Sol-Ark 15K + Generator

I don’t believe any Generac “home” series (stationary/standby) are inverter type. To guarantee good frequency regulation, pure sine wave and fuel economy, nothing beats an inverter generator. The DuroMax 9000 and the one shown below are dual dual fuel and can be rigged to start/stop with dry contact control. The unit below has the 50amp outlet (Amazon) Always break-in on gasoline and reduced loads for at least one full tank before switching to propane. Use conventional oil for at least the first tank. Change oil after the first 10 minutes to remove the early fines. Excellent synthetic oil is Pennzoil Platinum.

DPC said:

Onan cck4

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Can you even find those anymore?

Nobodybusiness said:

Can you even find those anymore?

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YA just shop around

Heres a 4bfa. ( thats an aluminum block basicly the same as a CCK )
I cant read the name plate, but from the looks I would call that a later one than mine Maybe a Spec R retrofit or later ( electronics have been replaced with relays )

Not far down the road yet another BFA.

Must be BFA day
All the same unit...

Based on description I'm calling this an NH

Another BFA, this one has that 905 solid state board I don't like. ( Spec R )
Bet you thats a very low hour unit because those boards were warranty items.

Another NH in pieces I bet thats because it wouldn't start and stay running and I see the 905 board in the pile of parts.

Round head LK205 RV unit.
Half a CCK, were getting warmer!!

MCC-6 getting hot now.
Thats a real nice unit too, higher output longer lasting because its got the water cooled block and high compression heads.

I am defeated...
I could not find an air cooled CCK today.
But I found a lot of BFAs and inspite of the aluminum block they are excellent machine too.
Put set of heads off a BGE or P116 tractor on it for a bit more compression and better economy.

Skypower said:

I don’t believe any Generac “home” series (stationary/standby) are inverter type. To guarantee good frequency regulation, pure sine wave and fuel economy, nothing beats an inverter generator. The DuroMax 9000 and the one shown below are dual dual fuel and can be rigged to start/stop with dry contact control. The unit below has the 50amp outlet (Amazon) Always break-in on gasoline and reduced loads for at least one full tank before switching to propane. Use conventional oil for at least the first tank. Change oil after the first 10 minutes to remove the early fines. Excellent synthetic oil is Pennzoil Platinum.
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Another clone
This is a pumped up big block Honda from a GX390
Without any other changes they have increased the displacement and power output to 28 ci and about 15 hp.
Can it sustain 7600 watts?
It might for a while but I bet it would blow up if held at anything above 6000 watts for very long.

An NH Onan same rating is 60 cubic inches and two cylinder turning half the RPM and with full pressurized lubrication and is rated to pull that all day long.

A lot of people get hung up on a brand.
I don't I am as happy as a clam as long as it has a good design.
It would be interesting to put that too a test and see how long and hard it can pull.
As fate would have it I know of a fellow that did put a big OTC up against a clone.
Lets see how that plays out.

Don't forget you can parallel two inverter generators if you think you will need a lot of continuous power for longer periods but don't want to run the machines at a high % load. You can get clean, quiet power but it is going to cost you:

This guy has two Honda EU7000is paralleled in an enclosure:

That's a really good idea then you have two if one fails.
But its expensive....

Maybe the cheaper option is to find an old iron monster and put it up in a little place of its own all oiled and fogged and wait..
Use your newer one and have the iron monster for heavy lifting and a back up.

If I had to I could take something like an LK or NH and get it to run even if you ripped most of the wires out of it.
There are no electronics of significant ( ya 905 board.. but I can wire around that ) that I can't bypass and get the unit to run reliable safe and put out power.
I can't fix an inverter gen with tie wraps and super nuts, but I can do a lot with an old Kohler, or Onan

Is the 15K 60Hz picky on the GRID input or the GEN input?

acsscott said:

Is the 15K 60Hz picky on the GRID input or the GEN input?

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Take with a grain of salt….

Most inverters and ups systems are picky about power
It’s not that they can’t be made to run on i they could and it’s question of will they allow anything else to be exposed to it for protection of other loads
Inverters don’t like noisy dirty power introduced in any form or input.

I am reminded of an issue I had decades ago with a yaskawa 3 phase drive ( the technology here is the same )

The drive kept shutting down a dc bus over volt

To understand this you need to understand how drives and mppt controllers behave
They take power in at a different level convert it to dc and charge up a bus to store it then convert it to a different voltage ( or frequency)

The dc bus inside the electronics package operates at a specific voltage where incoming power is cleaned and held in capacitors as needed to be converted to a different voltage and frequency

Specific to inverters now, and back to my yaskawa….
The plant was old and had a lot of electric arc furnaces ( hells arc welders to make molten iron and steel )
The amount of noise this generated was more of Han the filtering and cleaning capacity’s of the input section and dc bus could handle
The harmonics and noise all added together to raise the bus voltage and cause a trip

Same kinds of problems effect all kinds of other dc to dc converter, drives, inverters today
And harmonics also add in transformers and other parts of ac power systems causing heating of the wires and cores as these useless currents waste energy

When you inverter rejects power from a source that is full of harmonics and noise it’s for good reasons it could be harmful. Most likely it’s going to cause heating that’s more trouble to try and shed than is worth it to harness the useable power on that input

My yaskawa problem was solved by beefing up the input side of the equation. We isolated the power through a transformer that blocked and burned off these objections harmonics as heat before the inverter input and the drive was happy.

Not sure if this answered your question
But it sounds good to me….

Some generators make a lot of harmonics due to the distribution factor and the span of the coils
Manufacturers do there best but some designs may make some noise
Others suffer from noise in dirty brushes and slip rings
Sometimes it’s just because you get what you pay for and a cheap generator is making dirty power
Other times it could be an indication of an electrical fault developing in the generator itself and this fault has not been enough to cause a failure yet…

My 1800 rpm 8kW martin generator with a yanmar works with the sol-ark 12 GEN input. My son uses a 3600rpm 5kW portable gas generator on his sol-ark 12k GEN input. Neither work on the GRID input. It starts on the 8kW, but as soon as a load turns on, the governor is not tight enough, the motor slows down, and the sol-ark GRID input drops out. Even expanding the freq limits doesn't help on the GRID input.

acsscott said:

Is the 15K 60Hz picky on the GRID input or the GEN input?

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My installer hooked up my gen as "grid", I'm not sure why, but I believe it was recommended?

Either way, you CAN adjust it, but per battery and "sensitive electronics" recommendations, they set it to be more picky.

Skypower said:

I don’t believe any Generac “home” series (stationary/standby) are inverter type. To guarantee good frequency regulation, pure sine wave and fuel economy, nothing beats an inverter generator. .

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Generac uses what they call true power technology. You can also buy a DC generator.

True Power™ Technology

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delivers utility-grade power quality with less than 5 percent total harmonic distortion for clean, smooth operation of sensitive electronics and appliances.

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All the electronics and sophistication in the world don’t mean a dam thing if you don’t have the power to drive it

You need about 2 hp per kw to run a small generator with good regulation and wiggle room for surges

Typically you don’t get that today

You typically need a minimum of about 2 1/2 cubic inches per hp to get an engine to turn 3600 rpm and produce it’s rated peak power for hour on a 24 hour cycle( this is part of a heat dissipation calculation)
Your going to double the displacement if you run 1800 rpm and your going to want a two cylinder engine minimum most of the time to keep Frequency flicker low

These days gasoline e engines are very close to the edge on this stuff
Add to that they tend to be lean for emissions so they are twitchy

General rule of them is to not overload a set beyond 80 percent of its continues 1 hour over 24 rating for best economy and life of the unit

Inverter units might have slightly smaller engines yet
They might get away with that because they can adjust the engine speed to match the loading
They may turn faster than 3600 rpm.
In Some cases for peak power
Where they shine is light load fuel consumption

Stuff to keep in mind when calculating loads and performance

Skypower said:

... The unit below has the 50amp outlet (Amazon) ...
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I'm also looking for a backup generator to use with my Sol-Ark 15k. Although this one and it's 8000W twin look interesting I can't find any technical information on it, nor any service help available. The best I found was this Chinese web site with many broken links in it.

Polar Power with provide you with the exact DC generator to meet your requirements.
if that doesn't work, then a Kohler or Generac liquid cooled 4 cyl turbo charged propane generator running at 1800 rpm's with a high quality gen set in the 25 kW power range will last you a lifetime. The air cooled generators as well as the Chinese engine generators will need a lot more oil changes and care over their lifetime.

Skypower said:

...The DuroMax 9000 ... can be rigged to start/stop with dry contact control.

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How do I do this? The manual I found for it is here.

glandpuck said:

Polar Power with provide you with the exact DC generator to meet your requirements.
if that doesn't work, then a Kohler or Generac liquid cooled 4 cyl turbo charged propane generator running at 1800 rpm's with a high quality gen set in the 25 kW power range will last you a lifetime. The air cooled generators as well as the Chinese engine generators will need a lot more oil changes and care over their lifetime.

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Have you ever bought anything from Polar Power?

CAD said:

How do I do this? The manual I found for it is here.

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This is typical Chinese product advertising to documentation fail, but leave it to the community to come up with a resolution. Start at about post #37?
Post in thread 'Living with the DuroMAX XP9000iH'https://diysolarforum.com/threads/living-with-the-duromax-xp9000ih.55122/page-2
I also found this;