generator

On “Solar Generators”

Hi. My name is Michael and I am a pedant. I don’t mean to be, but it really can’t be helped.

I come to this admission when faced with an online discussion of “Solar Generators.” I believe this term arises from really poor use of language.

There really is no such thing as a “solar generator.” Except perhaps the sort of installation found in Nevada’s Ivanpah Dry Lake.

Let me break this down a bit:

Generators

Burn some fuel to create motion, which in turn creates electrical energy.

Predator 13500 Generator

Batteries

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Instrumentation Options for a Portable Generator

In various online forums, people are routinely asking for help when faced with a generator that’s being overloaded. This may be in the context of a food truck, mobile pet salon or delivering whole house backup power.

It’s believed that management guru Peter Drucker once said, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” I have been making a lot of use of that quote when offering answers to such questions. If you are placing a significant load on the generator, you need to monitor the load to know when you are nearing overload. Allowing it to overload is disruptive, time consuming and potentially dangerous. Without hard data to inform your decisions, you’re only guessing about how to address the problem.

Option #1: Built-in Load Monitoring

If you don’t yet have a generator, you might well consider instrumentation in making that choice. For example, my Harbor Freight Predator 9500 was one of the first of a new crop of high-power inverter models that became available in 2021. It does not have any built-in instrumentation. So, it was incumbent upon me to provide such capability externally.

In contrast, a bit over a year or two later a neighbor bought a Pulsar PGD95BISCO from Home Depot. This Pulsar if effectively a cousin to my Predator. They’re both made in China by Chongqing DK power machinery Co.,LTD. The Pulsar model was introduced later in February of 2023. To be competitive it has a few more features that the Predator. One of the nicer features is a built-in load meter.

The built-in LCD shows the output voltage, frequency and aggregate load on the generator in real-time. This is very handy. I wish my Predator had this feature.

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Backup Power: Quarterly Testing and Being Neighborly

As we are now well into Hurricane Season 2025, I’m thinking about out backup power arrangement. We’re mostly in good shape.

Quarterly Testing

Last week I exercised the Predator 9500 inverter. It needs to run for about 30 minutes every 90 days, just to keep it limber. I typically put a few ounces of gas in the tank and let it run connected to the garage until it runs dry. While I always add stabilizer to the fuel I intend to use in the generator, I’m very careful to always run it dry. I never want to leave any gas in the tank, or worse in the carburetor.

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Presenting on Backup Power to the Montie Beach Civic Club

The evening of Thursday, September 12th I will be giving my presentation on an Affordable Approach to Whole Home Backup Power to a meeting of the Montie Beach Civic Club. This is the fourth time giving this presentation this summer, and most likely the last.

Each time I give it the slides change a little to reflect the time and place. Also to add little things that I’ve learned  along the way. This time I’ve added the following image which reflects the reality that we are currently in the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Hurricane Season

This week Houston had a near miss with Hurricane Francine. Initially moving toward the Texas gulf coast, it veered northeast toward the Louisiana coast. Nonetheless, it serves as a reminder that we need to be prepared for those events that impact the city. We’ve already suffered a number of days of power outage this year, the result of the derecho and Hurricane Beryl.

In truth, much of the reason for this post is to give me a place to put a link to download the slides as a PDF. That way I can have a URL to be the target of a QR code contained in the slide deck.

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A few nice accessories for your backup generator

I’m told that accessories are the key to great fashion. I can’t remember where I heard this, but it certainly rings true. I have discovered a few accessories that make life a little better with respect to the use of our backup generator.

Battery Operated Liquid Transfer Pump

It always seems that utility power is restored just after I refilled the generator. I tend to put stabilizer in the gasoline I use. Even so, I don’t like to leave the generator fueled while in storage. I prefer to empty the tank and let the carburetor run dry.

Further, I have never acquired the skills involved in siphoning liquids using suction and gravity. I tried, but quickly gave up. I think this only works in movies. So, after Winter Storm Uri, I ran up the street to the local O’Reilly Auto Parts where I procured a cheap liquid transfer pump.

transfer pump

You can get these on Amazon as well. For under $20 these little devices make it very safe & easy to pump the fuel back into the same containers I used to purchase it. Thereafter, I typically just pour it into our cars.

After several days of listening to generators drone on endlessly, silence is most welcome. Nothing is quite so annoying as a neighbor, with an especially noisy generator, attempting to “burn off” the fuel in the tank by letting their generator run for hours and hours with very little load.

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Whole Home Backup Power: An Affordable Strategy v3

inlet-generator-inverter-AC-unit

The evening of Tuesday, August 20th was the third time I’ve delivered my presentation on An Affordable Approach to Whole Home Backup Power. This time it was to  a meeting of the members of the Woodland Heights Civic Association. The meeting was held in the library at Travis Elementary School, which is quite literally across the street from our home.

The meeting was well attended. Actually, better than I was expecting. The WHCA business portion of the meeting went a little longer than expected, so my presentation was delivered swiftly. Even so, the presentation seemed to be well received.

This presentation is specifically for those who, for whatever reason, don’t want to invest the $15K necessary for an installed standby generator from the likes of Briggs & Stratton, Cummins, Generac or Kohler.

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