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Generator Blues!


trichcycler

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So as I sit here listening to the buzzing of my twin Honda's making power, I'm often reminded, twice a day almost, of the cost of my hobby.

I am an all electric property, no complaints mind you. I have a house and also a dedicated grow building. They typically use the same amount of power as the other, between heating cooling year round. It's quite common to hear my ac running in the grow room during the dead of winter, arrgh, I know, but such is the sacrifice for a sealed room environment. Winter is especially expensive in the grow room, for the electric baseboard(220) heat in both rooms(veg.flower, separated by a light lock curtain, sharing the air/c02) because It cools all day, and heats all night. but only for a couple months

I've played games with using my light cycles to heat during the night, etc, but settled on the outside cycle for flowering, as the most convenient to me, even with cost savings in mind. I have alarms that sound when we lose power, and one even calls my cell number every 15 minutes when it happens, but I don't like getting awakened in the middle of the night to work....lol

I couldn't afford the automatic generator so I opted for two 10,000 waters. I do have to wheel them out and fuss with the installed gen breakers, plug em in, but they are good running and reliable the two or three times a year I need them. The last time the power went out was only a couple weeks ago, and now again. Previously it lasted for two freakin weeks !!  I wont have running water, heat, ac, or even hot water without power. these gens are my lifeline. I keep a perpetual planting harvesting system going weekly. I need everything running at tops, including my drying/curing room, no exceptions.

Running both generators costs me $1.66 an hour and gives me a whole new respect for the DTE billings.

 

I shut off my home gen at night to save, but my garden requires it for 20 hours. I shut it off at midnite, and turn it back on at 4, so neighbors can sleep, a little.

 

No power until 11:30 pm tomorrow they say. arrgh, I know.

 

anybody else in a power outage ?

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mine went off yesterday around 1500...

 

came back on around midnight..

 

i dislike immensely when our grid goes down.. its so fragile.

 

i desperately need a generator but i have been trying to save for an automatic switch one because in the rare event i am not home (such as was the case yesterday while i was away helping a family member) i may not have known..

 

i love that your cell phone calls and lets you know.. is that some kind of device you plug in to your wall and it notified you?

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Wow...this time of year we are only using @ 12volt/200 watts /plant

 

With a solar panel and a couple deep cycle we can get by with a cheap auto  1500 watt converter. ....

 

You can spend all you want but Mother Nature do it 10X better for a fraction of the price.

 

Work With Mother Nature and She Will do the heavy lifting.

 

Grow Your Own.....and Keep Off My Grass

Edited by beourbud
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It would cost me upwards of $90k to replace my grow room power with a solar array, not including a battery bank. I help five patients and grow just under my limit. They demand the best, like clockwork. The lights are a small fraction of my power needs. My atmosphere control is spot on and efficient, but is the bulk of our(patients) expenses. This investment would not pay for itself by the time the batteries and panel life expires. I've had those guys out year after year, with meters and charts and even the wind guy with the poles in the yard for a month.

I do have solar power, more than many. I run fans, filters, and building exhaust, all using grow lights though. Not sure how much it really saves me, but it sounds and looks cool anyway, so I got the cool factor going for me.

Some months I use 2oookwh/month. Looking at this closer ......

If you want to have 2000 kwh per month, it means you have to produce 2000/30 kwh every day, that is 66.66 kwh per day. Considering there are 4 hours of peak sun every day in my area, the solar system will have to produce 66.66/4 = 16.66 kwh per hour, and that means 16660 in watts. Now, different types of panels produce more or less energy watts. If you opt for one that produces 150 watts, then you will need about 111 solar panels.

To approximate the necessary space for such a solar system, you have to know that, in order to generate 2000 kwh per month, you need a system of 24.8 kwp (kilowatt peak). Every 1 kwp needs about 100 s.f. of space.

 

I use approximately 231 watts of power to grow each plant daily. May I ask you of the size of your array?

 

 

 

my 30 x 40 building would need to be covered on both sides of the roof, and some, to cover those needs
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this is a 10kw  http://www.mvpowersystems.com/products/solarcomplete/images/p_solarcomplete_1.jpg

 

I need more than two of those

 

and another 40k in batteries to support the demand  when the power goes out, plus a gen for backup....meh. I'll wait till the sun gets cheaper.

Edited by grassmatch
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Just got power back. Yikes the outage stuff is the worst.

I have two generators, one for house and a separate one specifically for the ladies.

 

I'm interested in the Natural Gas automatic on ones I keep hearing about. A little cost heavy on the front end, but it could pay for itself if you have a power loss and can't get home quickly enough. I believe they can run on propane also.

Does anyone have experience with this variety and any thoughts they would be willing to share?

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A friend of mine installed a natural gas auto gen last year, he loves it, flawless operation, cheaper than gasoline too.

 

If I had natural gas I would jump on it. Propane is more expensive per hour than gasoline here. I suppose if I already heated with propane and had the tank here, it would be my choice. When dispensaries are legally opened, I'll get an auto gen, and sell my hondas10k's

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I use approximately 231 watts of power to grow each plant daily. May I ask you of the size of your array?

 

 

 

my 30 x 40 building would need to be covered on both sides of the roof, and some, to cover those needs

 

 200w / plant     this is for pot heaters and enough cfl to keep the plant in the reveg range,

 

watering is minimal.   Basically we rcycle the unusable bits to give us good clones in the spring which we then grow organic in the Sun.

 

@$40/oz

 

 

but i get your method....every grow is different..AND THAT IS A GOOD THING

 

 

We have different ops.   Our girls are reveging now...they are short but have huge rootballs. 

 

No power sucks...Hope y'all get your power back on soon.

Edited by beourbud
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Keeps soil temp in range for reveg

 

Its a Michigan thing

do you reveg all of your plants?  I know some one that does, and he only uses t-5's, he has the time and it provides him plenty of meds, I didnt beleive it at first but its true, and his mm is fantastic, I have some seeds im waiting to pop, Im not taking in clones for a very long time lol, it always seems to bite me in the arse, or shall I say my plants lol, no clones for me,

 

But the reveging thing realy interests me!

 

Peace

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  • 2 years later...

Yep, got the generator blues once again!

 

isn't legal to sell overages to a dispensary yet, so no auto gens for me. power went out last night around 10, I skipped the gens and went to bed. this morning one fired up and the other has a phukked carb I suspect, strange from a highly maintained Honda a couple yrs old, oh well...more procrastinated summer bench work.

for now I have the house off and heat with wood, and the grow room has its own gen. Supposed to restore power this evening...hoping.

 

anyone else pumping gasoline into a generator today ?

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gm you have 2 10k watt honda's?  I have one 3500 it cost me 1'800.00 bucks 10 yrs ago and they are still the same price, mine will run my small grow, you could get one of those generac's for like 5 k to run your whole house,

 

Your neighbors can hear them honda's?  I run mine right under my bdrm window in my camper and it dont bug me at all, most camp grounds that make you shut them off at 11pm cant hear mine run, I leave it on all nite and off all day lol, I like to watch t.v at nite and I recharge my battery's at nite lol!

 

I could have bought 4 generators from home depot with like 6500 w for the price of my 1 honda, but them bad generators make so much noise I cant stand to listen to them, I can be camping and be right next to mine and hear the guys 3 sites down louder than mine!

 

Peace

 

I have 3.5 gallon gas tank, and I have not run it out of gas, the longest I ran it was 26 hrs, and I shut it off, I was trying to see how long it would run on one tank, I still dont truly know, I just know 20-24 hrs is safe for me to be home to gas it up!

Edited by phaquetoo
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actually one is 8750 start/7500 continuous and the other is 10k start and 8750 continuous.

 

One has a Honda motor the other a briggs. the Honda is a little bit quieter, and used to be the fastest starter till this time. doa for now. no fuel getting past carb, yet.

neighbors can definitely hear them, but when mine are on so are theirs. I suspect 6 of the ten in a mile grow also, of course. I got s real good deal on the gens at the time. I want a whole house, but I have no natural gas, no propane here. It becomes a little bit more complicated than wheeling out a couple gens once a year for a few days. but I still would like a whole house unit. One will run my home, and one will run my garden(two separate meters). One could not do both. I have to shut a couple baseboard heaters off in my home just to stop the digi warnings of overload approaching. I can run a ac unit though, and a dryer, or a sauna..hehe, just not at the same time.  I think I need bigger than a 5 to do the job. all electric here, and I don't like sacrificing any power for a minute.

 

The grow room doesn't skip a beat normally. I was out of power for two weeks a couple years ago. cost 25 $ a day to run both all day in the summer. each has a five gal tank I think. gave me a whole new appreciation for DTE.

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