Golf Cart Batteries and Inverters

[BigRich]

Safety - you have a QO panel so you are in luck. QOCGK2C - generator interlock kit. Satisfies NEC. List $100, can be found for 50. A lot of money for a couple pieces of stainless but well worth it. Your Coleman generator has a floating neutral so you're safe with that. The Wen doesn't say. If it has continuity between neutral and ground you'll have to locate the bonding jumper and remove it. Do not ground the generator separately - no need to drive a ground rod.

That is awesome and was exactly what I was looking for the other day. Thanks!

[BigRich]

The system truncates posts that have non-standard ASCII characters in them. Because spammers sometimes use cute tricks to make words slide past censor filters

I guess it's possible something like that was in there. I'm fairly certain there weren't though. It cut it off after the letter "I". It would be weird to have a special character after that.

[BigRich]

We lost power for five days. By day five I was finally starting to get comfortable running the generator, feeding it gas, etc.. Anyway, my view of how to handle things is a little different now. I've ordered a 11k portable generator from Harbor Freight that will hopefully start and run my central ac. I'll likely also install a hard start kit on the ac too. I realize that likely it won't start the ac but am going to try anyway.

My next hurdle is dealing with the poor electric I get from the power company. I'm worried it's going to damage my appliances and electronics. I'm worried about the electric from the generator for the same reason.

So I'm back to wanting to use the golf cart batteries and a UPS to supply power to my house again. I think that will protect the electronics. But this time instead of trying to put the whole house on a UPS, I'll just do the 110V loads which I think someone recommended in an earlier post (good idea .

[NEOH]

What do you mean by "poor electric from the power company" ?

Is the power randomly turning on and turning off?
Is the voltage fluctuating?

Typically, UPS's are rated in Volt-Amps (VA)
I have found that if you take a 1,000 VA Max UPS Rating, it is more like 700 Watts Max real world ( about 70% )
700 Watts / 120 Volts = 5.8 Amps which is significantly less than the Sales / Marketing rating of 1,000VA.

Physically unplug all non-essential equipment, if not possible then shut-off their breakers.

[BigRich]

Yes the lights flicker regularly.

[NEOH]

I'll likely also install a hard start kit on the ac too.

Why a Hard Start Kit?

Would a Soft Start Kit be easier on the gasoline generator?

[SWFLA]

The UPS is kicking out on the generator because of frequency. Yes he does want a soft start kit Schneider Electric makes some nice ones. How many tons of AC are you trying to start anyway, is the big question

[BigRich]

I don

[BigRich]

The system truncates posts that have non-standard ASCII characters in them. Because spammers sometimes use cute tricks to make words slide past censor filters

That

[BigRich]

The system truncates posts that have non-standard ASCII characters in them. Because spammers sometimes use cute tricks to make words slide past censor filters

Thats three times this site has cut off my post for using an apostrophe.

[BigRich]

I dont have a UPS. I would like to install one.

A hard start kit reduces the amount of time the compressor pulls high amps (LRA) when it first kicks on.

https://www.amazon.com/Trane-BAYKSKT263-Compressor-Hard-Start/dp/B01M9DRL1N

[SWFLA]

Hard start kits are piston-driven compressors I highly doubt you have one, should be a scroll.

[BigRich]

I added a hard start kit and my starting amps dropped from 40 something to 20 something. My Harbor Freight generator starts and runs my AC just fine except for one thing; the frequency drops from 60 hertz to 58 hertz after it turns on. I can increase it back to 60 by adjusting the throttle up but of course this is only a temporary solution. Does anyone know of a better work around?

[bcroe]

I added a hard start kit and my starting amps dropped from 40 something to 20 something. My Harbor Freight generator starts and runs my AC just fine except for one thing; the frequency drops from 60 hertz to 58 hertz after it turns on. I can increase it back to 60 by adjusting the throttle up but of course this is only a temporary solution. Does anyone know of a better work around?

You need to add an integrator element to the generators PID feedback loop. Bruce Roe

[Sunking]

I added a hard start kit and my starting amps dropped from 40 something to 20 something. My Harbor Freight generator starts and runs my AC just fine except for one thing; the frequency drops from 60 hertz to 58 hertz after it turns on. I can increase it back to 60 by adjusting the throttle up but of course this is only a temporary solution. Does anyone know of a better work around?

No reason to do that. Makes no difference if the charger is a Boat Anchor type with a heavy step down transformer of switch mode. 2 even 10 hertz is not going to bother the charger one little bit. It does not know or care what the frequency is.

Only thing the frequency will effect is a synchronous motor. Example at 60 Hz the motor will turn at 1800 RPM, at 58 Hz will turn 1740 RPM. No real problem other than maybe if it is a pump and that would reduce flow rate slightly, but still works. Today just about everything made today to run off AC power works fine at 50 to 60 Hz so they do not have to make different models for countries that use 50 or 60 Hz. One size fits all.