We bought a Troy-bilt portable generator with Briggs & Stratton engine. It is 5000 watt with electric start. The book says it will run 10 hours on 1/2 load - but it doesn't say how to set it on 1/2 load. My neighbor has a different brand of generator and it has a place to set it on 1/2 load. Anybody here familiar with Troy-bilt? Does anyone know of a book with "how to" instructions ... the one that came with this thing assumes the user knows a lot more than we do.
There is NO half load setting. The load is what you put on it. If you draw 2500 watts that's half load. It's approximate though, not many things run continuously. Refrigerators and freezers are on and off. Well pumps are on and off. Cooking is on and off. Heating systems are on and off. Your load will fluctuate in other words.
If you can get ten loaves of bread out of 7 pounds of flour you'll get about for to five loaves from 3.5 pounds of flour etc. etc.
They probably give the half load (2500 watts) consumption just as an example and also perhaps because the unit will be fairly economical at that 50% loading.
If it use all its fuel in 10 hours on half load it might get anywhere from 6 to 4 hours on full load???? It all depends.
It's a bit like saying a truck with a full tank of gas will go 1000 miles half loaded. And maybe 400 miles absolutely fully loaded!
Depending on the type of electrical loads plugged into the generator it may or may not handle a full load; especially it it involves anything with motors that stop and start such as fridges, freezers. air conditioners water pumps etc.
Electric motors can have starting currents several times those of when they running steadily or of something that has the same wattage but operates without a motor.
So if the generator is running at say 75% (three quarters) of full load and some motor cuts in as well, the generator could slow right, trip out or even stall and stop. Rather like trying to drive car up too steep a hill. And stalling the engine!
Experience will advise just what and how much can be plugged in and used off the generator at one time!
If someone in the house has medical/life maintaining equipment to be operated during a power outage one would not run the risk of the spare beer fridge in the garage cutting in or someone plugging in an extra coffee pot and shutting down the generator and killing the person. But that's the kind of foolishness that can happen!
What your neighbor's generator probably has, is an automatic idle control. This switch allows the generator to run at idle (slow) speed when NO electric loads are turned on. Your generator needs to run at a constant RPM (probably 3600) to generate
120/240 volts and can produce a maximum of 5000 watts of electricity. As you connect more lights, appliances, etc. to the generator, the engine has to work harder and harder to maintain that 3600 RPM, and of course the harder it works the more fuel it uses, so if you only connect 2500 watts of load to it, it will be working at half it's load and using half the fuel
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Not same but I have a Power Boss with B&S engine about same power (5,500 continuous running and 7,350 peak start) only controls are on/ off switch and choke. Just says it will use about 2 five gallon tanks of gas in full day running. There are no settings on engine and most generators are cobbled up from different company parts and there should be separate booklets for engine and generating unit. I've had to use the generator several time but never used more than a tank of gas per outage even over a day as I turn it off when sleeping or out of the house.
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