Genset Review : Pramac s5500

[ssullivan]

I just purchased a Pramac s5500 diesel genset with Yanmar diesel engine. It replaces a China Diesel 5KW copy that only lasted approx 60hrs before the engine threw a connecting rod!

Anyway, the Pramac seems to be running very well. It has a very smooth, even tone, very readable gauges and more options to plug into. It's 100% Italian made, including the Yanmar engine which is made by Yanmar, SPA, Italia.

So far, it seems like a good unit. I can't report on reliability long term yet, but it feels like I've upgraded from a Geo to a Ferrari.

[irwinsailor]

What does something like that cost?

[DeepFrz]

This is not a review, this is a preview...

Let us know how things are when you have 100 hrs. on it...

[ssullivan]

DeepFrz: I will let you know. I'm up to 10 hours already since my refer system is requiring massive time in diagnosis and repair. A little flasher came on to tell me it was time for the first oil change. Nice touch.

Gunner: It's $3000 or so. Deck mount.

[hellosailor]

So your noisy neighbor-inciting genset up and shot itself?<G>

I think I trust the "Yanmar" brand more than any "Made In China to aggravate wide-eyed barbarians!" stamp.<G> Is the Yanmar any quieter? Or come with noise baffling options?

[DeepFrz]

I wouldn't bet on it but I have a sneaking suspicion that just about all diesel engine blocks are cast in China now. If not now, then soon...

Deep

[hellosailor]

Even so. Casting the block is one thing (and easy enough to screw up) but building that into an entire engine...a whole other story.

[DeepFrz]

Sean, a couple of questions to quiet an inquiring mind...

how do your clients accept your generator running for so many hours?

Were there any bullit holes in the old generator crankcase? <Gr>

Keep on truckin...

Deep.

[ssullivan]

DeepFrz: Well, if they like food and beverages, then they have no choice but to hear a genset for 1-1.5hrs a day. Nobody has complained, just as they don't complain that boats have limited water capacity and especially limited hot water. I think the average client is a little more intelligent than to think cold food can just magically appear without any energy creating it.


HelloSailor: The Yanmar is slightly quieter since it doesn't have a piston rattling around about to break loose. It runs much more smoothly.

Maybe that's it. The engine was out of balance due to the .44 caliber lead weight added to one of the pistons Is this unit air or water cooled?
I agree that most guests will accept the noise as a part of the operation of the vessel. I do not hear people complaining about the engines when chartering on a power boat. There are certain compromises we all make for comfort, and any expectations to the contrary would be unrealistic. I am quite sure that guests wanting to avoide the noise of a genset would be willing to do without the benefits as well.

[ssullivan]

Exactly, Kai. Also, no neighbors are concerned. People next to me in anchorages also understand that power must be generated somehow. The laws of Physics are pretty hard to get around. Harder than even anchoring laws.

[hellosailor]

"The laws of Physics are pretty hard to get around. "
But every time I hear more about the latest in string theory, quantum states, the eleven dimensions that apparently are accepted as real now, and the FIVE states of matter (plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensate being the two most recent ones)...the more I'm certain that while you can't break the laws of physics, they not only VARY from time to time and place to place, but you can appear to break them quite easily when the locals just have no real grasp on them.
Example: They've split a quark into two discrete particles in two separate containment vessels, with no ascertainable link. But then, when they rotate one--the other one rotates the same way too!
Example: The speed of light in a BEC has been slowed down to 35mph. Not the usual 186,000fps, but 35mph.

There's some really "odd" stuff going on, Newtonian physics apparently only governs the fall of apples.

[Alan Wheeler]

Errr, light is 186,000 miles per second not feet per second.
It's not so much the laws not being understood or being broken or what ever, it's a case of when you start playing with the speed of light, you also play with time. This is the delema of quantum physics. What you may think you are seeing may not actually be real or you may not actually be seeing it as it really is and if you could see it, it can't be what it was. It's waaay cool stuff and keeps brains like mine occupied for hrs with cool way out there thinking.
One concept at the mo, is a black hole. Does it really suck in matter?? In one concept yes, but in another, no. Lets say you are being drawn into the Black hole. But as you are falling into the hole, you reach a point called the event horizon. this is the point where light is stoped. It is not falling in a dn it is not escaping. But this very point is also where time stops. So you would reach the event horizon and if we could observe you, you would be there for all enternity. But are you or are you not. And that my friend is the fundemental problem with what ever is observed in the "labs" when particles smaller than what we thought could exist, are trying to be observed. Is what we are seeing real.
Hey that just scratched the scratch that's on the surface of a universe of particle physics and quntum mechanics and other things. We just simply don't know. But it sure is cool fun trying to find out.

[CaptainK]

Can we see dead stars with the naked eye?

When a star dies. (By that I mean when there are no more nuclear fision reactions going on in it), it can take three different forms. Depending on the initial mass of the star, it will become either a white dwarf, a neutron star or a black hole.

You can immediately rule out seeing black holes because they don't emit any light, and neutron stars becasue they are too small. This leaves us with white dwarfs, which are the larger of the three possible end products for stars.

Unfornately, you will not be able to see even the brightest white dwarf. Astronomers describe the brightness of stars by their magnitude. The magnitude scale goes backwards such that a star with a magnitude of 4 is fainter than a star with magnitude with 1. With the naked eye and a clear sky, you can see stars about up to magnitude 6, and it turns out that the brightest white dwarf has a magnitude of 8.3.

Moreover, that the brightest white dwarf is in a binary system: it is the companion of the brightest star in the night sky: Sirius (that star is called Sirius A and its white dwarf companion is Sirius B). This makes it even more difficult to see, since the light from Sirius A overwhelmes that from Siruis B. But still, you can look at Sirius and imagine you are looking at two stars, one of which is a white dwarf!

The other idea would be to look at other remanants of stars: planetary nubulae. When a star dies and becomes a white dwarf, it ejects some gas into space that appears to glow because it is illuminated by the stars. If you can see a planetary nubulae, it means that there is a white dwarf in the centre of it. But once again we fall out of luck, since the brightest planetary nubula, the dumbbell nubula, has a magnitude of 7.4, which means you cannot see it with the naked eye.

What are Black Holes?

Black holes are the result of a gravitational collaspe that distorts the fabric of spacetime so drastically, nothing (save radiation) is allowed to escape. The formation of black holes is driectly linked to the life cycle of a star. Eventually, stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, and are no longer able to counteract the inward pull of gravity. The core of the star collapses, making it very difficult for that star's light to escape the core's tremendous gravitational pull. The star eventually passes through what is called an event horizon (a cosmological point of no return) and forms what is called a singularity, a single point of infinate density.

Can We See Black Holes?

Because light cannot escape the gravitational pull of a black hole, it is impossible to see those objects with the naked eye. There is a good amount of evidence that suggest they exist. Perhaps the most convincing (outside of our cosmological models, which are evidence enough for some, myself included). Photgraphs taken with different renderings, such as infra-red, that can see gasseous movements that our own naked eye cannot.

What Happens if Something Falls into a Black Hole?

Because we have never physically seen anything falling into a black hole, and because even if we were to see something fall past the event horizon, we would no longer be able to view it (remember, light cannot escape) we can only theorize about what would happen if something were to fall into one.

Because we know that the gravity in a black hole is so strong that light even even cannot escape, the common theory is that something will slowly be crushed into a compact singularity over time. Of course, the likeihood of something falling into a black hole seems likely remote. Certainly you and I have nothing to worry about. There have not been any black holes detected anywhere in our vicinity. There is, however, the very likely possibilty that there is a black hole much closer to us that most would imagine.

[Alan Wheeler]

Sorry K mate, but your tale above is kinda shot to bits these days. You need to get a new encylopedia
Can we see Black holes?? well actually yes. You see, it depends on how you look and with what you look with. Optical telescopes have very limited uses these days. Even less when used in the Human visual range. There is so much more to be seen using other light spectrums, radio spectrums and gamma and xray spectrums. Black holes have actually recently become "visable" (more accuarte to say "detectable") using Nutrino's.

A star does not have to emit light to be seen. Infact, most of our universe is not "Seen" visably. As for seeing objects close to one another or even behind another, even that can be done today, by using gravity as a lens.

A black hole is not the rsult of a gravitational collpase. It is the gravity that existed when the enormouse mass of the star existed, that still remains long after the mass has been ejected.
The "stages" of dying stars are more than three. It depends on the size when they were actual stars as to what becomes of them afterward.

But anyways, this is a sailing BB. I should not have gone off topic to begin with. Sorry.