Does anyone have r experience with operating a pellet boiler on a generator during a power outage? My energy monitor says mine consumes maybe 1600 watts during the ignition phase. I have a 2000 Watt Honda inverter that I'd have to make work.
Pellet Boiler on Generator?
- Thread starter velvetfoot
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I always recommend running the power through a "line tamer" or surge suppressor of some kind for any heating equipment running on a generator.
The Honda may not be too bad especially since it's an invertor type but some of the sine wave and frequency output on the $499 specials will wreak havoc on anything electronic.
A normal 110V motor or a power tool load is no problem, but anything with a PCB in it......not good.
The Honda may not be too bad especially since it's an invertor type but some of the sine wave and frequency output on the $499 specials will wreak havoc on anything electronic.
A normal 110V motor or a power tool load is no problem, but anything with a PCB in it......not good.
Thanks. I've had motors making funny noises on a crappy generator, but this one should be pretty good. I've run sensitive stuff before on my big Generac, and have had no problems.
The issue is that for 5 minutes, or so, in the ignition phase, there is large current draw relatively close to the Honda's max. After that, easy peasy. I think my strategy would be to turn just about everything else off, like the refrigerator, and maybe keep a few led lights on during the ignition stage. I'd just have to be aware when the boiler would restart so there's no big load on at the time. I guess I could manually turn off the boiler after it goes to Standby to guarantee that.
The wood insert would be in the mix as well as the fact that I need to break out the big Generac for the deep well pump.
The issue is that for 5 minutes, or so, in the ignition phase, there is large current draw relatively close to the Honda's max. After that, easy peasy. I think my strategy would be to turn just about everything else off, like the refrigerator, and maybe keep a few led lights on during the ignition stage. I'd just have to be aware when the boiler would restart so there's no big load on at the time. I guess I could manually turn off the boiler after it goes to Standby to guarantee that.
The wood insert would be in the mix as well as the fact that I need to break out the big Generac for the deep well pump.
We had a power cut on Saturday so I powered up our generators. I have 2 Honda EU2000i inverter generators, one of them the companion so they interconnect. I have a transfer switch in my panel so I can power up as many circuits as I want. The Windhager had powered down and when it started up it tried to run the pellet vac system. This caused a problem with generator maybe not keeping up and a red error flashed up on the Windhager. The generators have an eco setting so it runs half speed which was on so that might have been the issue, we also had lights, tv etc on. I turned off the vac feature and the boiler worked great. When the power came back I waited until the boiler had been off for while and switched back to utility power.
I would not trust a normal / non-inverter generator for electronics.
I would not trust a normal / non-inverter generator for electronics.
SmokeEater
Feeling the Heat
You might manually light the burn pot as instructed in your manual. Then your Honda or even the 1000 watt Honda would have no difficulty in powering your pellet burner.
I don't think that is possible. The manual says: "Do not fill or light burner manually."
This happened to me when we had a very short power interruption. Does it try to fill the day hopper when it starts back up from a forced shutdown?
bdud, did you have both generators running at the time? I haven't tried to look at the power draw of the vacuum; do you have any info on that? Maybe it's in the manual. I thought the resistance load of the ignitor would go past the capability of the EU2000i, but maybe the surge current of the vacuum unit does that.
SmokeEater
Feeling the Heat
a residential vacuum might consume electric energy from 400 watts to over 3000 watts. An average canister or upright may be rated at a maximum usage of 2 hp. If the motor was making the 2 hp, then it was consuming over 1500 watts leaving 500 for other uses from your EU2000i generator.
Both generators were running but the Eco setting was on with both of them. It was at night and I had not switched or unplugged all the unneeded chargers etc. it was definitely the vac system that caused the error. When the boiler started up it said boiler locked and I forgot the other message it says when the vac filling says when it says when it will run. The vac did run at least twice and it was during this that the red screen / error came up. The boiler was already full so it normally runs 3 times and then turns off. I turned off the automatic fill, I hoped my power would not be down for too long. The boiler did later come on. If I had turned off Eco mode on the generators or had turned off the some lights it might have been ok. The boiler did not do a complete reset / power down, it just flashed up that red error. If I had left the vac system on the boiler might have just continued, the error did not stay in the display. The boiler might have just continually tried the vac in a loop because the electronics thinks that stage did not complete, I don't know. I did not want to experiment at that stage.
In the manual are the ratings for the boiler. I know the Electrican and I had a bit of a job finding a switch that was rated high enough to use as an isolator for the boiler. 30A maybe?
SmokeEater, I use 2 EU2000 generators, but I must have been using at least 1.4kw at the time. Some zones were calling for heat so that pump was on, etc etc. maybe there is a rating label on the vac itself that is easy to see, job for you velvetfoot.
In the manual are the ratings for the boiler. I know the Electrican and I had a bit of a job finding a switch that was rated high enough to use as an isolator for the boiler. 30A maybe?
SmokeEater, I use 2 EU2000 generators, but I must have been using at least 1.4kw at the time. Some zones were calling for heat so that pump was on, etc etc. maybe there is a rating label on the vac itself that is easy to see, job for you velvetfoot.
It's not the steady state draw that will knock out the generator, it's the surge, especially, I believe, with the inverter types. Even though I have a multimeter that can do instantaneous current, I'm not sure how do manually start up the vacuum to run a test.
Go into Service level, Actuator test, Suction Turbine. You can turn it on and off. I have a house watt meter but too much is going on at the moment to get a reliable reading, cooking, washing etc.
Thanks for the tip-I might give it a whirl. I imagine it would be sucking the pellets in during the test...hmmmm. While I also have a home energy meter, it's probably not possible to get the starting draw on the motor with those kind of meters.
JP11
Minister of Fire
Not sure how big an APC computer backup is. I bet you can find a used, 2000watt one that's broken on eBay or something. THEN, since the batteries are just 12V. Find yourself an old used car battery or two. Hook em up. It will 'clean' your power, and give you a bit of time to get that honda running.
Just a thought.
My Vigas is plugged into a 1500watt APC at all times. It will keep it running, albeit with a slightly reduced pump speed, for the 7 seconds till the Kohler automatic kicks in.
JP
Just a thought.
My Vigas is plugged into a 1500watt APC at all times. It will keep it running, albeit with a slightly reduced pump speed, for the 7 seconds till the Kohler automatic kicks in.
JP
You have to check the specification of the ups. Most do not do any smoothing of power coming in, they are just battery back ups.
Looking at the manual, the eu2000i is rated for 2000 va for 30 minutes and 1600 va continuous. That'd be enough to get things ignited, but I'm not so sure about the inrush current of the vacuum. Before messing with the boiler, I could try plugging my shop vac into the Honda (non-eco switched) and see what happens. Maybe that's not so meaningful since there are the electronics that turned on the red light and halted things on the boiler is not involved with the shop vac. Still, it'd be somewhat of an indication.
I would use the honda 2000 for just the boiler. It's a clean power machine and maxed out on the boiler. Use another honda or something for the house.
It's only maxed out when igniting or loading pellets, which are only very very small amounts of tine.
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