ignore dupe
so spent the hurricane at work on site. House lost power at about 19pm day of.
On my way home I detoured past the local substation. About 35 light poles at road level with trees pinning them down. Approaching the entrance to my subdivision there are about 10 power poles in the dirt. Will be without power for a while. No cell signal either.
No worries all I have to do is get the generator running on my RV. I was pricing new generators for RVs before the storm but figured I could get mine running. After putting out the fire I went to the RV store where I was pricing them earlier. They were without power, but open and had the generators I was pricing earlier. One problem cash only. So after spending the next two hours chasing down ATM's with power and maxing cash on my cards I go back to the store and make the purchase.
Unpack spiffy new generator, add the oil read the instructions on the quick start and get it going. Plug in the freezers. After 15 minutes it quits. Would run from 3 to 5 minutes then quit. My bad shoulder is now falling off from the pull starter. I am getting pissed and I am out of cigarettes. Spent an hour finding a corner store with electricity and smokes, bought a carton to hold till I can get back on base and hit the store there. Liquor stores are all closed, had to ration from my leftovers.
Wake up this morning and call champion generator tech support, they promised a callback soon.
Read the manual slowy. Ok got a set of jumper cables and grounded the frame to the dirt with an aluminum rod. Didnt help.
Carefully observed the warning lights. It would light green, run, then the engine would bog, indicating an overload (nothing plugged in at this point) oil light would flash and engine quit. checked oil. Apparently initial break in burned a shitload of oil and there is a kill switch if the oil is sensed to be too low. Filled it up with oil again and it ran happily for 5 hours with load. Per instructions after 5 hours, turned it off and changed the oil. Pretty blackened. Has been running for the last 4 hours happily.
Tech then calls me back and I told him what happened, he said that is common.
So short story long, how many engineers does it take to start and keep a new generator running? One but at takes a very long time.
Repaired the chainsaw for some work tomorrow. Did some cleanup and will tarp some of the roof tomorrow and assess how I want to repair it.
webhoofing via hotspot will see how useful it is.
On my way home I detoured past the local substation. About 35 light poles at road level with trees pinning them down. Approaching the entrance to my subdivision there are about 10 power poles in the dirt. Will be without power for a while. No cell signal either.
No worries all I have to do is get the generator running on my RV. I was pricing new generators for RVs before the storm but figured I could get mine running. After putting out the fire I went to the RV store where I was pricing them earlier. They were without power, but open and had the generators I was pricing earlier. One problem cash only. So after spending the next two hours chasing down ATM's with power and maxing cash on my cards I go back to the store and make the purchase.
Unpack spiffy new generator, add the oil read the instructions on the quick start and get it going. Plug in the freezers. After 15 minutes it quits. Would run from 3 to 5 minutes then quit. My bad shoulder is now falling off from the pull starter. I am getting pissed and I am out of cigarettes. Spent an hour finding a corner store with electricity and smokes, bought a carton to hold till I can get back on base and hit the store there. Liquor stores are all closed, had to ration from my leftovers.
Wake up this morning and call champion generator tech support, they promised a callback soon.
Read the manual slowy. Ok got a set of jumper cables and grounded the frame to the dirt with an aluminum rod. Didnt help.
Carefully observed the warning lights. It would light green, run, then the engine would bog, indicating an overload (nothing plugged in at this point) oil light would flash and engine quit. checked oil. Apparently initial break in burned a shitload of oil and there is a kill switch if the oil is sensed to be too low. Filled it up with oil again and it ran happily for 5 hours with load. Per instructions after 5 hours, turned it off and changed the oil. Pretty blackened. Has been running for the last 4 hours happily.
Tech then calls me back and I told him what happened, he said that is common.
So short story long, how many engineers does it take to start and keep a new generator running? One but at takes a very long time.
Repaired the chainsaw for some work tomorrow. Did some cleanup and will tarp some of the roof tomorrow and assess how I want to repair it.
webhoofing via hotspot will see how useful it is.
