Power Conditioner

[johnar]

Well I am back and yes I have more questions.

To start with if you are not buying new brand name things for your boat to save some money, Trust me you will not save due to the time you will spend in fixing all the problems.


When people say the cost to repower is $10K trust me it is true, and could be higher.

Ok now to my question, I have a DURO STAR 7200 W DIESEL GENERATOR but I am told by the people that sold it to me I should by a (power conditioner), I then ask them if they sold them but they do not.

This power conditioner is outside of what I know about electric, I have to guess it is some device to change the waveform,maybe sinewave or something. I have no clue where to buy one and No clue how I should really rate/spec it out. I know the Generator is 6000 watts and I have it wired for 240 so that is about 25 amps output I have it wired to a Service selector switch then to the Mains (two 30amp) on the Panel.


So where do I buy one and what kind/size/rating should i get?

Dutch

[capt_douglas]

Some generators don't follow load changes well. The load increases, the generator portion sees a heavier load and slows down, the engine sees the change in speed and tries to compensate by providing more power to the generator. All this takes time and with the average 60hz sine wave lasting 16.67ms, these change compensations need to occur fairly fast.

There are 2 kinds of power conditioners; electronic and transformer. The electronic version takes the voltage out of the genset and tries to make it constant in voltage and frequency. This can require a bit of circuitry. The transformer version, or auto-transformer, provides a fairly constant output voltage for a range of input voltages. The changes in voltage can cause motors, pumps, and lights to fail sooner due to higher input currents or lower expected voltages.

Auto-transformers are neither cheap nor light weight. They can also get quite warm when working hard. If your genset will produce 6000w then I'd want an auto-transformer that was at least that big. The electronic version is smaller, lighter, but may not be much cheaper.

[johnar]

Thank you for the info. I think I understand how it works, I have used a freakdrive while at work years ago.

Would you happen to know where I could get some prices?


Dutch