price of a brand new unit, but it
would neatly solve all the issues at a stroke. If I'd known, when I
bought the generator, what I know today, I would have only considered an
inverter type in the first place.
 
V

vaughn

Jan 1, 1970
0
Have you played with a ferroresonant Constant Voltage Transformer amid
this mish-mash? I'm curious if a UPS works with them but don't want to
risk destroying anything.

I am not sure exactly what "mish mash" you have in mind, but do not try to feed
a ferroresonant transformer with anything except a sine waive. Many/most cheap
UPS output square waves when running on the battery. I learned the hard way,
have blown 2 perfectly good UPSs that way.

A good sine wave inverter generator should run a CVT just fine, but why would
you want to? The inverter output should already be voltage regulated.

BTW: Ferroresonant transformers are power vampires. Just put your hand on one
after it has been on a while and estimate how many watts it is dissipating as
waste heat. I have one I have been known to use as a foot warmer!

Vaughn
 
R

RamRod Sword of Baal

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Wilkins said:
Have you played with a ferroresonant Constant Voltage Transformer amid
this mish-mash? I'm curious if a UPS works with them but don't want to
risk destroying anything.

jsw


============================

I have 2 Sola 200s and 1 Sola 210 installed at my home.


From memory the Models 200 are 4 amps each at 240 volts

The Model 210 is 10 amps at 240 volts

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

One Sola 200 protects the bedroom's TV and Hi Fi systems

One Sola 200 protects the kitchen TV and Lounge projection TV and Hi Fi
systems

On Sola 210 protects all the computers, printers and the Commander phone
system.

No problems with with any of the gear connected up to these power
conditioners.

On the computer one we had a brown out once with the 240 volts mains
dropping down to 90 volts and the computer continued to run, although I shut
everything down once I realized what had happened. It should hold the output
at 240 volts when the mains is down to 190 volts or up to 260.

A higher swing of mains voltage is allowable (144 to 336 volts) but the
output voltage will be less controlled

See

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/files/sola.pdf

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

I have a volt meter installed on the power supply from the 210 and it is
reading 238 volts and is dead steady, while the mains voltage is currently
248.4 volts (it is 11.41 AM Wednesday here)

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

I have a HP laptop and not sure about this, but I think that the power
supply for this laptop does not like the power coming out of the 210.

I have cooked up one power supply from the laptop and so I am not connecting
it to the power from the 210 again. It may or may not have been the power
from the 210 that caused the problem, but I have no wish to cook up a second
HP power supply.

I installed these Ferroresonant Power Conditioners several years ago after
we had a series of problems with electronic equipment. I think that the
local supply authority upped the output voltage on the local substation to
250 volts, it may have gone higher in the middle of the night and I think
that was part of the problem.

All the Power Conditioners were purchased second hand.

They are quite noisy beasts and you would not want one in your computer
room, mine are installed in the laundry and they do throw out a fair amount
of hear and I installed a couple of small of exhaust fans to help with
this. From memory that are only about 90% efficient at their best so they do
add to the total power bill.

They are heavy the 200 is 36 Kg and the 210 is 65 Kg

The computer Sola 210 runs 24 hours a day as we leave the computers running
all the time, but the screens and printers are turned off overnight to
conserve power but those supplying the TVs etc as only turned on when
required.

There have been no major problems with anything connected to theses systems
since they were installed.

----------

I do not have installed a UPS as such, but a 24 volt battery set up with a
battery charger and an inverter, but the power for that does not go through
the Sola units.

It is not usually in service, but can be manually switched if required, as I
keep the batteries fully charged.

=============
======
 
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