After years of asking my neighbour to phone me when the grid power came back on - after an outage - < I was on genny power >
I finally bought a noisy power-bak device for my panel. It's great.
What is available for farmers - who have their tractor-powered generator running ?
John T.
Possibly the lights of a nearby town, a feed lot, or the neighbor's yard light. It's at least possible they will see irrigation systems restarting. The system might call the farmer to let him know it's going.
Yep - lots of slow & unreliable indicators. I'm looking for a transfer-pole device to howl / flash / send a wireless notification when the grid power returns. They presently rely on a nearby neighbour - - 2 miles away to phone them. .. or await the e-message from the power company - ... which may-or-may-not come .. John T.
How about a light or noisemaker that's connected to the power before the generator intercepts the power going to the farm. It could be wired if there is some place close enough to run a wire. Certainly one could be in the house or the barnyard. You could leave it, or them, off all the time and just turn them on when there was a power failure.
As to wireless, it seems you need some kind of transmitter and a receiver too. Hmmm.
A search for "power back alarm". or "power restored alarm" turned up a couple. There are remote monitoring devices for center pivots but those do more than what you're after. I don't have any answers from personal experience.
Yep - Micky - you have re-phrased my question - now post some links to your devices .. John T.
.. center-pivots ? I don't know what that means ..
More might be better that nothing .. .. diesel isn't getting cheaper .. Post a link or two .. John T.
The powerback alarm can be heard over the sound of an old 1850 White at full tilt as long as it is more than 6 feet from the tractor's exhaust. - - - -
You want a Reliance Electric THP108 They are about $50. About 86 DB alrm runs on 9 volt battery You could quite easily modify it to trip a relay when it sounds, turning on a BRFL (Big Red Flashing? Light) when the power comed back on - powered by the tractor battery or the generator power.
I usr the THP108 on it's own - it is in the garage, well away from the genset and QUITE obvious from inside the house (attached garage)
My generator transfer panel only handles house essentials like well and furnace and when power comes back on stuff not on the panel comes back on.
These things.
My e-messages from the PoCo come pretty quickly. Under the heading of "Cause", they always show "Investigating"
During or after, I've never seen anything other than "Investigating". I think it's hard coded into the e-msg system. ;-)
Yep - over-kill - the house and barn are 100 feet from the utility feed and they aren't < yet > looking for permanent auto-start auto-shut-down backup power. Thanks for the ideas though. John T.
Yep. I have a power-bak and I'm well-aware of the screeching volume of its alarm - I keep hearing protection at the top of my basement stairs when it's armed. .. just not sure about its use or usefulness on an outdoor farm transfer hook-up .. John T.
Would you like the alert to do something else? Some sort of light maybe? Irrigation power units have automatic shutoffs if the engine overheats, loses oil pressure, or some other issue. Would you like to have the tractor shut off when the power returns? An example:
No need to have any auto-shut-down for the tractor -
- it's in the yard about 50 feet away from the house & barn. Just need an alert when the grid power returns - noise / light / cell phone message - combination of them. John T.
EXTREMELY simple. Another option - rather than modifying it, is to "AUGMENT" it with a device that when it senses the audio output of the alarm actuates the external devices - also quite trivial to implement (a simple resonant sensor that trips when the frequency of the powerbak alarm is sensed). Mount next to the powerbak unit)
I thought maybe John could use the tractor's existing lights and add a horn or emergency type flasher light. Maybe he could add a separate small disconnect switch and put a 220 volt relay downstream of it. He could run 12 volts from the tractor though the relay to activate lights and/or a noise maker. The disconnect would be needed to comply with code if I picture his situation correctly.
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