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Colleagues:<br><br>
I had posted earlier that I was having problems reliably starting a
particular generator using an Outback Mate. My resolve was to
determine conclusively if the Outback mate was at fault or if I could
trust it in the future. I installed a data monitoring system to
check battery voltage, gen start signal and gen AC waveform and briefed
the care taker and staff to scrutinize the system carefully during the
test period. Here are the results:<br><br>
There were 4 generator start failures over a period of about 4 weeks.
Failure numbers 1 and 3 were verified to have been caused by the
generator. Failures 2 and 4 were due to failure of the customer to
reset the Mate after failures 1 and 3. This was a training error
that was partly mine. <u>No failures can be blamed on the Outback
equipment.<br><br>
</u>Moral of the story: Generator start systems are
complicated. You need to know your generator and your customer
needs to know his or her Mate. But, the Mate AGS works.<br><br>
More information:<br><br>
The Kohler RES 15 displays numerals under normal circumstances and alpha
characters under abnormal circumstances. I posted a note in the
generator shed informing anyone that if alpha characters are seen, to
note the characters, time, date and then to call me.<br><br>
The Mate is difficult enough for the technician to understand. My
customer has an elderly caretaker for whom English is a second
language. After I discovered the training error, I created a few
flip charts with lots of graphics and copies translated into Spanish,
followed up by on-site training. This should prevent repeats of the
failure to clear AGS Errors. This highlights the industry wide
problem of systems having too complicated a front end.<br><br>
Data monitoring proved the point that generator failure was the original
culprit. If anyone is interested in more information about a
roll-your-own low-budget data monitoring system, I created a page on the
subject:
<a href="http://millersolar.com/case_studies/Data/data.html" eudora="autourl">http://millersolar.com/case_studies/Data/data.html<br><br>
</a>I firmly believe that third party generator start hardware adds an
unnecessary level of complication and removes the added feature of tieing
generator stop to the float stage. I will continue to use and
recommended the Outback integrated AGS system.<br><br>
William Miller<br><br>
<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3><u>Please note new e-mail address and domain:<br><br>
</u>William Miller <br>
Miller Solar<br>
Voice :805-438-5600<br>
email: william@millersolar.com<br>
<a href="http://millersolar.com/" eudora="autourl">http://millersolar.com<br>
</a>License No. C-10-773985<br>
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