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Have you ever seen on of these?

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Aluminum
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Charlottesville, VA
Have you ever seen a portable 3 phase generator??

Has anyone ever seen a small, gas-driven, THREE PHASE, portable power generator? I remember waaaay back, while in the USAF, seeing those HUGE generators on wheels, but I'm talking about a smaller unit, maybe 3-5 HP, 120V, 240V and/or 480V, 3PH, 60 Hz, that could be used to temporarily power up and test out, small 3 phase machines?
Mike
Charlottesville, VA
 
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Has anyone ever seen a small, gas-driven, THREE PHASE, portable power generator? I remember waaaay back, while in the USAF, seeing those HUGE generators on wheels, but I'm talking about a smaller unit, maybe 3-5 HP, 120V, 240V and/or 480V, 3PH, 60 Hz, that could be used to temporarily power up and test out, small 3 phase machines?
Mike
Charlottesville, VA

I *think* that even though my MEP-803A NATO generator has a four-cylinder liquid-cooled Lister-Petter Diesel.. it has only about 14 BHP?

Now.. for testing stuff.. the problem with a gen set (I LIVED off them in 'nam, 3 KW to 100 KW..) is lack of reserves for STARTING electric motor loads.

So my ~ 14 HP, 10 KVA @ 8,000 ft above mean sea level, 12 KVA at sea level, 15 KVA peak. MEP-803A in 3-Phase mode struggles to start a 10 HP motor it can RUN very easily, even at full rated load.

Your target of 5 HP IC engine side could be limited to being hard pressed to even start a THREE HP load motor?

"On the other hand".... UNlike a gen set "raw", a VFD can do other things useful for testing:

- slow-ramp that otherwise problematic start phase of a load motor to be tested.

- BY slow-ramping up, bring a motor of twice of more the VFD's nominal rating up to speed. Because the motor is NOT loaded while testing only its basic health.

Bottom Line:

What might do you as much good might be a hundred feet of stout SO extension cord and a decent VFD? No flammable fuels required for the gen set no longer THERE.

OR .. a decent VFD WITH any decent small/medium gen set good for ignorant split-phase 240 VAC? 3-Phase at the gen set no longer required 'coz the VFD takes care of that as well as the soft start.
 
You can probably pick up a 1,500 KW Cat run generator for one of the many stacked drilling rigs here in Texas for a fraction of their million dollar price tag they sold for 10 plus years ago. Won't have to worry about going to sleep. The smooth vibration is massaging to the back, be sleeping in minutes. It's getting over the industrial grade muffler they provide for these units! :angry:

Oh, did you say you need to power up the whole neighborhood? You can with one of these!!!! 480 volts 3-phase all the way. :D
 
Should work great for pissing off the neighbors!

Nah, if that is a goal you need a Detroit. If my kids have a long term power outage in the suburbs I have told them I will bring them my 2-71 powered welder/generator. That way all the neighbors will take up a collection and buy them a stand-by power unit.
 
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