Diesel Generators or Petrol Generators?

Generator charge controller?

• We are running a camp in a natural setting which is off grid. As we mainly need electricity for lights... our load is rather small. My current generator (2.3 KVA) is quite noisy and has to be replaced. I looked in the option of buying a silent generator. I found out inverter technology generators would be ideal as they are super silent but am afraid they are rather built for camping purposes and not commercial daily running (although we only would run it for 6 hours daily). I am now looking into the option to buy a silent diesel generator. I understand though that with diesel generators i should run it on +- 60 % of it's load. As I will not reach this load I plan to charge some batteries at the same time. I read that some generator charge controllers do not disconnect the generator from the battery when these are fully charged but diverts excess energy to a special load that absorbs most of the power from the generator so as to maintain the load and protect your generator. Does anyone know more details how to charge your batteries with the excess energy of a generator while protecting you generator by having a constant load on it? I plan to buy a 3.3 KVA diesel generator and guess we would normally use around 500 W (= 30 bulbs @ 10 W + some extra)

• Answer:

  Hello Ruben ,,,sounds like your on the right track..Let me give you a couple of alternates...First most generator sets do NOT have a minor winding in them to charge a battery..Now the JD-Y type onan do but they are higher in cost ...I think the onan diesel is a DJD anyway...one of the best ways to charge a battery is to do it with the output of the generator (120VAc) and a regular automotive charger..If this is your cranking battery a solar trickle of 100watts is suggested in combination with the electrical one...Now if your charging a group of batteries say 5 or 6 or even 20 for inverter usage later You need to get a charge controller that will allow them to charge but not burn up the bank because one is low...It can happen...Now several companies make the bank chargers but they are rather expensive sometimes in the thousands of dollars..Trace engineering and Xantrex make one that will charge 2 12 volt cells at a time...but here again I like the idea of simplicity so an electronic charger @4 amps or 6 amps for each battery is very simple to install,repair and understand...If one goes down the entire system doesn't fail either...you can get all this stuff from your local x=mart store and from the internet... I like the idea of the small diesel but from years of doing this if its a 3600 rpm unit the lifetime will be much shorter than an 1800 rpm exponentially so...and when buying one if you find a used one with a few hours <500 you can say they just got the thing broke in...I have a 15kw that has 8k hrs plus on it...Now as far as requiring the use of 60% of the output all the time I'm not so sure about this. they can be used two ways ..one way the unit goes to idle when zero volts reference is noted and another way engages the speed control ,governor or whatever and holds it there based on exciter voltage input..but I have run these at less than 5% load for many hours on job-sites...I hope you have good luck in this I can only say treat your system with maintenance as foremost and they will give you years of service...have a good one from the E