# Generator issues



## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

I just recently installed a gen hookup at my own house.. Everything seems to work fine except all the TV's. I have a Monster power center at each TV...I understand they may be acting as a power filter, but should a brand new generator cause unclean power or erratic voltages to that extent? My only other tv that doesn't have a power center works but the cable box or DVD player hooked up to it won't turn on even though there is power present. Entertainment is one of my main reasons for my gen set up. My computer rooms UPS displays voltages from 109-116, And keeps alarming.

Also, since I'm using a interlock, I really don't know when street power comes back on without going and switching the main back on... Is there anything they make that will alert or alarm me when street power comes back.


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

Plumb a din rail breaker into the feed side of your main. Out of that hit a small light fixture (think jelly jar) on the outside of the panel. Power comes on light is on. Turn breaker off when you turn the generator off. 
As for the power quality , have you measures what the genset is doing? Hertz ? Is it erratic? Voltage? Is it erratic?


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

Power at the gen is clean....Also testing various outlets around the house 119v.... Even at the cable boxes I'm getting 120V, I must of fried the cable box and blue ray player when we lost power?? Now I have the monster power centers running but intermittently they shut down and voltage drops... Not normal i wouldn't think because I don't have anything large turned on that would need excessive starting power.


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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

How do you know the power is clean, did you test it? What is the frequency measurement on the line?


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

I have had voltage present before and not had any frequency. Also have had negative frequency too. VFD's will make you check all sorts of things before you say " clean power"


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

Good question... I've never tested for freq. before. Also , I'm cooking on a hot plate now and the generator is bogging more frequently and the voltage is jumping. Nothing else is on? I have an 8000watt generator ? It can't handle an electric hot top?


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

How old is the generator? Could it be a fuel or maintenance problem with the engine for the generator? Carburetor not clean? Air filter dirty?


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

Sounds like an issue. Check frequency, hot plate should not big down genny


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

hardworkingstiff said:


> How old is the generator? Could it be a fuel or maintenance problem with the engine for the generator? Carburetor not clean? Air filter dirty?


Generator is brand new Briggs 8000w


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

journeyman777 said:


> Generator is brand new Briggs 8000w


Even more reason to check out what's going on. Loose connection is gonna be #1 culprit.


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

journeyman777 said:


> Generator is brand new Briggs 8000w


Then I would load it up with approximately 2k loads and keep a check on voltage and frequency readings. That will tell you a lot.

Could be as simple as you need to lube the speed control linkage. Could be it was put together on a Monday by someone with a hangover.


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

nolabama said:


> Even more reason to check out what's going on. Loose connection is gonna be #1 culprit.


Disconnected the Monster Power box and went right into wall....works fine... The power center reads abnormal voltage, the generator must put out an unclean voltage( at least for the built in power filters). however the gen Boggs for a second every time I turn burner on.


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

Your gonna be buying new flat screens.....


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

nolabama said:


> Plumb a din rail breaker into the feed side of your main. Out of that hit a small light fixture (think jelly jar) on the outside of the panel. Power comes on light is on. Turn breaker off when you turn the generator off.
> As for the power quality , have you measures what the genset is doing? Hertz ? Is it erratic? Voltage? Is it erratic?


This is also new to me, never heard of a din rail breaker. Did done googling , not much info on it at all.


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?sku=70060602

DIN rail. Get a meter, metric system stuff. About thirty bucks. Mount this in your panel ( not the whole meter worth). Stick breaker on it. Feed light and viola.

Apparently that breaker can be flush mounted... No need for the rail.


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## AmpsHertz (Jan 30, 2013)

For $40 you can buy the PowerBack device which wraps around a feeder cable and beeps loudly when the power comes back on. No need to rig up a light and have to check it (you could look out the window for free anyway).


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

AmpsHertz said:


> For $40 you can buy the PowerBack device which wraps around a feeder cable and beeps loudly when the power comes back on. No need to rig up a light and have to check it (you could look out the window for free anyway).


That sounds good, do you know what it's called exactly ? I haven't found anything online for this device


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

Found it but its discontinued. Reliance controls makes it


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

*Bump*

J*man777, did you ever find what was causing the bogging down of the generator?

Did you take voltage and frequency measurements? What's going on with this?


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## buckey (Jan 14, 2013)

The worst things for generators are UPS and radio transmitters! see if you can turn down the sensitivity on the UPS( sometimes a small dial on the back) maybe in software (if equipped) also like the others said check your HZ !! When the hot plate comes on it may drag the unit down a bit and if the UPS takes over(when it alarms) they charge back up at 3X the rating!!


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

hardworkingstiff said:


> J*man777, did you ever find what was causing the bogging down of the generator?
> 
> Did you take voltage and frequency measurements? What's going on with this?


I did not find out why the generator would bog with the stove's hotplate on...I still need to solve this. I will be contacting Briggs to see what they say. Voltage measurements were normal everywhere in the house. Freq.. I did not test. 

I did however speak directly with monster Audio and they told me their power centers will not run using generator power. It's just one of their protection methods.... I just ran the TV/Cable/Apple TV in an extension cord w/ Surge protector, then into the power center...that way if I switch over to Gen I can just remove one plug from the power center and hit the wall.

My guess is any type of power center will shut down with generator power present.... Def, good to know for future..... Most consumers buy these for that reason....to filter Gen power....... Maybe some high high end ones might? Mine wasn't exactly cheap it's one of their larger $600 HD models. But, like I said I have 3...all different classes ...... Not one would operate for more than 30 seconds without going into protection mode.


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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

Monster telling you that their stuff doesnt run on generator connection is BS. A good generator will have an indistinguishable waveform from the poco. You really need to stick your dmm in the socket and read the frequency. From there, a power analyser or a scope will give you worlds of information about the power quality. 

This is the sine wave from a honda inverter generator









This is the waveform from a cheap chinese generator










You don't want the latter


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## denny3992 (Jul 12, 2010)

Search fir a thread i started about generac power quality..... Try loadig the gen to 80% and see if that works? The wave gets better as gen is loaded....


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## vinister (Apr 11, 2012)

As posted above, your genny is modified sine wave, or just straight up square wave. They run the output though a resonant filter to try to 'fake' a sine wave, but nothing short of a true sine wave generator is gonna solve these issues. Most appliances don't care, but anything that takes its clock signal from the 60hz line is gonna freak out. Anything that has a switch mode power supply, however (like your tv's and laptops etc) are going to be fine. Your monster power "whatevers" are just tripping out. 

The peak voltage on a modified sine wave or square wave has to be much higher to achieve the same 120V rms than a pure sine wave would have to be. I'm too many beers in to remember why, but that is why your monsters are a' freakin.

You need a massive low-pass filter... at 8KW you're getting into dangerous territory. Loose the monsters or loose the cheap genny and get an onan or something with pure sine output.


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

vinister said:


> As posted above, your genny is modified sine wave, or just straight up square wave. They run the output though a resonant filter to try to 'fake' a sine wave, but nothing short of a true sine wave generator is gonna solve these issues. Most appliances don't care, but anything that takes its clock signal from the 60hz line is gonna freak out. Anything that has a switch mode power supply, however (like your tv's and laptops etc) are going to be fine. Your monster power "whatevers" are just tripping out.
> 
> The peak voltage on a modified sine wave or square wave has to be much higher to achieve the same 120V rms than a pure sine wave would have to be. I'm too many beers in to remember why, but that is why your monsters are a' freakin.
> 
> You need a massive low-pass filter... at 8KW you're getting into dangerous territory. Loose the monsters or loose the cheap genny and get an onan or something with pure sine output.


Nice info... I was told before I bought my Briggs&Stratton to only spend my money on a Honda if I was to go portable.....didnt listen!


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

journeyman777 said:


> Nice info... I was told before I bought my Briggs&Stratton to only spend my money on a Honda if I was to go portable.....didnt listen!


I read the entire thread and, maybe I missed it but, this is the first time I have seen the word " portable" used.
I'm thinking of a low end type used on job sites.

I think the OP should try to trade up.


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

jrannis said:


> I read the entire thread and, maybe I missed it but, this is the first time I have seen the word " portable" used.
> I'm thinking of a low end type used on job sites.
> 
> I think the OP should try to trade up.


Funny, I also read the thread and "assumed" it was a portable generator.

I agree, the OP went cheap and now is having to deal with it.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Very informative post _Triden_. I've assumed that most portables were just small versions of the larger AVR style I'd worked on and couldn't for the life of me understand why that distorted wave would be normal, even in a cheap one.

Found this site that did a great job explaining the basics of running sensitive equipment on generator power. 

For the cliff notes, here are some common waveforms produced by different types of voltage regulation:


















The brushless waveform looks like spot-on match to your snapshot. Anyone know off hand why a small portable brushless would do that?


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

My portable Briggs&Stratton .....opposed to a stand-by generator. Most homes around me use portables over stand-by....


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## journeyman777 (Mar 29, 2011)

This picture is directly from Honda's website on their EU2000i companion generator which is a very nice unit in my opinion for a portable that is.

Also a picture of 2 running in parallel I installed a couple of months ago. They sound no louder than a small AC condenser.


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## 64pvolvo1800 (Jan 29, 2013)

Big John said:


> Very informative post Triden. I've assumed that most portables were just small versions of the larger AVR style I'd worked on and couldn't for the life of me understand why that distorted wave would be normal, even in a cheap one.
> 
> Found this site that did a great job explaining the basics of running sensitive equipment on generator power.
> 
> ...


This screenshot is most likely taken with load on the unit. Specifically, thyristor loads such as a UPS or even a copier. They hit the wave at the peak and when the load hits it causes the engine to bog. This results in the wave dipping as well as the voltage dip. In the small units, they are typically saturated field, meaning voltage is directly related to speed. 
Brushless with an AVR is much better at propping up voltage regardless of speed. Hence a cleaner wave. However, because the small brushless is still not an infinite source, the wave skews a bit still.


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## hardworkingstiff (Jan 22, 2007)

journeyman777 said:


> This picture is directly from Honda's website on their EU2000i companion generator which is a very nice unit in my opinion for a portable that is.


I have an EU2000i, and even though I don't like the price, I love the generator.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

We actually had to test out one of our small portable Honda generators today because there was an issue of some test-equipment acting inappropriately when run on generator power. I grabbed a scope and darn if the wave form didn't exactly match this one:








And yes, it was a modified-square-wave generator. So far that website is three-for-three, because I've seen large 3-phase AVR generators that were also similar to the wave-form with hairy peaks. 

However, in this case it did only match when I put a 15A load on it. When unloaded it was actually much closer to a true square-wave with a pronounced flat peak.

I didn't have my camera, I'll try to grab some pictures in a couple days.


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

Line side of the main breaker wire a small inline fuse, then feed a 25 amp DPDT relay, feed the genny thru this. When POCO power is restored your genny power will be interupted.


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## captkirk (Nov 21, 2007)

Its all relative to what your doing with it. If you need to run sensitive electronic equipment then pony up for the expensive model but its a bit over kill if you just need it for running tools on a job site or the occasional blackout...ive been on a portable 5500 watt yamaha for 6 days and i did just fine.... My clocks ran fast and some of the appliances with motors ran a little slower but we made out just fine...
In my opinion if you are backfeeding your whole house on a portable you need at least 7500 watts... And you might as well go with a nat gas if your gonna pony up that much money for a portable inverter type.


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## duque00 (Sep 11, 2008)

Hey Jman777 - did you ever test your electronics somewhere else to see if they were fried? Some of the newer electronics will have "kill-switches" (for lack of a better word) inside of them. If they don't get steady 60hz they will not turn on. Sort of internal protection. A buddy of mine was unsuccessful running his fridge and TV during Sandy with a genny. The plug in light works but nothing else. I asked him how much for the fridge and TV - he said about $3k. Congrats you saved $3k. If they were older they might of been fried.

Genny from the Big Box stores are Chinese Garbage. I tell people to stay away if you are going to use them on High-End stuff - electronics, appliances, etc. Stay away. Some lights, some heat, some power tools, no problem then.

These Chinese Gennys are NOT Frequency Regulated, much less Voltage regulated.

Honda Gennys as we've seen are great and work like a charm. The are very quiet as well. Pony up and get a Honda and ditch the B&S.


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## Spark Master (Jul 3, 2012)

I started reading about inverter generators. I got so into it, I never brought a generator for my house.  I started wanting all these fancy generators, and the price got higher and higher.

So I got nothing. For the once a year I will need it, it just got crazy.


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