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How many hrs on you set?
Have heard so many comment My bus is a 98 model and has 800 hrs on the gen set. Just currious is this normal? That would be just a little over 60 a year. Actually my use is normally about 80 hrs per year. I know usage varries from the guys that use them for business away from the grid but we will take that into account. I’m doing a little cost effect research on elect load reduction benfits in coach system demand. Bob
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33 Replies
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1999 H3 143,000 miles- generator hours 2,200
Terry
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4400 hours
200,430 miles
1999 Royale
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2005 Marathon XLII
492 hrs….ran 71 hrs straight July 4 weekend 2011. Choose not to plug into power box, on Lake Texoma marina with old wiring Listened to that little voice in my head when lots of wires running everywhere. Ran 3 a/c on during day, 2 a/c night.
40500 miles
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We motorhome owners are going to have our generators rust out before they wear out.
I know from entertainer coach operators that our generators are good for 30,000 plus hours of operation if they are run hard and often. Maybe some of the entertainer drivers or operators will chime in here. The differences in usage are likely the fact we who run motorhomes go from shore power to shore power so generator use is minimal. We need to run ours more and we need to load them up when we do run them.
I am only running about 100 hours a year, with the longest continuous stretch 170 hours.
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Run them hard, long, loaded and often is what the dude at Powertec told me.
Mine is at 2,234 and 15 years old.
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Martin 15K with 4,106 hours in a 1991 H3-40. Previous owners wintered in the Keys with no hookups so the gen ran every day to charge the battery bank. I will run it very little at least for the next couple of years.
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Our current coach, ’92 Beaver Prevost XL 40 with 87K miles and is equipped with a naturally aspirated 15K Power Tech has 1007 hours on. Our last coach being the 2000 Marathon H3-45 had 2400 hours on its generator when we sold it..
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1650 hrs. Have run 50 hrs non stop. Run loaded as possible. change oil every 100 hrs, you will never have a problem with the engine side.
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Since our generators like to be run hard I try to use ours as frequently as possible. Since I admit to using the coach only to get from 50 amp to 50 amp service I can literally do without a generator, but that makes no sense because we do dry camp from time to time.
So to exercise the generator on every trip I have gotten into the habit of rolling into a rest area (for lunch or for overnight) and starting the generator as we roll to a stop. At that point I load it up as much as practical. I turn on AC units (or heaters), lights, the TV, and anything else that makes sense. If I can I use all 4 AC units either as cooling or heating to load up the generator. At 20 KW it is almost impossible to load it more than 50% for any extended period, but I try.
It may appear silly to run it for 1/2 hour while we eat a sandwich, but at least I have fired it up, exercised it, loaded it and brought it up to its normal running temperatures. By doing what we do even though not really necessary when on a trip that begins and ends with 50 amp shore power I have assured ourselves the generator is still working as intended and if there is a glitch I know about it before I spend three days dry camping and really need it. Not drawing down the batteries deeply because we run the generator also reduces the cycles on the batteries and when I replace them at 5 years they are all still good, which means we haven’t had to deal with marginal batteries. Our generator likely consumes less than 1/2 GPH, probably areound .4 GPH so the cost of operation is marginal.
I’m with George on the 100 hour service intervals.
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Power Tech Generator end bearing went south distroying entire internal generator parts, Complete New Generator was the cheapest way out. diesel engine was OK . The new generator was Sold by Power Tech in Leesburg, FL and made in China, I will run it at least once a month and change the oil every 100 hours, Jon idea of using it at rest stops will be in my game plan as well.
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We have 9.700 hrs. on ours… Powertech said the more you run it the more it runs… load it up too!!
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I have over 2500 on my Powertech 15. I use mine while driving for the AC dash air alone will not make it. After reading these post I think I should start making log entries for the hours on the Generator. The Beaver has a Command Control panel that lets you know when to change the oil on the Gen, which I use, but I have no idea how many hours between alerts, thinking 300.
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6,100 hrs on my 17.5KW,. I will remember to run it hard and run it often instead of trying to try to keep the hours down thinking it will last longer!
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For some reason folks who buy conversions such as ours think low generator hours and low miles are a good thing. That may be true on a new or nearly new coach, but to help our generators grow old gracefully we need to run them often and loaded. Since the life of a generator on the typical entertainer coach is going to exceed 30,000 hours we don’t even come close. The winner on this thread is the one on Diane and Larry’s coach and I would expect that generator to be healthier than many 10 or 20 year old coaches with 1000 hours or so.
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It is amazing Jon.. how well they run… we just ran ours 24hrs a day for 5 straight days when we were at the Prouds Rally in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago ran all 4 airs plus TVs etc in 90+ degree weather and it never missed a lick. Also there were another 30+ Prevosts without hook-ups that ran there gens just like we did all without a problem !!!
I have to believe in the “use ’em or lose ’em” !!!
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