OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

On Jan 8, 5:43*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... *yeah, I know, I know, chill, it was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. *Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
* *With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. * And then, how would that power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. *If there is no perceptible bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Seek and ye shall find.... I think....
http://www.propane-generators.com/natural-gas-chart.htm
toward the bottom, has a chart of gas supply in cfh, for diam and length.
Further up was made parenthetical mention that a 10 hp engine requires 100
cfh of nat gas, so 20 hp would be 200 cfh.

The relevant part of this chart indicates that 3/4" pipe would deliver 363,
249, and 200 cfh at lengths of 10', 20', and 30'..... wow, quite drop wrt.
pipe length.

So in all practicality, I'm limited to a 30 ft run, according to this chart.
Hmmmm, so much for 3/8 hose, or 1/2 pipe.
1/2" pipe, btw, will supply 174 cfh, at 10 ft, not quite the req'd 200.

So sez this site/chart.
Any opinions, experiences?
--
EA


--
EA

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...sp?page=H04599

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that 3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!! And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

On Jan 8, 6:13*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?...

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that 3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat gas.....
Now ahm gettin it.... * LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... *holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!! *And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...
"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Seek and ye shall find.... I think....
http://www.propane-generators.com/natural-gas-chart.htm
toward the bottom, has a chart of gas supply in cfh, for diam and length.
Further up was made parenthetical mention that a 10 hp engine requires 100
cfh of nat gas, so 20 hp would be 200 cfh.

The relevant part of this chart indicates that 3/4" pipe would deliver
363, 249, and 200 cfh at lengths of 10', 20', and 30'..... wow, quite
drop wrt. pipe length.

So in all practicality, I'm limited to a 30 ft run, according to this
chart. Hmmmm, so much for 3/8 hose, or 1/2 pipe.
1/2" pipe, btw, will supply 174 cfh, at 10 ft, not quite the req'd 200.

So sez this site/chart.
Any opinions, experiences?

http://www.generac.com/Brochures/0172610SBY.pdf

Table 4, says 3/4" will be good for only 10' for 20 hp/15 kW, and not even
for the full 15 kW -- they want 1".
We'll see what happens.
--
EA




--
EA


--
EA

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:


OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?...

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10 years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality, as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

On Jan 8, 7:02*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?...

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10 years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. *So that's what they build the
engine for. *And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of use,
and make it stronger. *Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which *also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality, as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. *They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. *Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. *Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not feed
the furnace.

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 7:02 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?...

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit
smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot
of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10
years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of
use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality,
as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. The alternator is the real bottleneck.
We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything really
practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered in"
to the belt system, when it's needed. But then, this adds year-round weight
to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. But mebbe the better option for
some. And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! Just not the
right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes it
an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's case,
where gas lines were city-blocks long. The problem with nat gas is the pita
installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not having to
worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing. That
reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. Even for a diy-er, it's a fair-sized
pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! Dats the kicker.....

So I most likely over-bought, but with the shop and all, and with Sandy (and
Irene, and that 2011 Halloween nightmare ) just scaring the effing bejeezus
out of me, the peace of mind will hopefully be worth it.
They are saying Sandy knocked out power for 8 million people, many of them
for WEEKS, and that Halloween snowstorm knocked out power for a few million,
and many in CT were without power for a MONTH, in NJ for a cupla weeks.
Just too much bull**** around here now.... We're even having *tornadoes*
touch down!!!! goodgawd....
--
EA

"NotMe" wrote in message ...

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's in a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of 3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:37:17 -0600, "NotMe" wrote:


"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not feed
the furnace.


If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.

On Jan 8, 8:38*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 7:02 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?....

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit
smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot
of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10
years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of
use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality,
as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. *I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. *You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. *All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. *The alternator is the real bottleneck.
We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything really
practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. *For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! *Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered in"
to the belt system, when it's needed. *But then, this adds year-round weight
to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. *But mebbe the better option for
some. *And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! *Just not the
right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes it
an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's case,
where gas lines were city-blocks long. *The problem with nat gas is the pita
installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not having to
worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing. *That
reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. *Even for a diy-er, it's a fair-sized
pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! *Dats the kicker.....

So I most likely over-bought, but with the shop and all, and with Sandy (and
Irene, and that 2011 Halloween nightmare ) just scaring the effing bejeezus
out of me, the peace of mind will hopefully be worth it.
They are saying Sandy knocked out power for 8 million people, many of them
for WEEKS, and that Halloween snowstorm knocked out power for a few million,
and many in CT were without power for a MONTH, in NJ for a cupla weeks.
Just too much bull**** around here now.... We're even having *tornadoes*
touch down!!!! * goodgawd....
--
EA

Huge price savings over the diesel units. Much lighter. Are you going
to try and run your garage shop with it or just your house?

"Existential Angst"
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. The alternator is the real
bottleneck. We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything
really practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered
in" to the belt system, when it's needed. But then, this adds year-round
weight to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. But mebbe the better
option for some. And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! Just
not the right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes
it an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's
case, where gas lines were city-blocks long. The problem with nat gas is
the pita installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not
having to worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing.
That reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. Even for a diy-er, it's a
fair-sized pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! Dats the
kicker.....

So I most likely over-bought, but with the shop and all, and with Sandy
(and Irene, and that 2011 Halloween nightmare ) just scaring the effing
bejeezus out of me, the peace of mind will hopefully be worth it.
They are saying Sandy knocked out power for 8 million people, many of them
for WEEKS, and that Halloween snowstorm knocked out power for a few
million, and many in CT were without power for a MONTH, in NJ for a cupla
weeks. Just too much bull**** around here now.... We're even having
*tornadoes* touch down!!!! goodgawd....

Don't know where you are located but following Katrina all the utilities,
gas, water and electricity were cut off until there was an inspection.

We had NG for part of the day following land fall but ran on LPG/gasoline
for several weeks. Keep that in mind if you expect a disaster to effect
services.

On Jan 9, 4:38*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 7:02 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?....

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit
smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot
of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10
years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of
use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality,
as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. *I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. *You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. *All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. *The alternator is the real bottleneck.
We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything really
practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. *For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! *Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered in"
to the belt system, when it's needed. *But then, this adds year-round weight
to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. *But mebbe the better option for
some. *And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! *Just not the
right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes it
an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's case,
where gas lines were city-blocks long. *The problem with nat gas is the pita
installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not having to
worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing. *That
reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. *Even for a diy-er, it's a fair-sized
pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! *Dats the kicker.....

So I most likely over-bought, but with the shop and all, and with Sandy (and
Irene, and that 2011 Halloween nightmare ) just scaring the effing bejeezus
out of me, the peace of mind will hopefully be worth it.
They are saying Sandy knocked out power for 8 million people, many of them
for WEEKS, and that Halloween snowstorm knocked out power for a few million,
and many in CT were without power for a MONTH, in NJ for a cupla weeks.
Just too much bull**** around here now.... We're even having *tornadoes*
touch down!!!! * goodgawd....
--
EA

If you buy a Mitsubishi I-miev electric car, it has a "home power
station" option.
The traction battery can be used to supply the home.
15Kwh if fully charged.

On Jan 9, 4:45*am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"NotMe" wrote in ...

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... *yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. *Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
* With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. * And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. *If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? *I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. *Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard *house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. *My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's in a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of 3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. *Should give me a better idea of which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:38 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 7:02 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:









"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?...

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit
smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base
actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think
that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the
pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small
indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden
shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot
of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10
years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build
the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account
for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of
use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these
units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find
at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic
quality,
as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money.
Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. The alternator is the real bottleneck.
We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything really
practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered
in"
to the belt system, when it's needed. But then, this adds year-round
weight
to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. But mebbe the better option for
some. And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! Just not the
right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes
it
an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's case,
where gas lines were city-blocks long. The problem with nat gas is the
pita
installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not having to
worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing. That
reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. Even for a diy-er, it's a fair-sized
pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! Dats the kicker.....

So I most likely over-bought, but with the shop and all, and with Sandy
(and
Irene, and that 2011 Halloween nightmare ) just scaring the effing
bejeezus
out of me, the peace of mind will hopefully be worth it.
They are saying Sandy knocked out power for 8 million people, many of them
for WEEKS, and that Halloween snowstorm knocked out power for a few
million,
and many in CT were without power for a MONTH, in NJ for a cupla weeks.
Just too much bull**** around here now.... We're even having *tornadoes*
touch down!!!! goodgawd....
--
EA

If you buy a Mitsubishi I-miev electric car, it has a "home power
station" option.
The traction battery can be used to supply the home.
15Kwh if fully charged.
================================================== ===

That's good to know!
But, iirc, the I miev is all electric, right? So in an extended power
outtage, you may be stranded as well!
--
EA

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"NotMe" wrote in
...

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of 3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now, but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc), that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.
--
EA

On 1/9/2013 2:11 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
"harry" wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"NotMe" wrote in
...

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of 3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now, but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc), that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.


You can always hook up a manometer an watch the gas pressure in
inches/water column as the generator runs then is put under load.
I own several manometers that I use to test NG and LPG equipment
with. ^_^

http://inspectusa.com/gas-manifold-p...52db73ca719353

http://tinyurl.com/awrxxvf

TDD

On Jan 8, 11:38*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"jon_banquer" wrote in message

...
On Jan 8, 7:02 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:





"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 6:13 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

"jon_banquer" wrote in message

....
On Jan 8, 5:43 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was
just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length?
Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would that
power
capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck,
then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.
--
EA

You have a picture or a link. I want to see what it looks like.
=================================================

http://www.generatorsales.com/order/...Generator.asp?....

additionally modified by them for gasoline, as well. No other options,
except for the propane regulator hose.

Looking at the specs, they specify a 3/8" connection, quite a bit
smaller
than 3/4"
Altho, that diaphram pressure reg. you see attached to the base actually
has
a 3/4" thread, which the company bushes down to 3/8 -- but I think that
3/8"
is just for the propane, and you would use the un-bushed 3/4 for nat
gas....
Now ahm gettin it.... LOL

Note the small overall size of the unit...If you re-locate the pressure
reg,
the actual footprint of the unit is 30 L x 21 H x 16 D -- small indeed.
"Only" 245#, but goddamm, a heavy 245..... holy ****....
Much lower power Generacs et al are the size of a goddamm garden shed!!
And
not honda powered, either.

So it seems I will have to go with 3/4" pipe, which I thought I might
avoid.
So be it.
Let the next storm/outtage come!!
--
EA

Looks like a really nice unit to me. People swear by Honda engines for
generators, compressors, etc. I've never pulled one apart to see for
myself. I don't like Honda's car engines because if you overheat them
they have no material in the head and the head warps. Very easy to do
if an electric fan breaks or shorts. As soon as you notice it, it's
too late. I stick with GM / GMC trucks now. Obviously this isn't an
issue here. Just wondering what makes the Honda engines for this stuff
so good that people rave about them. Probably cast and machined very
well with a lot of attention to detail.
================================================== =====

That, and that the other engines that Generac et al uses are crappy, lot
of
complaints.
Briggs&Stratton generators ought to have an OK engine, don't know about
Kohler and other brands.

What I think is happening is this:
When you buy a generator as a deducated standby back up generator for a
house, these companies are *banking* on the fact that in the next 10
years,
you will run the generator a whole 50 hours. So that's what they build the
engine for. And mebbe not even that.

Otoh, if you buy a *multi-purpose* unit like mine, they proly account for
the fact that you will be beating the **** out of the unit with lots of
use,
and make it stronger. Ergo, the Honder engine.

This Maine company doesn't manufacture stuff per se, they put these units
together from various suppliers, seems to be OK.
They also modify the Black Max 8,750 W unit for tri-fuel, that you find at
Sam's club (gasoline only) -- which also has a Honda engine.

Generac et al has a lot of bells and whistles, but not intrinsic quality,
as
per the above.
I just went for simple and lotsa power. They're all goddamm noisy, until
you get to water cooled units, Onans, etc. Much bigger $$ tho.
Even a lower rpm jobby air cooled jobby cost substantially more money. Run
of the mill are all 3600 rpm.
--
EA

I agree with your assessment. Sure looks to me like you did your
homework and ended up with quality.
================================================== =

Well, time will tell on the quality. *I chose that company because they
seemed like, well, a *real company* , as opposed to some fukn investment
scheme of a bunch of CPAs and lawyers. *You can actually talk to good ole
boys there.

Much of that homework was a number of very good threads on alt.home.repair
on the whole back up power issue, ranging from types of generators, to
battery/inverter backup, to car-inverter backup. *All have some level of
viability, and I keep a big-azz marine battery/1500W inverter in m'truck
(for other purposes), which, in a pinch, could provide not even 1 kW of
power, but enough for basic basics. *The alternator is the real bottleneck.
We talked about high-output alternators as well, but anything really
practical, power-wise, gets into $$.

That marine battery really came in handy, the other day. *For some reason,
the truck batt was deader'n'a doornail, so basically, I was able to give
myself a jump!!! *Hilarious....

Also, those ahr threads showed that what seems like a good idea, a slam
dunk, often is not.

I think a great solution to power back up would be an option for vehicles
for an *additional* super-high output alternator, that could be "levered in"
to the belt system, when it's needed. *But then, this adds year-round weight
to the car, and it is still gas-dependent. *But mebbe the better option for
some. *And hybrids almost have this solution *built-in*!! *Just not the
right voltages.

Ultimately, a noisy genset is Da Bomb, raw watts-wise, and nat gas makes it
an even more usable strategy, esp. for long outages, or, in Sandy's case,
where gas lines were city-blocks long. *The problem with nat gas is the pita
installation. But another very real advantage to nat gas is not having to
worry about carburetor problems, or old/bad gas, or varnishing. *That
reliability factor is a big biggie.

But a good nat gas installation can equal, double, or even triple the cost
of the unit itself, for a non-diy-er. *Even for a diy-er, it's a fair-sized
pita -- for something that you may NEVER use!!! *Dats the kicker.....

A lot depends on if you want a natural gas generator installed
as a permanent installation or if you leave it as a portable.
Personally,
I'd opt for about a 5KW portable. It's light enough to be able to
move
easily and enough power to run the loads you want in a typical house.
If you leave it as a portable, all you need is a length of gas hose
with
quick connects on either end. You would need a place at a gas
line to connect it. But in many cases that should be easy. Either
a point where maybe an outside gas grill is attached, or a pool
heater.
And if not, you could put a fitting inside, say the basement by the
furnace or water heater, then just run the gas hose outside to the
generator when needed. That is a very easy install.

On Jan 8, 8:59*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...







OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... *yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. *Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
* With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. * And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. *If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

On Jan 8, 10:37*pm, "NotMe" wrote:
"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...







OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... *yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. *Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
* With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. * And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. *If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

On 1/9/2013 12:11 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential wrote:
wrote in
...

"Existential wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of 3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now, but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc), that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.

I've found it useful to measure/control the thing you really care about.
So, what do you care about?

If it were me, I'd care about the air/fuel ratio across the full load range.

So, what makes that happen?
If it's a converted open-loop carburetor, the A/F ratio might be very
pressure dependent. The only acceptable pressure drop might be "none".

If it's an injection system with feedback from the exhaust sensor,
it might be relatively insensitive to supply line restriction.

The whole concept of "see what happens" falls apart if you can't
actually see the thing you care about. In this case,
it might be more appropriate to "hear what happens."
After writing that, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether a
natural gas engine exhibits knock when you run it lean.

Measure what you care about.

"mike" wrote in message
...
On 1/9/2013 12:11 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential wrote:
wrote in
...

"Existential wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything
you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's
in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning
issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of
3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of
which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now,
but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc),
that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and
if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.

I've found it useful to measure/control the thing you really care about.
So, what do you care about?

If it were me, I'd care about the air/fuel ratio across the full load
range.

So, what makes that happen?
If it's a converted open-loop carburetor, the A/F ratio might be very
pressure dependent. The only acceptable pressure drop might be "none".

If it's an injection system with feedback from the exhaust sensor,
it might be relatively insensitive to supply line restriction.

The whole concept of "see what happens" falls apart if you can't
actually see the thing you care about. In this case,
it might be more appropriate to "hear what happens."
After writing that, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether a
natural gas engine exhibits knock when you run it lean.

Measure what you care about.

That's a good point, and quite apropos of DD's manometer -- which I wish I
had.
And even if I did have one, what I really care about is voltage under load.
If my welder drops the voltage by only a few %, I'll be a happy camper.

The listening advice is always good -- I don't want constant voltage with
load if it's going to burn out the engine because of fuel issues.
Funny, I tell that (about listening) to the guy that works with me, all the
time: LISTEN to the machine (lathe, milling) -- it's your first indication
when **** ain't right. That, and smoke/sparks..... LOL

Tonite is the night I start kluging stuff together electrically, see what
happens. And hear what happens....
--
EA

wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:
"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...







OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

}}Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

{{

One would think so but ... I mention the potential as we had the experience
where the utility support was not sufficient. If that's not a problem for
the OP fine. If it is then is it not better to be apprised of the potential
then to be left in the dark?

BTW the untility engineering could not understand nor explain why the device
was in the line.


A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not feed
the furnace.- Hide quoted text -

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:37:17 -0600, "NotMe" wrote:


"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not feed
the furnace.


If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 11:33 am, harry wrote:
On Jan 9, 1:41 pm, "
wrote:





On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? You figure that out? That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? Here's a clue. The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. It can supply plenty of gas.
================================================== ==

I see I'm not the only one you give a hard time to..... LOL

To be fair, not everyone is aware of those kinds of efficiency issues,
either, so it was a fair reminder. In fact, most people are not aware of
the drastic thermodynamic inefficiencies of heat engines. Makes you wonder
about God....

Regarding that residential restriction, yeah, it proly is a rare thing, but
it WAS a very inneresting factoid -- unfortunately for the guy who built the
furnace.

BUT, it also remains to be seen if my gas service (and piping) can support a
gas-fired furnace, kitchen stuff, hot water heater, AND a genset going full
tilt -- poss. not at all a moot point during a deep-winter outage.
But still, proly not a biggie even if there is a bottleneck somewhere --
things just won't be going 100%.

Also, in my neck of the woods, there is no gas regulator in the house. I
don't know if that's good or bad. Mebbe there's one streetside. In fact, I
don't ever recall seeing one in the NYC, Westch area -- not that I was
looking, but that is something I woulda noticed, house-hunting etc..
Unique to NJ? I know some places have very high water pressure (100 psi),
that needs a regulator house-side. That pressure can vary with where you
physically are relative to the municipal water pumps.
--
EA

On Jan 9, 1:34*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 9, 11:33 am, harry wrote:









On Jan 9, 1:41 pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? *You figure that out? *That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. * Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? *The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? * You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? * Here's a clue. *The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. *It can supply plenty of gas.
================================================== ==

I see I'm not the only one you give a hard time to..... * LOL

To be fair, not everyone is aware of those kinds of efficiency issues,
either, so it was a fair reminder. *In fact, most people are not aware of
the drastic thermodynamic inefficiencies of heat engines. Makes you wonder
about God....

Regarding that residential restriction, yeah, it proly is a rare thing, but
it WAS a very inneresting factoid -- unfortunately for the guy who built the
furnace.

BUT, it also remains to be seen if my gas service (and piping) can support a
gas-fired furnace, kitchen stuff, hot water heater, AND a genset going full
tilt -- poss. not at all a moot point during a deep-winter outage.
But still, proly not a biggie even if there is a bottleneck somewhere --
things just won't be going 100%.

Also, in my neck of the woods, there is no gas regulator in the house. *I
don't know if that's good or bad. *Mebbe there's one streetside. *In fact, I
don't ever recall seeing one in the NYC, Westch area -- not that I was
looking, but that is something I woulda noticed, house-hunting etc..
*Unique to NJ? *I know some places have very high water pressure (100 psi),
that needs a regulator house-side. *That pressure can vary with where you
physically are relative to the municipal water pumps.
--
EA

Besides natural gas are you planning on having other ways you can run
it such as having a propane tank installed or something else?

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:37:17 -0600, "NotMe" wrote:


"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed
the furnace.


If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

Insane just about sums those things up.
Can you imagine if EVERYONE had one of those things, gas or electric?
They'd have to re-do the whole infrastructure of the city!
Doubtful that they save an iota of energy, altho it would be nice to see
objective data.
Would make a good thread. Could crosspost to alt.hvac, and see what those
greedy asshole prima donnas have to say. LOL
--
EA

"jon_banquer" wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 1:34 pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 9, 11:33 am, harry wrote:









On Jan 9, 1:41 pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some
distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know,
chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how
much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of
negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50
ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I
ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but
the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? You figure that out? That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? Here's a clue. The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. It can supply plenty of gas.
================================================== ==

I see I'm not the only one you give a hard time to..... LOL

To be fair, not everyone is aware of those kinds of efficiency issues,
either, so it was a fair reminder. In fact, most people are not aware of
the drastic thermodynamic inefficiencies of heat engines. Makes you wonder
about God....

Regarding that residential restriction, yeah, it proly is a rare thing,
but
it WAS a very inneresting factoid -- unfortunately for the guy who built
the
furnace.

BUT, it also remains to be seen if my gas service (and piping) can support
a
gas-fired furnace, kitchen stuff, hot water heater, AND a genset going
full
tilt -- poss. not at all a moot point during a deep-winter outage.
But still, proly not a biggie even if there is a bottleneck somewhere --
things just won't be going 100%.

Also, in my neck of the woods, there is no gas regulator in the house. I
don't know if that's good or bad. Mebbe there's one streetside. In fact, I
don't ever recall seeing one in the NYC, Westch area -- not that I was
looking, but that is something I woulda noticed, house-hunting etc..
Unique to NJ? I know some places have very high water pressure (100 psi),
that needs a regulator house-side. That pressure can vary with where you
physically are relative to the municipal water pumps.
--
EA

Besides natural gas are you planning on having other ways you can run
it such as having a propane tank installed or something else?
================================================== =====

Proly just some BBQ type bottles hanging around, more for if for some reason
I load the thing onto m'truck.
But since I'm now an Oh-ficial Doomsday Prepper (thanks to fuknSandy), I got
like 50 gals of gasoline tucked away, so I can always use that. This genset
has a separate gas line/filter that you just drop in a gas can -- really
nice, as you can set up multiple gas cans siphon-style, for really big
capacity.
Might also be able to just drop the hose into the gas tank of m'truck!!
I'll have to check that out.

Another thing I wanted to do was put a spigot on my gas tank, so I could
fill cans right from the truck.
Heh, and pray that none of the neighborhood hoodlums know about my gas-tank
spigot..... LOL
Or, perhaps plumb sumpn in under the hood in the fuel pump line, and just
let the fuel pump do the pumping??
I'll have to explore that, see how complicated the wiring would be for that.

Let's put it this way: If an outtage is so bad, so broad that you lose nat
gas pressure, we are in *deep *****. Nat gas almost never goes out. But if
it does, that's the neat thing about tri-fuel.

Remember that hyooge blackout, that hit like 1/4 of the US/Northeast?? I
wonder if nat gas was lost in that thing.... Fortunately, since it wadn't
really storm/disaster related, power came back in about 24 hrs. I think nat
gas pressure WAS lost, bec I seem to remember some issues in some buildings,
restarting pilots and alladat.
Mebbe someone here knows f'sure.
--
EA

"NotMe" wrote in message ...

wrote in message
...
On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:
"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...







OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

}}Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

{{

One would think so but ... I mention the potential as we had the
experience where the utility support was not sufficient. If that's not a
problem for the OP fine. If it is then is it not better to be apprised of
the potential then to be left in the dark?

BTW the untility engineering could not understand nor explain why the
device was in the line.

Spite?? LOL
--
EA




A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed
the furnace.- Hide quoted text -

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:37:17 -0600, "NotMe" wrote:


"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed
the furnace.


If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

When was Nat Gas connected originally to your house ?
How big is the pipe leading to your meter ?
My house was built in 53
I just added a high performance kitchen stove.
The smallest burner at full power is 20,000 BTU.
All I needed was a 1 " connection to the stove if shared, or 3/4" if not
I have been replacing all black pipe with 1" flexible hose.
I can turn on ALL burners on the stove, with furnace, hot water and dryer
running all at once, and I have ample Nat Gas to power everything at
capacity.


Also why is a tankless water heater "insane" ?
They have been in use in Europe for 40+ years.
The modern ones are quite efficient.

On 1/9/2013 1:15 PM, Existential Angst wrote:
wrote in message
...
On 1/9/2013 12:11 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential wrote:
wrote in
...

"Existential wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything
you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's
in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning
issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of
3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of
which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA


It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now,
but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc),
that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and
if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.

I've found it useful to measure/control the thing you really care about.
So, what do you care about?

If it were me, I'd care about the air/fuel ratio across the full load
range.

So, what makes that happen?
If it's a converted open-loop carburetor, the A/F ratio might be very
pressure dependent. The only acceptable pressure drop might be "none".

If it's an injection system with feedback from the exhaust sensor,
it might be relatively insensitive to supply line restriction.

The whole concept of "see what happens" falls apart if you can't
actually see the thing you care about. In this case,
it might be more appropriate to "hear what happens."
After writing that, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether a
natural gas engine exhibits knock when you run it lean.

Measure what you care about.

That's a good point, and quite apropos of DD's manometer -- which I wish I
had.
And even if I did have one, what I really care about is voltage under load.
If my welder drops the voltage by only a few %, I'll be a happy camper.

Then you're good to go.
For me, I'd like the engine to run cool and have LOOOOONG life.

On 2013-01-09, Existential Angst wrote:
"mike" wrote in message
...

[ ... ]

I've found it useful to measure/control the thing you really care about.
So, what do you care about?

If it were me, I'd care about the air/fuel ratio across the full load
range.

So, what makes that happen?
If it's a converted open-loop carburetor, the A/F ratio might be very
pressure dependent. The only acceptable pressure drop might be "none".

If it's an injection system with feedback from the exhaust sensor,
it might be relatively insensitive to supply line restriction.

The whole concept of "see what happens" falls apart if you can't
actually see the thing you care about. In this case,
it might be more appropriate to "hear what happens."
After writing that, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether a
natural gas engine exhibits knock when you run it lean.

Measure what you care about.

That's a good point, and quite apropos of DD's manometer -- which I wish I
had.

Something you can make easily -- especially for the pressure
levels involved in natural gas.

Get some clear plastic hose/tubing.

Get a board about four feet long or so, and mount it upright.

Attach the tubing to the board to form a 'U', with the open end
of the U facing up.

Keep one end totally open, and the other end connected to your
gas feed pipe. (Probably fix things up so you can connect it at either
the supply end or close to the generator -- or even make two of them so
you can measure both at once.)

Pour enough water into it so you have at least as few inches of
water as the maximum pressure from the gas company's regulator. (This
is actually twice as much as you need, but reduces the chances of things
spraying out during a pulse of pressure.

Mount a yardstick between the pipes which can be slid up or
down, so the zero point can be lined up with the water level in the
lower of the two pipes.

Then measure the inches from the top of the low end to the top
of the high end, and that is your pressure in inches of water.

For higher pressures, you either need a longer board and tubing,
or to replace the water with mercury (there about 29" is equal to
atmospheric pressure).

And even if I did have one, what I really care about is voltage under load.
If my welder drops the voltage by only a few %, I'll be a happy camper.

You'll need to continue that arc for a while, to allow the
pressure in the pipe to adjust to conditions -- it won't be immediate,
as the pipe will act as a reservoir for a while.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Remove oil spill source from e-mail
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:29:41 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:


If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

Always best to check with the utility I guess.
I just quickly looked at a tankless heater spec and it wants 3/4"
supply and says to check with the utility as to supply from the meter.
I have NG furnace, tank water heater, dryer and range/oven.
House was built in '59, Chicago suburb.
Main feed in the house is a 1 1/2" running to the furnace.
Then a double reducer tee, 3/4" straight ahead and 3/4" 90.
The 3/4" 90 feeds the furnace, the straight 3/4" has a single reducer
tee a bit down the line feeding 1/2" to water heater, then a tee
feeding 3/4" upstairs to the upstairs stove, then a final reducer
coupling feeding 1/2" to the dryer.
I thought it odd there's 3/4" for the upstairs stove, but looking at
this chart
http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthserv...gaspiping.aspx
it says a stove uses more BTU than the water heater or dryer.
Seems the water heater puts out more flame than the 4 range burners
and oven burner combined, but I'm probably just wrong about that.
Anyway, everything works fine.
And though the inside main line is 1 1/2" the outside gas meter has
1 1/4" in and out.
EA should probably should add up the total BTU's he uses and see what
the utility says. Then he can address pipe size.

On Jan 9, 6:00*pm, Vic Smith wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:29:41 -0500, wrote:
On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
*My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

Always best to check with the utility *I guess.
I just quickly looked at a tankless heater spec and it wants 3/4"
supply and says to check with the utility as to supply from the meter.
I have NG furnace, tank water heater, dryer and range/oven.
House was built in '59, *Chicago suburb.
Main feed in the house is a 1 1/2" running to the furnace.
Then a double reducer tee, 3/4" straight ahead and 3/4" 90.
The 3/4" 90 feeds the furnace, the straight 3/4" has a single reducer
tee a bit down the line feeding 1/2" to water heater, then a tee
feeding 3/4" upstairs to the upstairs stove, then a final reducer
coupling feeding 1/2" to the dryer.
I thought it odd there's 3/4" for the upstairs stove, but looking at
this charthttp://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/plumbing/gaspipin...
it says a stove uses more BTU than the water heater or dryer.
Seems the water heater puts out more flame than the 4 range burners
and oven burner combined, but I'm probably just wrong about that.
Anyway, everything works fine.
And though the inside main line is 1 1/2" the outside gas meter has
1 1/4" in and out.
EA should probably should add up the total BTU's he uses and see what
the utility says. *Then he can address pipe size.

tankless water heaters have major downsides, some have no hot water in
a power failure, during a 3 day power outage a hot shower is very
important.....

many areas have regulators at each meter its called a high pressure
system.

i have a friend in a low pressure system area, just a single
neighborhood regulator....

its always better to a little oversize on supply lines

On Jan 9, 4:56*pm, "
wrote:
On Jan 9, 11:33*am, harry wrote:









On Jan 9, 1:41*pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 8, 10:37*pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... *yeah, I know, I know, chill, it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id and
rel. long hose length. *Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
* With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. * And then, how would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. *If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? *I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. *The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. * Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? *You figure that out? *That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. * Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? *The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? * You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? * Here's a clue. *The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. *It can supply plenty of gas.

It will depend whereabouts on the gas grid you are.
Outside my house there happens to be a twelve inch gas main. But most
people will only have a two inch or so pipe nearby.
And the size of your pool heater depends on the size of the pool, the
local climate and how well insulated it is ****for brains

On Jan 9, 9:15*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
"mike" wrote in message

...









On 1/9/2013 12:11 AM, Existential Angst wrote:
*wrote in message
....
On Jan 9, 4:45 am, "Existential *wrote:
*wrote in
...

"Existential *wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that attaches
to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow id
and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything
you
have provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard house that would not
feed the furnace.

That would be my luck!!
But it doesn't appear to be so, in this case. My original gas meter was
proly slated for a large bakery, but wound up in my house.
I wonder why the utility bothered with such a restriction -- mebbe he's
in
a
semi-industrial area, and they are paying more attention to zoning
issues?

I'm looking forward to seeing just how much of a bottleneck 50 ft of
3/8"
hose will be on that genset, loaded. Should give me a better idea of
which
of those links I provided is more accurate ito pipe size..
--
EA

It will only be a bottleneck if you require full power.
================================================== ====

Or near-full power -- I aim to find out tomorrow.
I don't have any convenient way of fully loading the genset right now,
but I
do have small Miller welder (165 A, over a 50 A draw with a heavy arc),
that
should load the genset pretty good.
Insufficient gas flow should just cause a voltage drop, I'm sposing, and
if
it's not too bad, I'll go with the smaller pipe.
Will be inneresting to see what actually happens.

I've found it useful to measure/control the thing you really care about..
So, what do you care about?

If it were me, I'd care about the air/fuel ratio across the full load
range.

So, what makes that happen?
If it's a converted open-loop carburetor, the A/F ratio might be very
pressure dependent. *The only acceptable pressure drop might be "none".

If it's an injection system with feedback from the exhaust sensor,
it might be relatively insensitive to supply line restriction.

The whole concept of "see what happens" falls apart if you can't
actually see the thing you care about. *In this case,
it might be more appropriate to "hear what happens."
After writing that, it occurs to me that I have no idea whether a
natural gas engine exhibits knock when you run it lean.

Measure what you care about.

That's a good point, and quite apropos of DD's manometer -- which I wish I
had.
And even if I did have one, what I really care about is voltage under load.
If my welder drops the voltage by only a few %, I'll be a happy camper.

The listening advice is always good -- I don't want constant voltage with
load if it's going to burn out the engine because of fuel issues.
Funny, I tell that (about listening) to the guy that works with me, all the
time: *LISTEN to the machine (lathe, milling) -- it's your first indication
when **** ain't right. *That, and smoke/sparks..... *LOL

Tonite is the night I start kluging stuff together electrically, see what
happens. *And hear what happens.... *
--
EA

You can easily make a manometer.

On Jan 9, 9:34*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On Jan 9, 11:33 am, harry wrote:









On Jan 9, 1:41 pm, "
wrote:

On Jan 8, 10:37 pm, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message

...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda
GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz their regulator (that
attaches to
the tank itself) seems to be faulty. Haven't tried gasoline yet.

So I was able to kluge together a nat gas connection, some distance
away,
via a 50 ft coil of 3/8 id air hose.... yeah, I know, I know, chill,
it
was just a test.....

Generator ran fine, and I was a little surprised, given the narrow
id and
rel. long hose length. Under no-load conditions.

So here's the Q:
With typical natural gas pressure (I'm sposing 5-7" water), how much
actual load (hp) can be powered with 1/2" black pipe, of negligible
length? Or, per actual sq in of pipe cross section. And then, how
would
that power capacity drop off with pipe length?

This will affect the size of the piping, and poss. the location of
the
unit.
Tomorrow, I will wire up some temp. elec connections, and load as
many
heaters etc as I can, to see if I can detect some fuel-bottleneck
under
heavy load, thru 50 ft of 3/8" hose. If there is no perceptible
bottleneck, then long-ish lengths of 1/2" pipe should be fine, 50 ft
max.

Just wondering what I should expect.

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? I ask
as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you
have
provided.

Any decent gas line that has been run by a utility to a
house will support a 15KW generator. The BTUs are in the
range of a large residential gas furnace. Supply is clearly
sized to support a lot more than that, because typically
you also have water heater, stoves, gas grills, etc.

15Kw is the output.
Probably needs around 50Kw or 60Kw gas input on full load- Hide quoted
text -

- Show quoted text -

No **** harry? *You figure that out? *That it takes more
energy in than out?

What a maroon. * Has nothing to do with the fact that a
typical house has a gas line from the utility more than
adequate to run his genset.

harry, what happens when a typical house wants to
add a swimming pool? *The heater for a swimming pool
is 200K to 400K BTUS? * You think they have to run
a new gas line to the street? * Here's a clue. *The gas is
under higher pressure until it gets to the regulator at the
house. *It can supply plenty of gas.
================================================== ==

I see I'm not the only one you give a hard time to..... * LOL

To be fair, not everyone is aware of those kinds of efficiency issues,
either, so it was a fair reminder. *In fact, most people are not aware of
the drastic thermodynamic inefficiencies of heat engines. Makes you wonder
about God....

Regarding that residential restriction, yeah, it proly is a rare thing, but
it WAS a very inneresting factoid -- unfortunately for the guy who built the
furnace.

BUT, it also remains to be seen if my gas service (and piping) can support a
gas-fired furnace, kitchen stuff, hot water heater, AND a genset going full
tilt -- poss. not at all a moot point during a deep-winter outage.
But still, proly not a biggie even if there is a bottleneck somewhere --
things just won't be going 100%.

Also, in my neck of the woods, there is no gas regulator in the house. *I
don't know if that's good or bad. *Mebbe there's one streetside. *In fact, I
don't ever recall seeing one in the NYC, Westch area -- not that I was
looking, but that is something I woulda noticed, house-hunting etc..
*Unique to NJ? *I know some places have very high water pressure (100 psi),
that needs a regulator house-side. *That pressure can vary with where you
physically are relative to the municipal water pumps.
--
EA

It's bad there is no regulator. It means your gas pressure will vary
widely depending on usage. It also means every bit of gas equipment
will be running less efficiently than it might.
It also means the gas is distributed at low pressure so there is less
available than there would be if it were distributed at high pressure.
You also have to take into account your neighbours gas using
activities.

On Jan 9, 9:38*pm, "Existential Angst" wrote:
wrote in message

...









On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:48:51 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:37:17 -0600, "NotMe" wrote:

"Existential Angst" wrote in message
...

OK, took delivery of a 15,000 W tri-fuel generator, with a Honda GX690
motor, 690 cc, about 22 hp.
Couldn't get it to run off propane, cuz

Question can you run the gen set with a very short supply line? *I ask as
the problem may not be the line from the outlet to the gen set but the
line
and any regulation from the utility at the street than anything you have
provided.

A friend built himself a furnace to cast bronze parts. *Found out the
utility had installed restriction for a standard *house that would not
feed
the furnace.

If he has a nat gas furnace he should have all the flow he needs to
run the gen.
And going with 1" vs 3/4" is only going to cost maybe 20-30 bucks
more.
*My house has Nat Gas furnace - and water heater - not range or drier
If I wanted to put in one of those insane tankless water heaters AND a
range and drier, I would need a bigger meter and inlet line.

Insane just about sums those things up.
Can you imagine if EVERYONE had one of those things, gas or electric?
They'd have to re-do the whole infrastructure of the city!
Doubtful that they save an iota of energy, altho it would be nice to see
objective data.
Would make a good thread. *Could crosspost to alt.hvac, and see what those
greedy asshole prima donnas have to say. *LOL
--
EA

They save a lot of fuel. Because they are only on for a few minutes,
they are not likely all to be on at once.
They are very common in the UK, don't cause any problem.