We have had good success with industrial diesels from a local generator shop (westquip diesel). Built to order with name brand components. Put a couple 7.5 kW and few 14 kW units in last year, and they worked well through this past winter so far.
Isuzu 3CH1 or 3CE1 engines, mated to a Stamford generator end, with Dynagen or Deep Sea controllers. For our cold winters in northern Canada, generators fitted with glow plugs, intake heater as well as auxillary block heater. We got down to -31F for a week this winter and they all started fine unattended. Put a few units in the year before with Kubota engines and they were all unreliable cold starters. Much happier with Isuzu. We have a few tweaks we do to the controller programming to help it in the cold weather. Have had far better success with this approach than any of the options discussed in this thread. Having a responsive generator manufacturer Of late we have had many quality issues with Honda generators - both the cheaper EM series, as well as the EU. Frustrating to diagnose as we provide the repair shop with a detailed power quality analysis showing them the issues, but they just don't have the expertise to understand that. Their testing is "it runs a skill saw, so it's good, right?". So am having to caution clients who go down the Honda route, if they get a good unit it's likely to last for a while, but if it's a dud out of the box good luck getting it resolved. Kevin -----Original Message----- From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Ray Sent: February-27-20 2:26 PM To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> Subject: [RE-wrenches] Offgrid Generators? I know we have covered this before, but I just continue to be disappointed with the Generac Ecogen. Very high failure rate, and support is poor. Service requires expensive on site service. Also the no load AC draw and programming setup is just not off grid ready at all. I'm still not seeing any other great choices, though. Here's some other possibilities: 1) Quality portable, like the Honda EU 7000i or Northstar with Honda motor. Not the best choice especially for autostart, no propane, but at least they can take it in to the shop if it goes down. 2) Kubota (or MQ) diesel. expensive, and possible cold weather start issues? 3) 20+ kW water cooled, 1800 rpm propane model. Overkill, expensive, but probably will last a really long time. 4) Similar Home standby unit, but Kohler brand. Kohler used to be great, but now a days I'm not so sure. I just can't keep recommending a generator I know has been giving other customers trouble. Any new ideas on this age old problem? -- Ray Walters Remote Solar 303 505-8760 _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
