When is a Marine Generator not a Marine Generator!

[s/v Jedi]

The Maretron Switch Indicator Module is very universal and they have a range of different sensors to be used with it incl. a bunch of water flow sensors. This integrates it into N2K incl. it's alarm system. At the same time, the switch contacts can be used to shutdown the diesel. See the sensors at the bottom of this page: http://www.maretron.com/products/sim100.php

My Northern Lights was also "tested" on performance with seacock closed. It required a new impeller and a hunt throughout the cooling system for parts of the old impeller. This is when I designed the strainer to catch impeller parts which is now also the "change impeller" indicator.

[goboatingnow]

My Northern Lights was also "tested" on performance with seacock closed. It required a new impeller and a hunt throughout the cooling system for parts of the old impeller. This is when I designed the strainer to catch impeller parts which is now also the "change impeller" indicator.

Thats another useful idea, that should be fitted to engines , a strainer after the raw water pump!.

Dave

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Thats another useful idea, that should be fitted to engines , a strainer after the raw water pump!.

Dave

The design is such that parts that can pass this strainer will also pass the heat exchanger. I used 1.25" or 1.5" PVC pipe to make this from:


I have changed it location to upside down on the top of the hose loop between pump and heat exchanger. This allows me to open and clean it without spilling any salt water. For the rest it functions like designed which amazed me a bit as I normally change or fine tune a couple of times...

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by Fuss

Perfect, also a good solution.

Interesting to see that so far only 2 people have said that their generator has this functionality from the 356 views so far.
It makes some statements doesnt it, especially when the fault is so common.
Congratulations to them for choosing a good brand where the manufacturers are obviously thinking.

It would be pretty simple to install the flow sensor and wire it to shut down a genset and/or sound an alarm.

Someone suggested an automatic shut down of the propulsion engine also. This is not a good idea as you may be faced with the choice of continuing to run with an overheating engine or being run down by a container ship.

I don't have a genset so I don't have to worry about shutting it down, but I am considering a water flow sensor and alarm for my propulsion engine.

[Moonos]

I am an electrician and air con mechanic and I can't believe that a flow or pressure switch is not standard on marine generators! Plenty of reports on the net of people replacing raw water impellers very often.

I was on a boat the other day and the guy mentioned how important it was to never run the generator when sailing the cat. This isn't rocket science, measure the water movement through the generator and have a time delay of how ever many seconds is required to prevent startup or short cycling.

I would prefer to use a flow sensor set just above the manufacturers minimum spec. That would also tell you the filter needs cleaning.

Presumably manual reset, with a limit on number of generator starts per hour.

[BobH260]

We have a 3.6 Kw NextGen set. It did have the water pump impeller fail last season. It shut down fast on over temp., no damage to anything. I back flushed the heat exchanger. Installed a new impeller and has run fine since then.

Bob

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by FlyingCloud1937

That's not exactly true, many a system design uses the bypass from the crank switch, so the the low oil PS is bypassed by the crank circuit, which allows the energize to run solenoid on the the governor to run. By the time the engine starts the oil psi is up , and when you release the mom... on crank toggle/switch, everything works.

It's an added expense to add an time delay relay to the oil sw, but some do it, bc oil psi is slow to come up.

If you have an original by-pass system, and she fails to start in the oil psi fault, it could be an indicator, of a bad oil pump, or plugged oil delivery gallery.

Lloyd

Right, mine works like that! If you let your finger off the starter too soon, it shuts down.