i was reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, it was saying how almost everyone in some areas is without power.

i thought to myself, not everyone

__________________
Current
2006 E320 CDI, 57K bought at 67K "Liesl"
1986 190E 2.3-16, 198K bought at 56K "Brigitta"
1987 300TD (Chuggin Along), 292K "Friedrich"
1995 E320 Wagon, 200K "Louisa"

Past
1987 300SDL, (sold) 125K, bought for 1$ "Kurt"

Who said anything about a suicide cable?

BTW, Great idea and problem solving!

We lost power for a week when I lived in South Carolina a few years ago when an ice storm came through. I did one step above a suicide cable to get my house running. I wired the output of a portable 5000 watt generator into the output of a 240 volt, 20 amp breaker in my panel and back fed the panel. I locked open the main breaker coming into the panel to keep from back feeding the line and endangering the linemen doing the repairs.

I went back in later and had an actual disconnect installed so that I was ready for the next time.

-Jim

__________________
1995 S350D, Green with black leather interior.
Bought January 2008 w/ 233,xxx miles.
I did 22,000 miles during the first year of ownership.

Aka. Sucide plug. If you trip and pull the cord out of the wall you now have a nice, 120Vac cattle prod...

-Jim

__________________
1995 S350D, Green with black leather interior.
Bought January 2008 w/ 233,xxx miles.
I did 22,000 miles during the first year of ownership.

Very impressive. This is a very resourceful group of folks here on the forum. I'm assuming the electricity is just to run the fan, right?

__________________
" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

It's fun to joke about. I keep both of my male/male cords high and locked. Last power outage I ran 2 5500 watt generators into my main distribution panel. Pissed off the neighbors when I had the porch lights on momentarily at night.

And yes I disconnected my house from the grid before firing those babies up.

__________________
Adam Lumsden
(83) 300D
Vice-President of the MBCA International Stars Section

I wasn't joking. There are much better ways to connect in. Sucide cords scare the bejingles out of me. Most people make them out of straight plugs. If you use twist locks, most of my worries are gone.

Not trying to start an arguement. I just don't like them.

-Jim

__________________
1995 S350D, Green with black leather interior.
Bought January 2008 w/ 233,xxx miles.
I did 22,000 miles during the first year of ownership.

Nothing beats a nice automatic transfer switch with auto-generator-start and dual 3000watt Trace sine-wave inverters to fill the gap ;~)

__________________

Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

$$$ for a rarely used system.

That reminds me, I need to pull out my generator, change the oil & fuel, and fire it up for a load run. It has been a year or so...

Just being able to safely isolate from the grid and safely feed into the panel is enough for me. I have no problem with doing it manually. With my little 5000W generator I can only run parts of the house. The breaker panel makes it easy to switch around loads.

Sorry for getting off topic. I still am impressed with the quick thinking to power the furnace controls and fans off of an inverter driven by your MB!

-Jim

__________________
1995 S350D, Green with black leather interior.
Bought January 2008 w/ 233,xxx miles.
I did 22,000 miles during the first year of ownership.

She is still running along. I shut her down for a little bit yesterday when I was out cutting up some of the downed trees here. There are a ton of people without power. As of right now 113,000 homes without power in NH, and we have snow on the way!! That makes for a lot of people who can't takes showers!! I got one yesterday and should be good for a few more days.

The reason we don't have a generator is cost, 500 bucks for a cheap one with out 220V thats how many tanks of diesel...., 700 for one with 220V to run the water pump is just to much money for the week we may use it a year.

__________________
1998 Mercedes E300TD

1983 Mercedes 240D Turbo, 131bar injectors, Cosworth intercooler and 63' Ford Falcon radiator, Ardic Parking heater, Headlight wipers, Best 38.6mpg.

1973 Saab 96 Rally Car, 1.8l V4 with all the race bits

Bump!

Did you get power back yet?

-Jim

__________________
1995 S350D, Green with black leather interior.
Bought January 2008 w/ 233,xxx miles.
I did 22,000 miles during the first year of ownership.

The German Bundeswehr in the days of the Warsaw pact had a 24V Unimog with a PTO in front to run a generator or a pump of some kind (maybe water pump?). Haven't seen one since 88 but sounds like it would be handy and easy to build

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

Forgot to add: Model T cars were made that way too, but to run milking machines and cement mixers

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

Hmmm my 5.5KW gen head is just sitting in the shed... and I have all these parts cars sitting around... I'm thinking a project is in the mix soon...
but yeah, I've hooked up to the spare batteries on occasion to keep heat on at night when the power goes out. it's just amazing how long two MB batteries will power a 1200watt inverter... start up the car every once in a while and tv/computer/heat works great! oh, you can run your electric water heater off an inverter... it just heats very slowly. the 4500watt elements only pull about 1200 watts at 110v...
I have a 17hp Kubota 2cyl tractor for charging the inverter... and I am pretty sure the pto will drive the gen head... that makes more sense than hacking up an MB... gotta go look up the plans for the RED/Green pto kit...

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

When you have no power for extended periods of time almost anything is better than nothing. If you can stay satisfied with running a few lights and furnace you should be okay.

The furnace is not a continious load cycle so it should not flaten the car battery very much. Probably the average duty cycle of the pump and fan is less than 20 percent timewise. You should install a much larger alternator though as at idle speeds the output will be higher.

Reallly short stroke diesel engines are the ones damaged by idling I think. The very few times you are likely to use your setup are probably neither here or there in terms of engine longivity.

When you have no power for extended periods of time almost anything is better than nothing. If you can stay satisfied with running a few lights and furnace you should be okay.

The furnace is not a continious load cycle so it should not flaten the car battery very much. Probably the average duty cycle of the pump and fan is less than 20 percent timewise. You should install a much larger alternator though as at idle speeds the output will be higher.

Reallly short stroke diesel engines are the ones damaged by idling I think. The very few times you are likely to use your setup are probably neither here or there in terms of engine longivity.

From watching my neighbours experiences I would not buy a cheap chinese genset at this point. The chinese will probably build better in the future.