On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 12:28:57 PM UTC-5, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses..

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

I'm familiar with the type of grounding system you're describing. I've working in many equipment rooms over the years with all types of RF and communications equipment, and they almost always have the copper flashing and bars for grounding the equipment.

The craziest thing I ever saw was a fire lookout tower on top of an 8k foot mountain in northern CA. It was a 3 story structure with something that looked like a chain-link fence around the roof, with huge cables coming down all four corners, then across the stone mountaintop with rods driven into the stone every so often for maybe 100 feet.

This was for lightning protection. It's not the lightning that kills the equipment, it's the difference in potential that kills equipment. So the idea is to get the building, equipment (and ground system) inside the building, and the mountaintop to all rise up to the lightning potential together, then drain back down together. They said it got struck several times every summer with rare losses. Probably pretty exciting for the person inside!

It had one other interesting feature... a scuttle hole on the roof with a ladder partially down one side of the building. That was for winter access when they used snow cats to get up there. I was there in the summer.

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 12:28:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

So you were running ungrounded delta. That is fairly rare and usually
only for systems that are very intolerant of faults, like a glass
plant where a power failure makes the whole place pretty much trash.
I assume you had ground fault indicators since the first ground fault
is "free". I have never actually seen ungrounded delta here. The other
option is impedance grounding that grounds the system via a resistor,
just to stabilize the voltage, not to provide any fault protection.

You are right that there is no exception that allows the non current
carrying parts of the system to be ungrounded. They are really trying
to change that terminology to "bonded" to avoid confusion with the
"grounded conductor" that we normally call the neutral and the
"grounding electrode" that is your physical connection with earth.
Article 250 may be the most misunderstood article in the whole NEC,
hence the one I spent the most time studying. They are trying to
redefine some of the terms to make it easier to understand because
"ground" is such an all encompassing word that it misses the intent
about half the time and when you actually start testing, it isn't even
the same voltage from one place to another when you actually test with
stakes in the dirt.

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:45:14 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:


I'm familiar with the type of grounding system you're describing. I've working in many equipment rooms over the years with all types of RF and communications equipment, and they almost always have the copper flashing and bars for grounding the equipment.

The craziest thing I ever saw was a fire lookout tower on top of an 8k foot mountain in northern CA. It was a 3 story structure with something that looked like a chain-link fence around the roof, with huge cables coming down all four corners, then across the stone mountaintop with rods driven into the stone every so often for maybe 100 feet.

This was for lightning protection. It's not the lightning that kills the equipment, it's the difference in potential that kills equipment. So the idea is to get the building, equipment (and ground system) inside the building, and the mountaintop to all rise up to the lightning potential together, then drain back down together. They said it got struck several times every summer with rare losses. Probably pretty exciting for the person inside!

It had one other interesting feature... a scuttle hole on the roof with a ladder partially down one side of the building. That was for winter access when they used snow cats to get up there. I was there in the summer.

They do a similar thing for radio towers and strangely, toll booths.
Around here "Ground" is just a vague reference to zero volts so they
really need a lot of electrode to get the job done. In both the radio
towers and the toll complex they used a buried ground ring of braided
#2 copper around the whole complex with 40' rods cad welded every 50
feet or so all the way around the ring. At the toll complex (MM99
I-75) it looked like the 4th of july when they were firing all of
those cad welds.
My weather station on the garage has a 3/8" lightning rod over it with
a #2 copper going to 3 rods that is also connected to the GES for the
service and everything else. It has been hit several times and not
hurt anything here after I hung some ferrites on the data lead coming
down. Before that I did take put a serial port on a laptop.

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.

On 1/5/18 11:49 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.



I haven't been once disappointed that we bite the bullet and bought our
propane genny for the house. We have a propane/electric hot air heat
pump for the main level, and the genny will run that and almost
everything else in the house turned on at the same time. It'll also run
the a/c on the unit in the summer plus all the important other stuff. I
think I recall that it uses 1.5 to 2. gallons of propane an hour running
at at least a half load.

On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 11:37:20 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



===

Remind her that it could be worse, like taking pictures of half n'ked
babes at the beach. :-)


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This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.


===

Yes, but once you go into a multi day power outage a generator is a
really nice thing to have. We're fortunate to have a good sized
diesel generator on the boat with 500+ gallons of fuel typically. With
a little red neck engineering we can power the entire house including
the central air, stove and hot water heater.

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