Generac experts?

[Bigbandguy]

Hi guys,

Long before I joined this forum (or knew about it) I had a 17KW Generac backup generator installed. It has developed the habit of quietly running its battery down and if I'm lucky I notice it failing to self test or if not it fails to start when I need it to.

Any suggestions as to why the silly thing won't keep its battery charger working and is there any good way to rig it so that it will sound some kind of alarm when it decides to quit charging. I assume one of the small fuses has blown (again) as it seems to do every time mother nature so much as farts, or a dog brushes up against a bush and generates static electricity.

Any ideas?

 

[TheEquineFencer]

LOL, go buy an Onan battery charger. I think it has an alarm feature built in for AC power fail, DC power fail and a few other bells and whistles. You get what you pay for. You might want to figure out why what you have keeps failing.

Or go join and post at SmokStak.com and get some help in the Generac section.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

U could rig up your own alarm.

Buy a NC(normally closed) relay with a coil coltage of 13-14v and a tight tolerance on the voltage range. Wire the contact(s) of the relay to an alarm, buzzer or light.

When the battery drains down to 10v or so, the relay(which is open when voltage is applied) will close, which will close the alarm circuit.

Make sure the relay contacts are rated for the same voltage as what the alarm requires!

 

[Mustang51js]

How old is the battery, it may not even be the right one. You could install a ground rod at the gen if it doesn't have one already. What's your set up like,is it in metal pipe,plastic pipe. I've hooked up a bunch of these and never had the fuses pop.

 

[rlitman]

I've got over 1MW of Generac powered standby power at work, and we sometimes have the same issue. In our case, there is a light that signals whether or not the battery charger is working. Every so often it stops, and we need to flip a switch to reset it. It's on our regular checklist. Never had to replace a fuse or reset a breaker for this.

We do also have an alarm circuit that triggers a general alarm (sends a signal to the central station monitoring), and an annunciator with a sounder that will indicate low battery voltage if this was not noticed.

For the OP's issue, a warning alarm might be the best answer.
Something like this could work:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V-Batt...-Alarm-Car-Cigarette-Lighter-ZS-/181210624800

 

[wyliesdiesels]

How old is the battery, it may not even be the right one. You could install a ground rod at the gen if it doesn't have one already. What's your set up like,is it in metal pipe,plastic pipe. I've hooked up a bunch of these and never had the fuses pop.

Install a ground rod?

What on earth would that have to do with a dead starter battery?

 

[rlitman]

Install a ground rod?

What on earth would that have to do with a dead starter battery?

Well, the issue is not the battery, but with the charger not working. If the cause of that was a power surge, I guess he was thinking that better grounding can prevent the charger from failing.

 

[Movover]

I had a friend that had one fail at his MIL's house, we replaced it with a battery tender unit, I think those cheap chargers they use are just that.. cheap!

 

[rlitman]

I had a friend that had one fail at his MIL's house, we replaced it with a battery tender unit, I think those cheap chargers they use are just that.. cheap!

Cheap chargers fail. Expensive chargers fail too!
Everything fails. But only when a charger fails silently do you get left with a dead battery. Replacing a charger with a poor failure history may reduce the odds, but nothing short of proper monitoring will prevent silent failure.

 

[dw1]

For whatever reasons, I dont think the batteries these days are built like they used to be (environmental maybe?) I bought a 10KW generator with electric start, that battery lasted about a year, same thing with my 4 wheeler and I have a auto trickle charger on it, I splurged last year and put a $$ Deko battery in it, so far, its still holding up.

 

[Mustang51js]

Install a ground rod?

What on earth would that have to do with a dead starter battery?

I. Just thinking stray voltage and a place for it to go,it may not do nothing but I know they come with a lug for it so might as well use it

 

[Mustang51js]

Do you know which fuse is blowing, n1,n2 or t1.

 

[Showkey]

Cheap chargers fail. Expensive chargers fail too!
Everything fails. But only when a charger fails silently do you get left with a dead battery. Replacing a charger with a poor failure history may reduce the odds, but nothing short of proper monitoring will prevent silent failure.

Cheap chargers or maintainers also can over charge and push the water out of the wet battery or cook a gel sealed battery.

Same cheap chargers used on backup battery sump pumps.....cooks the battery.

 

[Bigbandguy]

Update... thanks guys for all your comments and ideas. Service guy was out today and determined that the battery (8 months old) was stone dead. Charging circuit was operating and when new battery was installed it was showing proper charging current. Either the charger cooked he battery or the battery was defective. The previous battery lasted for three years.

My thought is to place a monitor on the case, perhaps with a low battery buzzer that I can hear in the house. I also want to bring a line from the battery to a waterproof connector outside the case so that I could easily hook up an outboard charger or additional battery. This would be a way to make it easy to get the the generator going in case of an outage where it didn't start.

One thing he told me was to make sure that any outboard "maintenance" charger be on the circuit covered by the generator or else the battery would fail after about a day of use. It makes sense but it isn't really obvious. Thanks again for your comments and I will revisit when we determine what was going on.

 

[rlitman]

So the generator has no alternator that charges while running? It's possible I guess, but I'd verify that before putting the external charger on a backed up circuit.

 

[Mustang51js]

Generac sells a monitor kit,pretty easy to install and it's wireless in the house