Generator Tripping. Weird Reason.

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ratski

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OK, so I've posted in the past about having my house wired to run off of a generator.

And, there have been discussion threads about running a house on a generator, etc

Here is the history.

About two years ago, I had the house wired so that with a few flips of switches, I could plug a generator into my house and run basically everything I needed. Except for the dryer and AC. But all the heating (gas heat), TVs, lights, fans, etc.

Then, we lost power over the Christmas holidays last year and I got to put my preps in action. And everything worked as planned and I was a big hero.

Fast forward to this June. For whatever reason, we lost power for an extended period.

I came home from work at lunch and figured, no problem. I'd get the house up and running so my wife and grandsons could ride out the problem.

Shortly after getting everything set up and running, the genny trips.
Weird. Especially since it worked so well before.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get things to power up. I threw breakers for the AC, Dryer, fridge, freezer, and no go.

So, I finally had my friendly electrician come by the house today so we could trouble shoot this issue.

I could tell that he just knew I was whacky and must have screwed something up.

So, we fired up the genny, flipped the switches and boom, genny tripped.

We scratched our heads for about an hour trying to figure things out. Nothing had really changed since the previous power outage. Except (I thought) we put in a new washer and dryer.

We isolated them and still the problem persisted.

So, we decided to turn every breaker off and then back on one at a time to see which one might be the culprit.

Turns out, my wife had bought a new iron a few months ago. It apparently has some sort of auto-on circuit. Turns out that when the power goes off and comes back on, the iron cycles up and during that time and afterwards, it is drawing something like 12 amps/1500 watts. That is about 33% of the generator output!!!

When I would crank up the genny, the iron would basically overload the circuit and shut me down.

Figured that since this was a weird on, I'd pass it on in case any of you ever have a head scratcher like this.

Never would have guessed this was the cause.

Dave
 

dennishoddy

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Thanks for the heads up and the great troubleshooting tips.
Its amazing sometimes what will trip up an electrical circuit.
I spent my entire career in Electrical/electronic maintenance around manufacturing and power plants.
Its the smallest things that can cause the issue.
 

mugsy

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Ratski we finally got our Westinghouse generator and I'm about to start using it - listen to the emer services radio for a call to my house.
 

mr ed

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why would you leave an iron plugged in?
sounds like you leave, power goes out, then back on, iron turns on and might burn house down.
 

ratski

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why would you leave an iron plugged in?
sounds like you leave, power goes out, then back on, iron turns on and might burn house down.

That is the design of this particular iron. It isn't hot, or even warm to the touch as long as it is upright.

Dave
 

Jwryan84

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I was taught at a very young age to unplug all appliances when not in use. Toaster, iron etc. sounds really dangerous to leave it plugged in.
 

ratski

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Can't wrap my brain around this. If it's pulling a 1500W load it's got to be heating.

It is a Rowenta Iron with an auto on/off feature.
Draw on it is 1715 Watts
We measured an amp draw of 12 amps as it cycled up, then it drops back to hibernation. The wattage/amp use after the cycling drops pretty low. It is the power up cycle that causes the genny to trip.

The auto on/auto off feature is sort of like what you get with a laser printer. When you turn it on, it powers up, gets everything ready to print and then snoozes.
I have to think that this is the same thing.

It cycles up when powered on to be able to be used rapidly when needed. Both heat and steam cycles are ready to use within about 30 seconds of grabbing it. It has auto off even if left down. If it doesn't move in the down position for over 30 seconds, it shuts the heat off.

Pretty standard for these irons from what I have seen over the last 10 years of owning them.

I agree that it is pretty hard to wrap your head around it causing this type of an issue, but it is like using a blow dryer when running the generator. Most of those are 1500 Watts or higher. If the generator is rated for 6KW, that is 25% of the total Wattage available. If you are running a large house and already at (lets say) 5000 Watts, kicking on the blow dryer will put you over the top.

This was just one of those weird things that took a while to pin down. Posted it to let anyone else know that if they ever have an issue with their power flow using a generator, there might be something like this lurking in their house that they don't know about. I sure didn't. Cost me two hours of my electricians time to get it figured out.

Dave
 

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