Smaller Aux Generator wanted

[kmuller]

Jeff - that was an interesting story about fire suppression for the generator. Something was definitely wrong with the unit and/or the installation. Many times there is a huge "gap" between the manufacturers specs and what some tech knowingly or unknowing does during the installation. Being in the Yacht service and construction business for 25 years, we have never heard of this happening and technically it’s not possible, all of these tanks are designed to vent if the temperature gets too high. Every marine system we have ever seen vents off at 175 degrees. I wonder what brand the unit was? In addition, our yard would only install such a unit to ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) technical guidelines. In addition to specific installation requirements, ABYC standards do not allow for any part of any exhaust system to exceed 200 F, if it does it must be insulated in order to comply with that temp rating. Great advise for coaches as well, particularly in light of all the recent press regarding coach fires. We recently had the genset exhaust system on a Liberty checked for temp and found two areas that required re-insulation to meet the 200 F max temp standard. This was in addition to loose wiring and several chaffing issues that would have led to real problems down the road. Sleeping with a generator running is a significant concern if the exhaust, temperature, fire, and CO detection systems are not up to snuff. We will be installing a coach wide fire/smoke/temp/co detection and suppression system to cover all bays as well as the engine, generator and electrical panels/systems this winter. The system and installation will be ABYC compliant.

[Petervs]

Hello again,

What the heck is a dual output framulator? If I have one, would somebody kindly intoduce me to her?

If you mean the wiring to run 2 ACs from the engine alternator through the inverters, well, sorry, my coach does not have that. I have inverters that are not big enough for that, instead, I have what amounts to 3 dash air units, one in front, middle, and rear; for use while driving. It works real well. And then there are 3 cruise airs for use when shore power or generator power is available.

Another way to think about this generator fuel consumption is as follows:

The coach engine, 500hp or so, burns diesel at about 7.5 mpg while driving down the road at an average speed of say 62 mph. That works out to 8.3 gallons per hour. The engine is not working all that hard most of the time, lets say it is making 175 hp on average. That is 35% of rated power. I am just guessing at the hp made here so we have numbers to use in this example.

Dividing 175 by 8.3 gives you 21 hp for an hour for each gallon of diesel consumed.

Now run the generator. If it is a 17.5kw it probably has a 30hp diesel attached. Since it is also a water cooled diesel it should have about the same specific fuel consumption as the coach engine. If it is running at 30% power output to run just one AC, then it makes 9 hp on a steady basis. You can run at that power for 2.33 hours on a gallon of diesel if the usage is the same as the big engine. My guesses can be off by some amount, but I bet they are pretty close.

And if you ran one or two little generators at a power level to run a generator, well, you would be burning the same amount of fuel in those anyway. Just stick to the one good generator you have installed already.

Peter VS

[MangoMike]

Karl,

Please keep us posted in your new detection/supression system. Photos, details and amounts would be very helpful as it's something we should all look at.

Mike

[garyde]

From my standpoint, the A/C units are too noisey to run all night, and I have to get up in the middle of the night to turn them off. The problem seems to be we have a Diesel engine under us or adjacent to the sleep area. If the engine is hot, we will be attempting to cool off for several hours. Secondly,the bedroom has poor natural ventilation. If you can open both windows in the room , and run the bath exh. fan, you can keep the heat down until the Cool night air drops the temp.
Other than that, run the generator , run the A/C, and park next to a Lake, River, or Ocean when you can.

[win42]

Gary; I know it looks a hoaky, but when I shut down for the evening I open the rear and passenger side engine doors and any breeze cools the engine area prior to sleeping above it. I know Prevost Owners are not allowed to do hoaky things like this, but it works. Just make sure there are no PP's watching.
Harry

[Jerry Winchester]

And lastly, I have one of those 5500 Honda generators that will run an AC unit and I wouldn't have it within a zip code of the coach. It is noisy from hell and shakes like a dog crapping a peach seed

Kinda reminds you of Lew after a cheese pizza buffet binge......

[Chris and Debbie Yates]

Probably the same pizzas that come with a Liberty according to A1

AP

[Jon Wehrenberg]

That is PIZZAZ not pizzas. You not only talk funny, but you spell funny.

Hanging around with batman and robin is definitely starting to show on you.

[Chris and Debbie Yates]

To be called to task by a colonial from Tennessee.
You can be sure that if I win the lottery and buy a Liberty, thanks to you, I will never confuse my pizzas with my pizzaz. That way I will not go hungry and the coach will require less clean up
Hey Mango, you already have Mango Mike's and Bubba Mike's, how about Mike's pizzaz pizzas?

Austin Powers

[garyde]

Gary; I know it looks a hoaky, but when I shut down for the evening I open the rear and passenger side engine doors and any breeze cools the engine area prior to sleeping above it. I know Prevost Owners are not allowed to do hoaky things like this, but it works. Just make sure there are no PP's watching.
Harry

That s exactly what I would do with my Country Coach which was designed with no Vents on side or back. It makes you wonder about designers.
Anyway, 20 years ago I used to sleep outside in a tent, now I sleep in a 1M Coach and spend $ trying to keep cool.