Northern Lights or Fischer Panda?

[Mr O]

svHyLyte,

Thank you for the info and encouragement. The previous owner was clearly not taking the time to properly maintain the FP generator and it was overheating when I bought it. Salt deposits clogged the cooling system and the impeller was broken. Worked fine for a year until the hard start issue. Adjusting the valves is next on my list. Given that the manual suggests adjusting the valves at 500 hours, I thought that wasn't the problem at 180 hours.

The engine does not run hot now, but I will flush the system with salt away to clean things out. And renew the impeller. Same with the propulsion engine. This boat is slowly becoming ship shape!

[jkleins]

I had that exact FP on my 50 footer and took it out and put the same NL that you are considering. It is night and day better with the NL although I have to manage the load a little closer since it is a little smaller. Mine was 14 years old and only had about 600 hours on it and had several failures of sensors, etc that just made it unreliable. The NL might as it gets older as well but it is far less complicated to get to things and seems to have less electronic stuff to break so I am hoping for better.
It could have been break in as well. I didn't break in the FP and who knows how it was used early in life. I did break in the NL and made sure it had a good load on it for those critical first hours. For the little extra money though I would opt for the NL.


Jim

[svHyLyte]

Originally Posted by Mr O

svHyLyte,

Thank you for the info and encouragement. The previous owner was clearly not taking the time to properly maintain the FP generator and it was overheating when I bought it. Salt deposits clogged the cooling system and the impeller was broken. Worked fine for a year until the hard start issue. Adjusting the valves is next on my list. Given that the manual suggests adjusting the valves at 500 hours, I thought that wasn't the problem at 180 hours.

The engine does not run hot now, but I will flush the system with salt away to clean things out. And renew the impeller. Same with the propulsion engine. This boat is slowly becoming ship shape!

The valves should have been re-set after the first 35 hours of run time (and, thereafter, at 100 although the manual does not stipulate that). From then on one might get 500 hours. Frankly, however, considering how little effort the exercise takes, checking during the annual maintenance isn't much of a chore. The correct clearance is .2mm (or 8/1000's) measured at TDC on the compression stroke. The feeler gauge should slide into the gap with just a little drag. One can rotate the engine to TDC with a 10mm box/open end wrench by slipping the open end over the pin in the recess in the end of the cam shaft and, using a long screw-driver through the box end, rotating the pin slowly until it is vertical. Then, rotate it again, 180º until it is again vertical and both rocker arms should be "loose". When you remove the valve cover, do so "gently" so you don't scotch up the valve cover gasket. To be on the safe side, however, it would be wise to obtain a spare valve cover gasket from Jamie, in the parts department. (Do not use any kind of sealant on the gasket! It isn't necessary and will just ensure that the gasket is ruined the next time the valve cover is removed.)

The raw water impeller should be replaced annually or at 100 hours, whichever comes first. It's somewhat of a pain in the neck but, unfortunately, necessary. Extracting the old impeller isn't difficult and inserting the replacement can be done more easily by using a thin plastic zip-tie to compress the impeller blades around the shaft once you've lubed them up with the glycerin lubricant that comes with each replacement. As you slide the impeller in place, the edges of the pump body will force the zip-tie free of the blades. Then give the inside face of the pump cover plate a good coating of lube and button it up and you're good to go.

Even if you don't really need the generator, it is wise to let it run an hour or at least once a week.

FWIW...

[jtsailjt]

I'm on my second boat with a Northern Lights 5KW genset and they just seem to run and run and run without problems. The only thing I've had to do is to replace the exhaust elbow on both of them, but that's after more than 1000 hours of use. Other than changing the oil and topping off the coolant, and routine impeller replacement that's ALL I've had to do to either of them. Also, 5KW will be plenty big enough.

As many others have mentioned, you want to keep it loaded up as much as possible so assuming I'm not using it to run an air conditioner, I start it and turn on the water heater as well as the battery charger about 15 minutes before someone wants to take a shower. That way, with hot water being used as I run it, it helps keep it loaded up. When showers are finished and dishes washed, I run it about 15 more minutes until the water heater thermostat shuts it off (and wife is finished drying hair) and then I either shut down genset or turn on an air conditioner if I want to leave it running to top off the batteries. I try to avoid running the genset with just the battery charger being powered because it's nowhere near enough load to keep it running healthy, but have to confess that I've been guilty of doing just that on occasion, a few times for hours. But, as I mentioned earlier in the post, it just keeps running and running with little or no maintenance.

A good combo is to have a genset AND some solar panels (and wind gen?) because the genset paired with a good sized battery charger will dump a lot of power into your batteries quickly when they are down 100 amps or more from full. But as the batteries start to fill up, the battery charger (and load on genset) will start to taper off so each additional amp hour deposited into battery takes a bit longer than the one before, which is both inefficient and not good for the genset if you don't have other loads available to make up the slack. So that's when you shut off the genset with your batteries still needing another 30-50 amps or so to be full but by mid afternoon on a sunny day, the solar panels (and wind generator) will do the job of topping them off for you.

No experience with the FP gensets but haven't heard much good about them other than being lightweight and relatively inexpensive.

[Simi 60]

NL would be my choice if I could only choose from two but as they don't make the major components anyway I would be happy with any other kubota, Mitsubishi, komatsu based genset that is considerably cheaper but same spec.

[BandB]

Northern Lights. I would put nearly every other generator over Fischer Panda. Have experience with 4 NL's, 2 Kohlers, 2 Onan's. The 4 NL's all have 2000-3000 hours and have had no problems at all.

[Bruce Beard]

I love all of these "FP are junk, the internet says so..." posts.
I installed a Fischer Panda in our last sailboat and it was an impressive little generator. Support was great from the parent company and no, is not so complex that it is doomed to failure. Like any German made device, it is a "little different".
Fischer Panda did have issues with the generator ends that were raw water cooled although those are all out of production for some 14 or 15 years now. The engines run at 3600 rpm's on a Panda so there is a buzz that is different than the Northern Lights sets that run at 1800 rpm's although I see you are from Venezuela so you may be dealing with 50 Hz and 3000 rpm's vs 1500 rpm's.

I have personally seen Fischer Panda generators with hours in the 6000-plus-range that were still running just fine. It all comes down to the installation, the maintenance and the use of the generator. By the way, it is that same asymmetrical, water cooled (now fresh water cooled by the way...) generator end that makes the unit so quiet.

In general, Panda generators are physically smaller than their counterparts. This allows them to be stuck into some pretty interesting places, thus some of the comments regarding maintenance.

Here is a picture of the Fischer Panda I installed in our previous sailboat.
I am sure that any mechanic who is accustomed to working in the more open spaces of a powerboat engine room will hate working on it but In reality it was not very difficult. Remove a few parts and it can be taken right apart.

By the way, of the two generators we have owned, our Northern Lights was the only one that has had issues. It came from the factory with incorrect pump timing that caused it to smoke for 15 minutes when first started. When I say smoke, I mean smoke too, people would stand on the dock and stare!!! The Northern Lights people were awesome, they even had a VP in the company on our boat trying to figure it all out.

So, in summary, if you have the room and you can live with the slightly louder but slower running engine, a Northern Lights is an awesome choice.
If you are limited in space and want a quieter generator, try a Fischer Panda. I would not hesitate to own either.

[ErikFinn]

So anyone have any experience about the new small FP generators?

https://www.fischerpanda.co.uk/4000s_Neo.html

[Bruce Beard]

Originally Posted by ErikFinn

So anyone have any experience about the new small FP generators?

https://www.fischerpanda.co.uk/4000s_Neo.html

Interesting! This doesn't appear to be available in the USA (yet???).
I wonder where they source that engine from...

[ErikFinn]

Originally Posted by Bruce Beard

Interesting! This doesn't appear to be available in the USA (yet???).
I wonder where they source that engine from...

Its a brand new model. If I remember correct having read a press release or something similar awhile ago the engine is built inhouse. But I might be wrong, it was a few months ago I saw something, google would propably find it.. But yea, if FP has remedied the bad rep issues these news ones look very interesting indeed..

[OndinePLC]

...although I see you are from Venezuela so you may be dealing with 50 Hz and 3000 rpm's vs 1500 rpm's...


FYI Venezuelan power comes at 115/220VAC 60Hz
the same as USA when you are lucky enough to get any.

Regarding Kubota engines I quote from my forthcoming book "Desperate Deliveries" when athe Kubota genset overheated:

So it must be the pump, doubtless the rubber impeller though Danny said he had checked it recently. These pumps have a cover plate fixed with screws covering the impeller, you take off the plate and there it is. They are normally mounted in an accessible place on the front of the engine so one can remove the plate easily. Not on this Kubota engine. This pump was mounted in a recess on the side between two protruding parts of the engine, so first I had to take out the whole pump before we could get at the cover plate, not an easy job in the cramped space down in the engine compartment. When I finally got it out and took off the cover the impeller looked fine, like new and no broken flaps. So maybe the heat exchanger was blocked? I was about to put it back together, but then thought I had better check the seal. I started to prise the impeller out with a screwdriver. As I worked it out of the pump I was puzzled to see the end of the steel shaft inside the impeller coming with it, surely it should stay in the pump? It popped out and the mystery was solved, the 5/8” stainless shaft had corroded and snapped right off behind the impeller, so it wouldn’t rotate.


This says to me poor engineering design on the impeller accessibility and poor QA/QC on the pump shaft metallurgy and machining.

__________________________________________________ _____

"A Small Slip" by Cris Robinson available on Kindle ebooks.

[malbert73]

I am probably a lifelong next gen fan. My 5.5 seems bulletproof.....

[transmitterdan]

Ondine,

You might want to read up on crevice corrosion and stainless steel. Your story sounds like a lot of other crevice corrosion stories. Stainless steel can be mercilessly attacked by chlorine when there is no oxygen present.

Stainless steel isn’t really stainless. It contains small amounts of other metals such as chromium that react with oxygen (oxidize) to form a hard protective layer. Ironically, the oxidation is what makes stainless resist corrosion. When there is no oxygen but other corrosive compounds present they can eat through stainless as if it were made of sawdust.

Crevice corrosion is not necessarily caused by poor metallurgy design although it could be. Different types of stainless are better then others at resistance but they all can fail. It can only be prevented through periodic inspection by someone trained to know the signs.

[OndinePLC]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Ondine,

You might want to read up on crevice corrosion and stainless steel. Your story sounds like a lot of other crevice corrosion stories. Stainless steel can be mercilessly attacked by chlorine when there is no oxygen present.

Stainless steel isn’t really stainless. It contains small amounts of other metals such as chromium that react with oxygen (oxidize) to form a hard protective layer. Ironically, the oxidation is what makes stainless resist corrosion. When there is no oxygen but other corrosive compounds present they can eat through stainless as if it were made of sawdust.

Crevice corrosion is not necessarily caused by poor metallurgy design although it could be. Different types of stainless are better then others at resistance but they all can fail. It can only be prevented through periodic inspection by someone trained to know the signs.

You are correct, the break was due to corrosion cracking evident from an inspection of the fracture.
Just about anybody who has spent time on boats knows about SS corrosion, I personally have been on three boats at sea that have lost their forestays due to corrosion cracking of fittings.

Nevertheless a properly manufactured shaft like this should not fail on an engine not many years old and with few running hours. I expect a properly marinised diesel to last for ten years and 5000 hours running at least. There is at least one of these shafts on every engine powered boat in existence, but I've never heard of one failing like this before.

I understand Kubota makes their engines in China and Taiwan (Taiwan stainless - ring a bell?). The pump may well be outsourced, but it is still a failure of their QA/QC to ensure that the material composition and forging, machining and finishing process are correctly carried out to achieve a level of corrosion resistance consistent with the expected lifetime.

Incorrect machining procedures can change the surface crystal structure and allow corrosion to start there, SS propeller shafts often break at the point where they have been machined.

If corrosion was not preventable for the reasonable expected lifetime of the piece we would all have to adopt your recommendation to pull our pump shafts every so often and have them inspected by an expert, not to mention the rest of the SS on the boat! Or buy bronze ones.


-----------------------------------------------------------
"A Small Slip" by Cris Robinson available at Kindle e-books.

[YARGESOL]

I'm at the Panda camp. Got FP4500 FCB , secon hand,good deal only 60 hours.
Confirming the rull that "Greedy pays twice" ... I paid twice for installation: 1-st to a local handy electrcian, that made all wrong;2-nd to the dealer-advised shop. Now it supply me steady16- 20 Amps (this is 220V/50Hz) and I may run most of consumers...but, not all in one time - this is relatively small genny.Actual load is 16 Amps.If overload-she will blew out a black oily water... The biggest advantage for a cat is the weight - just 100 kilos! Panda also makes conventional slow-running 1500 rpm generators. But,I'm willing to upgrade it to variable speed 1000i PMS 8 kWt. About the same size housing and almost same weight = 111 kilos - any competiton ?
The only one issue left on the apparent 3,7 KWt Panda is vibration... My boat
has the solid wooden core and, Panda manual said,you should avoid installation on the solid wood/plywood structures - it will act as a violin..."Nothing provides better sound insulation than a solid steel plate" So,
I replace the hardwoood blocks at the base to the SS plates ( adding about 30 kilos). It's better now. I think, with 2 cylinder Kubota/2200RPM (now I have 1 cylinder Farymann 3000 RPM) it will be much better.