Harbor Freight $162 Generator
 

Not technically diesel but I'm thinking some may be interested

After Wednesday's tornado activity knocked out power for 10 hours, I decided to check out Harbor Freight. This one was $162.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=97906

If I only need to use this 3 or 4 times, it would be worth it. Some people are still without power around here. A few years ago it took the power company 5 days to restore power to some areas in Maryland.

Purchased it for the freezer and refrigerator.

All right I admit it, it was actually not to be without Mercedes Shop :D

... for 75.00 you can get a 1500Watt inverter and hook it to your diesel...

Until the battery is drained. The 55amp alternator can only put out about 800watts of power at 14volts. You would need to upgrade to the 120amp Saab alternator to power a 1500watt inverter without draining the battery.

That 1050 Watt generator isn't even enough to power a single normal refrigerator. EDIT: Nevermind, I just measured my fridge with the Kill-A-Watt meter and it only draws 200watts at full power and 600watts surge. You should be able to hook up an 800watt inverter to your car to run the fridge every few hours and keep it cold.

That thing will be louder than hell. I would just buy a Honda generator. Then you would be set for life.

Yea, I didn't want the 55 amp alternator powering refrigerant compressors for any length of time. Not to mention the particular set of cables needed to hook up the inverter.

I wanted to get the minimum generator necessary. The outdoor freezer has been running on a 15 amp breaker for 12 years with no problem (and a cheap Sears model, no less)

um, 15amps at 110V is a LOT more than 55amps at 12v...

really, for occasional use, light duty a cheap 750 inverter will handle lights, radio, and refrigerators no problem. and you don't have to go get gas for it. your car will handle it fine. that battery is amazing.
if you NEEEED a generator, get at least a 5KW... don't bother with those glorified inverters, just get a real inverter and use your car.

Loudness don't matter after a while when your out of power. Any generator is a welcome sight. You simply locate it as far away from the central living space as you can and run a HD cord in from it. I agree that the Honda Generators are worth it though.

The thing with generators is they are so seldom used that maintenance becomes an issue. And they won't be there next time when you need them if you don't take some care of them. Be sure to put some Stabilizer in the Gas, and Keep the tank full of stabilized gas as well as this tends to keep water out and tendency to separate to a minimum. Then, once a year, dump the old gas out, put fresh in with more stabilizer in it and run it about 10 minutes under a slight electrical load (a lamp or something like that). Twice a year is better of course.

You got one of these hooked up mounted somewhere in the trunk?

Thanks, I agree completely, you must have read my mind.

Power to the Mercedes Owners!
 

Some really good comments in this thread.

I would be leery of trying to run anything with a surge load (like a refrigerator) on an inverter -- but I admit I've never played with a really big inverter, just the little ones of a couple hundred watts.

The Cheapie-Joe generators are OK for occasional use. Yes, they probably are loud and may not be happy to run at close to rated load for days on end, but for a few hours at a time in a power-failure situation they'll be fine. A Honda-brand generator will be quieter, more efficient, and more reliable over the long term. It will also cost a lot more money. That's a decision you have to make.

Consider keeping a minimum of fuel in the tank, maybe even drain it after each use, and have an extra can of gasoline that you rotate through your car or lawnmower so that you always have fresh fuel on hand.

Since I knew (in our rural location) that power failures were frequent, I went out and found a surplus military genset, a 7.5 KW Onan (2 cylinders, air cooled, gas-gaso). It had been used at a US Army base (Hunter Liggett in Monterey County) to run the pop-up targets on a tank gunnery range. I had it converted to run on propane and it sits on a pad next to my propane tank. Total investment (genset, major service/conversion, installation) was about $2000. A new one would be several times that much.

On propane, the oil stays remarkably clean and the fuel is always fresh, since we run the house on the same tank and get regular deliveries. The generator is enough to run the entire house. I have a big transfer switch and test the system monthly by running the genset for an hour and switching over the house to load it down. That way, I know that I'll always be able to access MercedesShop!

Jeremy

Someday I plan on having a similar setup. :D :D I'm fine with either a diesel or Propane System.....but not gas.

Great stuff Jeremy.

I noticed your biodiesel fleet. I just ran a tank of B20 through the daily driver for the first time in its 328k mile life. Much smoother and quieter, emphasis on quieter. It purrs at all speeds, relatively speaking. Not much difference in performance, if any.

What really surprised me after running it for 311 miles, all of it around town, was that mpg was 25, only about 1 or 2 less than normal. I did another refill on B20 yesterday to get a better mpg computation.

You do run B100, not the waste veggie oil stuff right?
I need to locate a B100 filling station, if only for curiousity.

Most inverters sold won't run AC motors, even if their rated wattage is way over the motor's. One that can is probably a lot more expensive than the generator.

odd, I have not had any issues with running my fridge off mine...

This is because the motor is an inductive load. You can't measure watts when you consider the inverter load, but rather volts*amps. Yes, I know that many people believe that volts*amps = watts, but this is only true of an instantanous reading or a steady-state DC circuit. An inductive load is neither. For a "steady-state" AC circuit, the correct formula is volts*amps*PF = watts, where PF (power factor) is the cosine of the phase angle between the voltage and amperage.

You can correct the power factor on an inductive load by adding some large capacitors in parallel with the load, but this is only typical for very large industrial motors.

I bought a coleman 5000W generator (7.5K peak) about 10 years ago after we lost power for 5 days following an ice storm. It was only $500 or so from home depot. Since then we haven't had an extended outage but used it about once a year during short blackouts. I can run my entire house off it including heat in the winter and A/C in the summer. We are on a well so having no power means having no water too.

I simply "backfeed" our house in through a 240V outlet I installed in my garage. I just pull the main feed fuses which drop me off the grid and run the generator in through the outlet using a 20 foot cord with the generator on my driveway. The outlet is circuit breaker protected with dual 20A breakers and it feeds both "legs" of the 240V service. The only downside is not knowing exactly when the power comes back on since we are off the grid but I just watch the neighbors houses for signs of power and I know it is back.

Technically backfeeding is illegal but if you do it right it is safe and since I only do it in an emergency I'm really careful about not backfeeding into the grid...of course if I did my breakers would blow immediately anyway. I'm not advocating this just explaining an easy way to supply emergency power to a house.

NO! This chinese junk isn't worth it! You think your going to save money and only use it maybe 3 or 4 times, but it's not how often you use it but how hard that counts.:rolleyes: There are no replacement parts for this.:eek: You will be told that they are available, but good luck with that!:(

Trust me on this....... Go to Home Depot and get a Generac for a little more, it will be worth it. I got my Coleman with a Briggs and Stratton engine rated for 5250 Watts continuous and 6250 surge for $389! Well worth it and serviceable!!:D

I knew something like this would be posted. I'm surprised it took so long.

Anybody wants to go crazy, talk me out of my 42KVA Westerbeke, I need the space and money more than the genset.

On my motorhomes, I would run one roof A/C from the inverter while on the road, worked great and saved APU hours, just charged from the alternator (300a continuous rating) and drew around 140amps@ 12vdc. I don't think I want to try that from the car alternator, ...

How I dreamed of being off-the-grid, ... before $5/gallon diesel.

I will admit I did... and by the way... that fantasy you have about Paula Abdul is really troubling to me... :D

Great improvisation :devilish:......:D

That sounds alot like what I did after having to fix my POS lawnmower again and again. I bought a Honda lawnmower with the first Bush economic stimulation. I haven't had any problems with it since. I wish Mercedes made a lawn mower, then the next couple generations would be set.

diesel power
 

http://nh.craigslist.org/for/707420832.html

well, at least this brings it back to being on topic somewhat.

I've considered upgrading my Coleman to one of these!

Hmm I wonder what the model #'s they would come up with...
frame would have to be MW100 etc...
engines OM002 and up... for diesel, and m002 for gassers...
imagine a OM002 20CC 7HP diesel push mower, and a nice OM006 60CC 25HP Rider... say a 60mwD riding mower with 8 forward hydrostatic tranny.......or a20E fuel injected push mower...

I've found that many of the cheap diesel gensets, are air-cooled. Noisy and cheap.

Don't forget about the OM000.8 diesel string trimmer.

of course the string trimmer would have to use titanium cord.... MB's gotta be indestructible.

Yes, the nonobtanium cord, and be sure you only use M-B string-lube.

For a couple of times that generator would be fine, but its going to be loud. If you really need a generator spring for a Honda, they are really expensive but worth it.

If Mecedes made a Generator, we would all be trying to buy 25 year old ones and be here talking about all the crap it takes to keep them running.... no thanks!!!!! :D

I'm sure they do, probably under MTU.

MB makes a lot more than cars, their cars are but one division.

I'd love a diesel string trimmer! :D :D A diesel mower would be awesome too....nothing like diesel exhaust smell while mowing.....I'd be out there all the time! :D :dizzy2:

Considering how reliable my Mercedes Benz has been all 288,704 miles of it, I'll take a 26 year old Mercedes anything over a ricer.

I would like to couple one of those bad boys into my engine bay:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=45416

We've got a Honda EV 3000 with well over 15,000 hours on it and runs like the day it was made. Only repair we've ever done was replace the throttle servo. Those things are crazy quiet!

The real question would be how you get your engine to stay at a steady 3600rpm since 616/617's have no governor. You'd need a MB diesel from a reefer unit or something.....or a gasser engine......or design and implement a good governing system for the 617.

Not to mention running the engine in your car at 3600rpm for hours in an outage would take a significant amount of fuel and would put a lot of wear on the engine.

With a direct drive system......yes, but with just a little bit of overdrive/underdrive pulleying you could turn the engine at idle and the generator at 3600rpm.

The only real problem there is that it would stall the engine, as it doesn't put out 20hp at idle......not to mention it doesn't get optimal oil pressure and lubrication at those speeds to be run that way for a prolonged time, especially under a significant load....and it'd get a lot of soot and carbon buildup too.

Keep in mind that it won't always pull 20hp, the draw will be dependent on load, your not always going to need to pull that 20hp.

But like you said before, if you could rig a governer you could find a happy medium.

no doubt it would take a little work, heck getting a pulley setup that would attache to your engine would be a small engineering task.

Well, for the house, I have a 5k Generac that I bought used off Craigslist for $350 when the owner upgraded. Has either a Briggs or a Tecumseh engine (can't remember which). Not nearly as quiet as a Honda, but for about half the price of a Honda - or less I can live with it.

For camping I have a little 1500 watt that I bought at Schucks for about $30 more than that you'd pay for that little 1050 watt hat HF. I bought a bandsaw at HF because they assured me that I could always get parts. YEAH RIGHT!. When the rubber "tire" on the drive wheel got chewed up it too 4 months and reordering it 3 times to ever get it. They kept telling me it was "backordered" and then a month later cancelling the order because they couldn't fill it.

At least with the one I bought at Schucks, I can go to the STORE to get parts instead of having ot order them over the internet and be jerked around like with HF. And it is surprisingly quiet too. Not Honda quiet, but not annoyingly loud inside the camper either.

A Honda Generator is somewhere in the $1700.00 range for a 5K. So you are about 1/4 the cost of a Honda. We looked at a Honda Genset last year for camping and decided to just go where there is power. Also, don't forget about Yamaha, they make a generator that rivals the Honda. Same power output and the same quiet running. Same $$$$$ too! :mad:

Our power went out yesterday.............oops, no generator. It came back on 10 minutes later.

Now we just need to go out and MAN THE ARK!!!!!!!!!!:eek:

Sam

This is a timely topic for me. I just bought a Kohler natural gas generator off of Craigslist last week for my country house. It is a 3.5 KW model, most likely produced in the 70's and it has an Onan automatic switch. There is only 180 hours on it and if it runs nearly as well as my old Cub Cadet Kohler, I'm set for some time. The best part about it is that I have a gas well on the property, so I'll be saving money when the power goes out.

Brian

I just bought one of these:

John Deere 6,200 Watt

It runs my well and a bunch of lights without complaint.

I'm installing a proper switchover so I don't have to worry about random wires getting electrified.

A little Breaks&Scrappem powered generator like that is as much as most people need. Most backup gensets die of old age, mice, rust, ... few are worn out in residential backup use.

Some comments on generators. Last year I bought a cheapie 2200 watt unit at Big Lots to keep at the house in Virginia Beach. It uses a Chinese knock-off of an OHV Honda engine with a vey large muffler, and it's very quiet. I've only used mine once and had no problems, but I have read some anecdotes about these concerning hardware failures - muffler brackets breaking, etc...
An acquaintance bought a similar 3500 watt unit from Pep Boys a few years ago and needed a fuel filter fitting. He was unable to contact anyone at the 800 number and wound up fabricating the broken piece himself. Since then he's been using it with his travel-trailer without further problems.
FWIW, I was actually able to get someone on the phone with the generator's 800 number BEFORE I bought my unit.

Here in Alexandria, I have an ancient 3000 watt Tecumseh-powered Homelite generator that I last used after Hurricane Isabel in '03. It's a very heavy jobsite type unit with a small tank, small muffler, and it's very noisy! But it will power my fridge. Unfortunately, if it's not used for awhile, I might need to pop the flywheel and buff the points, or drop the carb bowl and clean the jets, like I had to do the morning after Isabel. but once I got it running it was very reliable - and noisy!

I also got one of those tiny 1200 watt Chinese units at Pep Boys for use with power tools. It's very quiet too, but it wasn't able to get my fridge going after the power outage here last week. After my power was restored next day, I realized that I had the fridge's 'mosture control' anti-condensate setting switched on, which powers an extra heating element in the fridge cabinet, so I don't know if the lttle generator might have worked had I switched the fridge to the 'economy' setting. I'll test it again next power outage.

No personal experience with Honda generators, though recently I salvaged a really nice, fixer-upper Honda mower with Honda's commercial engine. But the smallest Honda generators cost about as much as a 4000 - 5000 watt Coleman or Generac!

By the way, I saw that same $162 Harbour Freight generator at Big Lots today.

Happy Motoring, Mark