Hi,

Today I tested out my newly installed Koleman Powermate
Industrial 5000 genset and newly installed Transfer Switch (and
found good advice on the groups here too).

Turns out to be a great match for emergency power. I was
impressed to find that my 1 HP submerged well pump pulls exatctly
750W according to the watt-meters g.

At any rate, based on my P3 Kill-a-watt:
-- Frequency is 60.3Hz constant. If it changes with motor
starts, the meter doesn't show it. The grid usually measures
between 59.9 and 60.0 Hz.

-- Output voltage a little high at no-load (just the P3 plugged
in); 129V each leg.
-- Under normal loads, about 1000 watts, the voltage is 128 V
+/- a tenth. A little high, but fine for emergency power.
-- Sort of maxing it, power off, water pressure dropped to run
pump, both furnaces turned up, and living room/kitches lites on,
computer room lites on and computer running, started everything
as I turned it all on as near simultaneous as my fingers would
allow.
Using a memory meter, the voltage dropped to 111.1 for about
half a second, then recovered and hung at 120.1 when the furnaces
and pump were all going at once.
-- The only "surprises" were the amount and length of starting
current times when the furnace fans kicked on - the draw lasted
over a second, maybe 1 1/2; didn't measure accurately.

In the end:
-- Guess it's pretty much OK for emergency power. Voltage's a
little high but is within grid specs, so I might toss an
indandescent or two during an outage.
-- Other than during starting currents, the genset never lugged
down audibly and did a very good job of holding its own.
-- Probably -could- run the whole house, for the ckts that are
powered anyway, all at once but then if the fans, pump, fridge,
feezer managed to kick on all at once I'd likely be out
resetting a breaker or two.
-- I thought about adjusting the voltage downard a few volts,
but, well, it's not out of spec, so ... motors will like it at
least, so don't think I will.
-- Well pump is the biggest hog: Went down and listened to it
start a couple of time on genset and grid power; couldn't tell
any difference, but then it's also a sumbergible so the sounds
are pretty soft anyway, but you can hear the pump work if it's
quiet.

I think I'm pretty happy with it. Anyone see any problems in the
numbers & comments I made?

Thanks again for the great posts - you know who you are and I
appreciate it.

Pop

if you wanted to....

how can you adjust the volatge without also lowering the frequency?

if you slow the engine to lower the voltage it will also lower the
frequency,,, is there a seperate adj,, if so how does that work?

Mark

It sounds normal and calibrated, does it have AVR

3600 rpm is 120v 60 hz, all are set a bit high and reach 120v 60hz
under load, adjust it for your use if need be.

Hz is speed-rpm dependant. Your Kill a watt doesnt like big gen surges
mine blanked out on a startup, I thought it fried but it came back.

If it doesnt have an hour meter a 35$ type that has a wire you wrap
around the sparkplug wire is good, They display rpm and hours. 3600
keeps you at 120v 60 hz.

Pop wrote:
Hi,

Today I tested out my newly installed Koleman Powermate
Industrial 5000 genset and newly installed Transfer Switch (and
found good advice on the groups here too).

I got one too. Well satisfied so far, but the sucker is LOUD!

Know of a better muffler?

PS
The one I have has a B&S engine since it was special-built for Home Depot.

I don't know of a better muffler but you will be disappointed in how little
difference even totally eliminating the exhaust noise will make. Air cooled
engines generally radiate an awful lot of noise directly from the engine.
Just adapt another muffler after the one you have or pipe the exhaust some
distance away to check whether it will be worthwhile.
Don Young
"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
Pop wrote:
Hi,

Today I tested out my newly installed Koleman Powermate
Industrial 5000 genset and newly installed Transfer Switch (and
found good advice on the groups here too).

I got one too. Well satisfied so far, but the sucker is LOUD!

Know of a better muffler?

PS
The one I have has a B&S engine since it was special-built for Home Depot.

"Mark" wrote in message
oups.com...
: if you wanted to....
:
: how can you adjust the volatge without also lowering the
frequency?
:
: if you slow the engine to lower the voltage it will also lower
the
: frequency,,, is there a seperate adj,, if so how does that
work?
:
: Mark
:
I don't know specifically how yet, but the voltage isn't freq/rpm
dependent. To a degree, of course! Frequency of course is rpm
dependent. There's some sort of voltage regulator on it that the
manual doesn't explain and only says it's factory-set, like the
rpm, and not to touch it (yeah, right!).
I probably won't adjsut anything right now, but I do think
I'll figure out how to tweak the voltage regulator or whatever
they call it; it was called something different in th emanual.

I'll post back when I do figure it out if anyone's interested.
It might be afew days though; I'm moving on to the final touches
now; hide the cable, caulk the hole, put insulation back, clean
up my mess, etc.; all the stuff my wife says I never do!

Pop

"m Ransley" wrote in message
...
: It sounds normal and calibrated, does it have AVR
=== Yes, thanks; I could NOT remember the letters AVR!
:
: 3600 rpm is 120v 60 hz, all are set a bit high and reach 120v
60hz
: under load, adjust it for your use if need be.
=== makes sense: Right now I don't have any way of measuring
the rpm but I figure reading the freq off the kill-a-watt should
suffice. If/when I adjust it, I'll just match it to the grid
number plus a tad, and I've recorded where it's at now for
posterity.
:
: Hz is speed-rpm dependant. Your Kill a watt doesnt like big gen
surges
: mine blanked out on a startup, I thought it fried but it came
back.
=== Here's something I noticed on mine: Be sure to have
something connected to it when you're using it. Without anything
plugged in, the display jumped around a bit too much, but with a
60W trouble light, they settled down and were much more easily
read.
I only tested with everything else shut off, but the pump and
fans alone didn't cause any readings problems with freq.
I'm not positive, but there might be some sort of damping in
the P3 - I recall the P3 didn't seem to instantly follow the
watt-meters during the pull downs. Not much of a delay, but
there was something noticeable to the eye.
:
: If it doesnt have an hour meter a 35$ type that has a wire you
wrap
: around the sparkplug wire is good, They display rpm and hours.
3600
: keeps you at 120v 60 hz.
:
Thanks! I have two old hour-meters out in the garage I'd
forgotten all about! They only have about 300 hrs on them;
practically new! And they're 120Vac at that; I can plug one
right into the genset outlet! They're even on rubber mounts! I
figure the freq I can see with the P3 so no need to measure at
the plug.

I kind of dread the day I have to play tune-up on the engine
though: I have NEVER been able to get ANY engine to go from idle
to speed as quickly and cleanly as this thing does!
I was also surprised, by the way, that the P3 alone was enough
to bring the genset online to full speed - genset must trigger on
a pretty low current. Hmmm, I'll bet the hourmeter will do that,
too; sort of defeats the -power-need sensing mechanism-, doesn't
it? $35 eh? Guess I'll go look around; I could also use that
anyway for the lawn tractors and such.

Thanks,

Pop

"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
: Pop wrote:
: Hi,
:
: Today I tested out my newly installed Koleman Powermate
: Industrial 5000 genset and newly installed Transfer Switch
(and
: found good advice on the groups here too).
:
: I got one too. Well satisfied so far, but the sucker is LOUD!
:
: Know of a better muffler?
:
: PS
: The one I have has a B&S engine since it was special-built for
Home Depot.
:
:
Hmm, I suppose everything's relative, but I don't think this one
is that loud. I can clearly hear the engine internals over the
exhaust, and it never bothered during the ice storm of '98 for a
full 5 days, but remember, we only use this for emergency power
so we might have a different opinion if you're off-grid.
From inside the house it's not loud at all. We do hear sort
of a muffled sound, but nothing irritating.

This one has a square muffler, probably 8 to 10 inches square,
about three inches deep, much larger than usual for that size
engine. I still see them on the Coleman newer gensets in the
store.
If that doesn't describe yours, let me know and I'll see if I
can find a part number for it; I'm pretty sure it's in the
manual. If it's not there I'll at least put a pic up and look on
the muffler for a readable number; it's still in pretty clean
condition. Let me know.

Regards,

Pop

According to Mark :
if you wanted to....

how can you adjust the volatge without also lowering the frequency?

I don't know cheap generator control systems that well, but the notion
of regulating voltage without changing RPMs is fairly simple: adjust
the the field coil voltage/current.

The basic idea behind a basic generator is to use a speed
regulator to keep the RPMs nailed to 3600, and fiddle with
field coil current to keep the voltage right.

When the load goes up, the motor tries to slow down _and_ voltage
drop, so the RPM governor kicks in to keep it at 3600 rpm, _and_ the
field coil regulator adjusts field coils to keep the voltage right.

The former regulator is often just an ordinary mechanical governor
you see on lawnmowers/lawn tractors etc.

Given the mechanical systems etc., regulation tends to be poor
at extremely low loads. So, when testing voltages off a generator,
you should be driving at least 5-10% of the load rating in order
to get a reliable number.

Now, once "engineering for minimum manufacturing cost" kicks in,
they _may_ be able to do away with the field regulation if the
generator is consistent enough.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

ok,

I know about the mechnical speed gov,,,

but I have not had the opportunity to see a field current regulator on
a small generator...
I thought most of them have some kind of integral field winding that
works without slip rings so I don't see how it can easily be
regulated...

Mark

....
The former regulator is often just an ordinary mechanical
governor
you see on lawnmowers/lawn tractors etc.
....
: Given the mechanical systems etc., regulation tends to be poor
: at extremely low loads. So, when testing voltages off a
generator,
: you should be driving at least 5-10% of the load rating in
order
: to get a reliable number.

=== Ewwww, you're kidding; really? Hey, I've got enough to do
without going around figuring out how stuff works right now! ;-}
..

Seriously, everything you said makes sense and is as I'd have
imagined it. But, you've got me real curious now about the speed
regulation.
When you say "just an ordinary mechanical ... " do you mean
the old centrifugal type?
I'm too sick to go look at it today, but I don't recall
seeing anything resembling that. There is however a fairly
complex (to me at least) mechanical linkage system I've always
been curious about, and I make sure I keep it meticulously
cleaned and free of any buildup so nothing will get sticky.

As for small load, this Coleman seems to stay on target fine but
the voltage of course is highest at that point and of course it
drops with added loads, and you're also right, it's 120V even at
a moderate load and there seems to be a "flat spot" in the
response curve where it held 120V pretty well before and after
the moderate load. I call a "moderate" load 50% to 60% or so.

Aside: Just for grins, I went in a few minutes ago and checked
my UPS log. Even with all my testing, I'm still outstripping the
grid supplier (NIMO) by a w i d e margin! In the last two months
there have been switches to battery for overvoltage 7 times,
undervoltage 6 times, and outages 8 times.
The day I did the testing there were of course outages, and I
was surprised to see overvoltages, but then it turns out I had
the upper voltage trigger limit set to 125V, so that accounted
for those, probably also the ones on the grid; I don't get
mearurements, just alarm triggers. No undervoltages either, so I
couned that a plus, although very brief problems aren't counted.
I've no idea how many cycles they consider "brief" but it's
shorter than the computer PS hold-over time, so the system never
notices them. I -think- I recall that this PSU can miss up to 5
cycles without problems; but don't quote me. So, the UPS must
react in, what, something less than 5/16 Second dropout? Head's
too cloudy to do the math at the moment; that's probably wrong.

Anyway, thanks,

Pop

....

According to Pop :
Seriously, everything you said makes sense and is as I'd have
imagined it. But, you've got me real curious now about the speed
regulation.
When you say "just an ordinary mechanical ... " do you mean
the old centrifugal type?

The old centrifugal things are obsolete. You don't see the spinning
ball things anymore. Four stroke engines tend to have something
inside the crankcase that twists a shaft that goes thru the
crankcase wall, and waves a lever back and forth. The lever
is coupled with springs and pushrods to the throttle.

There are diagrams on Tecumseh governors on the web if you
google for them. I know, because I had to diddle the governor
on my wood chipper (overspeed). Kohlers are like that too
(fortunately didn't have to diddle the governor on that when
I pulled the engine from the tractor to replace a head gasket...).

Two stroke (ie: lawnboy lawnmowers) tend to have external
governors. On my lawnboy, it's a spring-loaded windvane
linked to the throttle adjacent to the cooling vanes on
the flywheel. Motor speeds up, blows more air, windvane
moves out and throttles the carburator back. Motor slows
down, windvane moves in and throttles the carburator up.

All engines that are supposed to run at fixed speeds have
governors to keep them at the fixed speed over varying load.
Engines where you are continually adjusting
speed with a trigger (ie: weed wackers, chain saws)
don't need governors - because your trigger finger
acts as the governor when needed.

It's just with generators the speed regulation requirement is
tighter.

I'm sure that some modern gensets have more sophisticated
(perhaps even electronic) speed controls.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

Pop wrote:

I got one too. Well satisfied so far, but the sucker is LOUD!

Know of a better muffler?


Hmm, I suppose everything's relative, but I don't think this one
is that loud. I can clearly hear the engine internals over the
exhaust, and it never bothered during the ice storm of '98 for a
full 5 days, but remember, we only use this for emergency power
so we might have a different opinion if you're off-grid.
From inside the house it's not loud at all. We do hear sort
of a muffled sound, but nothing irritating.

This one has a square muffler, probably 8 to 10 inches square,
about three inches deep, much larger than usual for that size
engine. I still see them on the Coleman newer gensets in the
store.

That describes mine, too. I think it's that size/shape to conform with
California law on spark-arresting. Like many other California laws, I
suspect significant functionality was sacrificed to combat a non-existing
problem (I mean, what's the downside of California forest fires?).

I was hoping the device would be no louder than, say, an idling automobile.
As it is, it sounds like five very angry lawnmowers. On the plus side, I
have the satisfaction of knowing I'm not responsible for fires 1000 miles to
the west.

You can put on a quiter tractor muffler but you cut power and load the
motor hard if you use near rated power. Only do it is your load is
conservative 25-50% rated continous load