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[terry paget]

Gentlemen, just an idle thought. In cases of power cuts, I should like an emergency power supply. I know I can but Honda or Chinese generator units giving a few kilowatts, that',s no good. I want something cheap but available when needed. What I have in mind is a 10 kilowatt generator I can bolt some where on my Omega engine and a longer auxiliary belt enabling me to use my Omega as a generator. I should leave it in the garage. Output has to be 240 volts AC, 50cyles per second, like the mains.

Then all I need do is switch off the mains supply at the incoming fuse box, fix my generator to my Omega and plug a garage socket, and the house has power again.

Probably infringes some regulations, and need care. But all it needs is the mounting for the generator and a belt.

Has anyone ever done this?

 

[alank46]

Rather than power up the existing wiring, I have installed emergency wiring and sockets for the central heating and the fridge/freezer.  In the event of a power cut, it is only necessary to unplug heating and fridge and replug into the emergency sockets, plus of course fire up the generator and plug that into the emergency circuit.  I use a small stand alone generator that is enough to power heating and fridge.

It doesn't see much use these days as we now have a more reliable grid connection, but in the early days we used to get an outage after every electrical storm even if it was miles away.

[Shackeng]

Gentlemen, just an idle thought. In cases of power cuts, I should like an emergency power supply. I know I can but Honda or Chinese generator units giving a few kilowatts, that',s no good. I want something cheap but available when needed. What I have in mind is a 10 kilowatt generator I can bolt some where on my Omega engine and a longer auxiliary belt enabling me to use my Omega as a generator. I should leave it in the garage. Output has to be 240 volts AC, 50cyles per second, like the mains.

Then all I need do is switch off the mains supply at the incoming fuse box, fix my generator to my Omega and plug a garage socket, and the house has power again.

Probably infringes some regulations, and need care. But all it needs is the mounting for the generator and a belt.

Has anyone ever done this?

In a power cut, I switch of the mains switch then power up the systems from a portable 2Kw genny. Works well.

[05omegav6]

Easy enough to make a generator...

1. need an engine... either a diesel lump, or a petrol engine with lpg, mounted in a stout frame bolted to a concrete base in its own shed. Given your selection of cars, a 2.5 V6 would do...actually a stripped out estate would do it...

2. replace the aircon and power steering pumps with alternators, each one supplying two batteries, so 3 alternators with 6 leisure batteries.

3. Connect each pair of batteries to a 3-4 kw invertor, then feed all three to a ditribution board... the emergency circuits that Alan mentioned would be a good idea, one for the kitchen, one for the boiler and one for the living room or workshop.

The 'car' would need to be well away from the house if running for any length of time, but you could have a 1-2000 ltr lpg tank installed to fuel it...

Not a very cheap solution though... decent invertors are around the £400 each mark for that sort of output, the batteries would be another £5-700, plus the car and other bits and pieces

[terry paget]

My idea uses an engine fuel starting system I already have and keep in good condition and fuelled up, all I need is the generator and the mounting for it, and a belt. There is such a generator on e-bay, brand new, for $485, but it's in the USA. No dimensions on it, but it's single phase, 240 volts, 50cps.Perhaps someone will sell one in UK (it is Chinese, of course).

[05omegav6]

Or fit a hydraulic pump and summat like this...

http://www.peachment.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Hydragen-Generator.pdf ...

[Kevin Wood]

Remember that, to generate 50Hz AC the engine speed needs to be tightly regulated. You'd need to add some kind of speed controller to your Omega to do that. You'll then end up with a huge engine running at constant speed, regardless of load, and it won't be a very efficient means of generating power. Within short order, you'll have wasted enough on fuel that you could have bought a small generator with a more suitably-sized engine for the load.... IMHO, at any rate.

[terry paget]

Remember that, to generate 50Hz AC the engine speed needs to be tightly regulated. You'd need to add some kind of speed controller to your Omega to do that. You'll then end up with a huge engine running at constant speed, regardless of load, and it won't be a very efficient means of generating power. Within short order, you'll have wasted enough on fuel that you could have bought a small generator with a more suitably-sized engine for the load.... IMHO, at any rate.

I guess you are right. Another idea bites the dust. The more so when I discovered that Screwfix sell a 2.8Kw generator, complete with petrol engine, for £115. Also I realised that 10KW means 40 amps, which the wiring from my garage to house will not carry. 2.8Kw is 11 amps, the wiring will cope with that.

[AndyStobbs]

If your energy company see the generator back feeding onto the wiring they will clobber you. Very strict rules exist in that area to prevent your supply killing their engineers as they work away on equipment that isn't supposed to be live at that time. They will not accept you switching off your incommer at the CU/DB.

[Shackeng]

If your energy company see the generator back feeding onto the wiring they will clobber you. Very strict rules exist in that area to prevent your supply killing their engineers as they work away on equipment that isn't supposed to be live at that time. They will not accept you switching off your incommer at the CU/DB.

Which is what everyone who owns a genny does.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I guess you could pull the main fuse, but then you're not supposed to touch that either....   

[radcap]

Generators is my trade . ?   your best option cost wise is to buy a small generator, there is no propblem supplying your own prooerty so long as you isolate the mains incoming supply, you can buy or make a change over panel that will do this automatically or manualy , just remember small sesitive equpment ie tv/laptops/computors etc do not like a unstable supply of volts/hz  ,  but yes do it i have ??

[Kevin Wood]

Generators is my trade . ?   your best option cost wise is to buy a small generator, there is no propblem supplying your own prooerty so long as you isolate the mains incoming supply, you can buy or make a change over panel that will do this automatically or manualy , just remember small sesitive equpment ie tv/laptops/computors etc do not like a unstable supply of volts/hz  ,  but yes do it i have ??

Agreed. But before buying a 10kW generator work out how often you're actually drawing that much power. 

Avoid all the obvious heavy consumers (heating appliances, etc.) and you'll probably get by on 1 or 2 kVa just to keep the lights on, the central heating running and the 'fridges cold.

[Phil]

If you gets lots of power cuts, then get a 3 phase meter and wire your house with one phase on one light and socket circuit and the rest of the lights and sockets on another phase.

When power goes its normally only one phase so you will always have power to something in the house.

Before anyone suggests you cannot have 3 phase in domestic situation they are wrong as you can and my grandparents house is wired this way -  it has wall lights on one phase and celing lights on another.

It does take some arguements but can be done

[Entwood]

If you gets lots of power cuts, then get a 3 phase meter and wire your house with one phase on one light and socket circuit and the rest of the lights and sockets on another phase.

When power goes its normally only one phase so you will always have power to something in the house.

Before anyone suggests you cannot have 3 phase in domestic situation they are wrong as you can and my grandparents house is wired this way -  it has wall lights on one phase and celing lights on another.

It does take some arguements but can be done

Would work if a 3 phase supply came into the house ... we only get one phase... Electricity supply to the STREET is 3 phase, but is fed to houses in "bundles/phase"  so when a phase goes down only one third of the street loses power ... when the supply fails in toto all of us lose power .. its a quick way of checking  whats happened ...

All houses dark - power gone
Mine, the guy opposite and the bungalow on the corner ... my phase
Just me... booger ..its internal for me to sort ..