Caigslist Find

[unimog1300]

I had been to an auction about 4 weeks ago to look at a Cat Olympian generator. The company was downsizing and didn't have a need for it anymore. We watched it "sell" for $7100 plus 10% buyers premium. Everyone thought that was a good deal, as it retailed for $19,000 in 2004. After reading about all the great deals on CL I decide I'd look too. Started about a month ago and haven't really found anything that seemed like a "deal". Last week I decided to check out the "business" section of CL for the first time and did find a deal. Low and behold, I find the same generator from the auction that I had been to 4 weeks ago, with the same pictures from the auction listing. They were asking $9000 for it. I sent them an email, asking if they had bought it to re-sell. After several emails back and forth, it was obvious that they had never sold it that day at the auction. I never played my hand that I had been there at the auction. They told me to make an offer, so I did. Within 30 minutes they responded that we "had a deal" and I had bought it for $5000. It also included a 225 amp transfer switch. It's a D60P3 and has 188 hours, looks like new. It was serviced by the Cat dealer the entire time. I stopped by the Cat dealer and talked with them about it and asked what a good price would be. He said that anything around 1/2 of new price was a deal. I picked it up yesterday and brought it home, it was just 15 miles away. The girl told me they had tried to sell it at an auction and had a reserve of $7500 and never met it. Our current Generac unit, which you can see in the back of the pictures, can't run the entire house, my building, and my wife's shop. This one will run all of them, at 50% capacity. Perfect.

 

[35mastr]

Is this for constant power or just back up?

 

[unimog1300]

Mainly backup. We might consider running it a few days a month to keep the fuel fresh. It has a 155 gallon base tank. It has more than enough power to run all we have which we can't do with our current 15KW Generac on propane. We were out of power for over 2 hours yesterday and have lost power several other times the last few days. Sunny day here today and come home and find all the clocks blinking from loss of power again.

 

[mrb]

very nice! did it come single phase or do you have to reconnect the windings or something? Make sure when you run it, you have it loaded up good to avoid wet stacking.

 

[unimog1300]

No it's 3 phase. My electrician said it will be no problem and the Cat dealer said the same thing or we could have it reconnected for about $18-1900.

I ran it today for about 35 minutes after hosing off the top of the fuel tank. Came up to 180 degrees as it should and let it run to dry everything off on top of the tank. It is not connected to anything yet. There is no residue of any kind by the turbo and it only smokes when it fires up. After that brief instant it runs clean. My skid steer fires up exactly the same way.

It's amazing how clean this unit is inside. The fuel tank had some spilled fuel by the filler neck and engine oil from the filter changes along with dirt mixed in it sitting on top of the fuel tank. Other than hosing that junk off I used paper towels and Windex to wipe off the dust inside.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

If you are around the Nashville area and need a generator similar to this, there is a company going out of business with some nice listings on CL. One is a Kohler 20KW unit with a John Deere diesel that has 59 hours on it and some monster air compressors. There is a little IR 80 gallon that I am going to call about on Monday.

http://chattanooga.craigslist.org/tls/1227541575.html

 

[Stuart in MN]

Olympians are good generators, but a 60kw unit is pretty big for home use...you need to watch out for 'wet stacking', or as my local Cat guys call it, slobbering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_stacking Did the generator come with a block heater and battery charger? They typically do, and they should be plugged in to keep the generator ready to start when you need it. I'd recommend having Cat do the rewire to convert it to single phase, and it should be run at least monthly to keep it in good condition.

 

[unimog1300]

Olympians are good generators, but a 60kw unit is pretty big for home use...you need to watch out for 'wet stacking', or as my local Cat guys call it, slobbering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_stacking Did the generator come with a block heater and battery charger? They typically do, and they should be plugged in to keep the generator ready to start when you need it. I'd recommend having Cat do the rewire to convert it to single phase, and it should be run at least monthly to keep it in good condition.

Stuart,

It is big for home use and since it is 3 phase it will be de-rated by going to single phase if it isn't rewired. Our Generac unit is 15KW with a 100 amp transfer switch and we do not have my wife's shop or my building hooked to it. We also need to add the geothermal too.

It does have a block heater and a battery charger. It will exercise once a week just like the Generac does. I work for Cat and have talked to the local Cat Power Systems dealer about it. I will be talking to them several more times.

To us this is a no brainer.......$5000 for all the capacity I need/want with a 225 amp transfer switch versus $3800 plus tax for a new Generac 17KW with a 100 amp transfer switch. The Generac is not built for prime power either. I plan on running the Cat for a day or two each month to keep the fuel fresh.

 

[Nealcrenshaw]

Question: Does the transfer switch automatically swith to the generator when the power goes out? If so how does it detect when power is off,does the the power from the grid feed into it somehow?

 

[Icy Mike]

and i thought finding a 5 inch wilton vise for $10 was a good find....

 

[unimog1300]

Question: Does the transfer switch automatically swith to the generator when the power goes out? If so how does it detect when power is off,does the the power from the grid feed into it somehow?

Yes, the transfer switch senses the power from the utility is off and energizes a coil that phisically switches to the generator side and signals the generator to start. When the switch transfers the load to the generator and you are anywhere within earshot of the transfer switch, you know it switched. It is noisy. When the utility restores power the panel senses the load is up to a certain percentage of utility power to make sure it is really turned back on. This prevents any on - off of the utility back into your system. The panel monitors the utility and disconnects after it reaches the percentage. The generator runs for a few minutes to cool down the engine and then shuts it down. Not sure how all that happens electrically, maybe someone here can fill in the those blanks for us.