Breaking-In a New Generator

[lorenzo b]

so I'm breaking in a new 20 k Northernlights generator and the manual says to load the generator to 75% capacity to seat the piston rings properly. I can do this by turning the heat all the way up on my 5 ton air conditioning unit, but it's already 95 degrees here in this godforsaken swamp. Today I had the air conditioner on full blast, but it only uses 8k so I had 5 electric space heaters going at the same time and of course they had to be right under the cool air as the heaters turn themselves off at 90 degrees. My mechanic came by to help set up my throttle and suggested I take my cracker box welder and drop the leads in the water about 10 feet apart and slowly turn up the juice till I got the load I needed and that way I could have the aircon on without the heaters. Has anyone tried this? He says that's how they do it down here all the time, but I've noticed cajuns do a lot of strange things. You don't see a lot of old folks down here.

[Cheechako]

you're kiddin right?

[s/v Jedi]

I am doing the same thing with our new Northern Lights 6 kW. It's much easier to find loads for 6 kW but not aboard Jedi ;-) So, we are running the clothes drier without anything to dry, an air conditioner etc. For varying the load, we use microwave and coffeemaker (oh yes, we drink all the coffee ;-)

But are you going to do this for how long? 1st 50 hours or all 100 hours/

cheers,
Nick.

[Intentional Drifter]

20kw! Guess you could run some shore power cords to your neighbors and power their A/C's, too!

As to the welder leads in the water -- I really wouldn't want to be a diver cleaning somebody's bottom when you turned that on! But, I'd love to be their lawyer.

ID

[Chief Engineer]

"But I don't understand why my zincs are gone and the Prop is pink!!!!!

[lorenzo b]

I do have 20 20lb zincs welded to my bottom, do you really think the stray current will eat them up? There are no divers here, you couldn't see your bottom if your nose was pushed up against it.

[Chief Engineer]

Watts=Amps x volts

20000=166.66x120

I don't know what you could power up to require 160 amps.

There again...it was a trawler with probably electric capstans and winches?

If you bought this....you may have over done it

The 120 footer as my avatar has two 20 KW (we run one at a time and we have electric stoves, calorifier, 6 a/c units as well as water pumps and heads, lights etc.....) we barely make a dent in the output.

[Chief Engineer]

You have 400 pounds of Zincs on the hull?

Steel Tugs I worked on (75 feet) had maybe 100 -150 pounds and these were diesel electric.

[lorenzo b]

I do. One every 10 ft in both directions. That's what was recommended and that's the pattern used on all the other shrimp boats in the yard. Seems like they would last about two years and about 60% would be eaten away.They cost about $40 each, which I thought was a pretty good price. From what I could make out, steel bottoms have a tough life around here.

[motion30]

Good way to cook them catfish before they float to the surface

[lorenzo b]

I was told that some folks actually do fish that way down here, and the game wardens have no sense of humor when they find them. My electrician is coming in monday and I'll see if he has any ideas.

[David M]

Lots of fish studies use electroshock to collect samples. Most of the time it just temporarily stuns the fish. This is enough time to net them, record and then release them. And yes, fish poaching has some very serious fines including jail time for the more serious cases.

[lorenzo b]

the solution
I took the cracker box welder and placed the leads on a solid piece of aluminum about a foot apart and well isolated and started up the generator. By increasing the amps on the welder I can dial up the load I need to get the generator up to 75%.