Joe Greco wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jan 2010, Mike wrote:
site owners a solution to test and verify generator operation. Does anyone have any pointers to possible solutions or vendor white papers I could look at? We probably want to verify start, read voltage to verify output, and maybe even gauge fuel in the tanks if thats possible. Start with the generator owner's manual. You'd be amazed at what helpful maintenance suggestions can be found there. Sometimes they're even online... :)
Seriously, "talk to your vendor." You can frequently get gear with remote reporting, some of it will do dry contact or even talk RS232. If you can not, a lot of it can be measured anyways.
If your gear doesn't "support" it, talk to generator service guys who are well-thought-of in your area. I'd place good odds that they'll be happy to outfit you with a computer-readable fuel level indicator, oil pressure, remote test, etc., etc., though they may be smiling their way to the bank and thanking you for all the custom work.
Many automatic generators have provisions for a remote annunciator which are typically just wired up as voltage out for each warning light/alarm. You could easily put a tiny relay on those and make it contact closure. It might not give you "the temp is 151" but it could give you "pre-alarm high temp" before "high temp shutdown" for cheap. ~Seth