Need advice. How long will a generator last?

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Little legs

Member
printer said:
This is not a generator. It is an inverter, it boosts your battery voltage and switches it back and forth to make AC power. It will have a conversion efficiency of around 90-95% depending on design. It uses 56V battery packs, the highest capacity battery on this site is 5.0Ah battery. So each pack can give 250W for one hour, two packs for 500W. So 24 batteries for 12:12 if you change them once a day making two trips. Install them in the morning, run them and then pick them up to charge at night. The pack seems to only come with the charger, the pair for $100. Not the best reviews on batteries though.

egopowerplus.com

Power+ 7.5 Amp Hour Battery with Fuel Gauge

The 7.5 Ah ARC Lithium™ Battery is now equipped with an upgraded fuel gauge.
egopowerplus.com egopowerplus.com
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They do now have 10ah batteries, and you can put 4 of them on at one time, and they produce 560wh each. That would obviously half the batteries needed. But do you still not think that would be feasible?
I'm having a look at diesel generators, I'm just abit worried about the running costs and the fumes. However the one I've seen can be ran on red diesel, which I have access to.
Noise wise it's fine. Completley underground and away from people.

I'll attach a screen shot of what I've been looking at diesel wise, if you could tell me what pros and cons might be then that would be great pal.
 

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P

piratebug

Well-Known Member
Off grid, then a 8 panel x 250w solar array would be my choice. But there are some nice generators that can do it and the 24 hour running cost for many 2-3KWH generators would be around $18 to $20 in the U.S., running diesel or JP8 fuel grades, but in England it would be about double that price. Anyhow, a really nice generator that I have lots of personal knowledge about is Dewey MEP-531A, its reasonable priced, and its cheap to run, @ 0.3 gph, and is rated for indefinite continuous usage!
 
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L

Little legs

Member
dbz said:
You should just buy your weed
Chargeable battery packs isn't going to produce you enough weed to pay for anything. They won't keep up a decent light.
If you really really wanted to do that, then the best you could do is a Sunny area with quite a few solar panels to recharge a sizeable battery bank. Even then with any decent amount of cloud coverage you would likely be fucked unless you had a lot of solar panels and batteries (To charge enough batteries to provide hundreds or a thousand watts per hour for potential 12-14 hour darkness coupled with a whole day of cloud cover).
That doesn't even take into account atmospheric control in a "mine shaft" as you called it, you would need some type of heating at least even if cooling were covered by ambient temperature.
You need way more batteries than you think for a decent grow, and a shitton of solar panels, unless you plan on carrying hundreds of pounds of batteries multiple times a day back and forth. BTW batteries are pretty damn heavy
Long story short, not a good idea. Don't do it. Or do, and if you grow a decent crop spend thousands to grow not near enough to pay yourself back or likely even maintain the grow.
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Yeah I've seen solar panal charging ones. Could potentially use them, would definitely save some time. Would possibly put the panels in the tops of tree and run it down into the "shaft". That would get enough sun, but abit scetchy that somethings on show. As for temperature, it's already about 10° down there, so was thinking a hid light on continuous would bump the temp up quite abit, without needing an extra heater plugged in or anything. The more advice I get the more I realise battery powerd might not be the one. I just cant help but think 4 10ah batterys being replaced once or twice a day should be able to cover it.
I'll attach a pic of diesel genny I've been looking at. If you can tell me what issues I might face with that then that would be great.
 

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ilovereggae

ilovereggae

Well-Known Member
as noted, battery packs are not going to realistically work. the amount of storage required for the batteries and constant changing of them is unrealistic. and what happens if you happen to get sick or have some other emergency happen and u can't get out there for a day or 2 to swap in new ones?

do you happen to have any stream or steady water source out there in the woods? a small hydro electric setup would give you power 24 hrs a day as long as the water flows constantly.
 
L

Little legs

Member
piratebug said:
Off grid, then a 8 panel x 250w solar array would be my choice. But there are some nice generators that can do it and the 24 hour running cost for many 2-3KWH generators would be around $18 to $20 in the U.S., running diesel or JP8 fuel grades, but in England it would be about double that price. Anyhow, a really nice generator that I have lots of personal knowledge about is Dewey MEP-531A, its reasonable priced, and its cheap to run, @ 0.3 gph, and is rated for indefinite continuous usage!
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Cheers pal. Think diesel might be the way to go. I've got access to red diesel aswell, which will help with costs. Determined to work something out, cant be Impossible. First crop will be expensive, because ive got to buy the generator etc, but once it's there, the following crops would probably only cost around £15 a day, and I'd be able to run a bigger light than 600w.
 
L

Little legs

Member
ilovereggae said:
as noted, battery packs are not going to realistically work. the amount of storage required for the batteries and constant changing of them is unrealistic. and what happens if you happen to get sick or have some other emergency happen and u can't get out there for a day or 2 to swap in new ones?

do you happen to have any stream or steady water source out there in the woods? a small hydro electric setup would give you power 24 hrs a day as long as the water flows constantly.
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Ok, that's pretty interesting, there's a small running stream but cant imagine it being powerful enough.

I think a diesel generator would be more efficient for power and running time. It's just the fumes it might produce underground that I'm worried about. I have access to red diesel, and I've seen a generator that is compatible, so that's a plus.
It's a difficult one.
 
L

Little legs

Member
GrassBurner said:
Honda is2000 will power all your lights and run for years without ever stopping, silently :blsmoke:
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I've seen those ones, definitely on the would possibly work list.
What do we reckon about these?..

www.sgs-engineering.com

SGS 7.5 kVA Diesel Generator With Long Run 30L Tank

The SGS SDG8000SELR generator boasts an impressive 30L diesel fuel tank which boosts the maximum running time of this standby diesel generator up to 30 hours.
www.sgs-engineering.com www.sgs-engineering.com
 
L

Little legs

Member
GrassBurner said:
Can't go wrong with a diesel, especially at that price :bigjoint:
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I reckon i could get 1000w running off that 12-12 pretty easy right? or even better two lights? Running 18-6 would be great for autos, but then you've got to deal with bit of extra cost, and end up having to turn the lights off at silly times.

With autos tho, the price of red diesel per crop would actually only be about 500quid. I think that will be well worth, especially if I can get 2 lights running.
 
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reza92

reza92

Well-Known Member
Little legs said:
They do now have 10ah batteries, and you can put 4 of them on at one time, and they produce 560wh each. That would obviously half the batteries needed. But do you still not think that would be feasible?
I'm having a look at diesel generators, I'm just abit worried about the running costs and the fumes. However the one I've seen can be ran on red diesel, which I have access to.
Noise wise it's fine. Completley underground and away from people.

I'll attach a screen shot of what I've been looking at diesel wise, if you could tell me what pros and cons might be then that would be great pal.
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my god father owns and runs his own hobby mine. Rule of thumb is no petrol/diesel driven equipment down the hole. Only a few months back there was a couple who died from doing something like that. Dude had a petrol pump running down the mine to remove water, went down to check it while the misso watched the kids. After 30mins he wasn’t back up so the misso went looking, both dead.

this seems like a stupid and expensive exercise all round. 10/10 don’t recommend. Go buy your weed or find your own place and grow their.
 
reza92

reza92

Well-Known Member
Little legs said:
Why tho? People can run houses off generators, so I dont get why I couldnt work out what to buy, so I can run a couple of lights.
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you can but
a) it’s very inefficient
b) normally these houses are set up for efficiency so no hid lights
C) most of these houses won’t run the generator more than a few hours a day.
D) I doubt you’ll ever recoup your costs.
 
ilovereggae

ilovereggae

Well-Known Member
Southside112 said:
You still need to think about your grow environment as well. Temp, humidity, etc. How are you going to control these things in a mine shaft?
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I didnt want to be the one to rain on his parade, but I fully agree.

not to mention pest control. is this mine shaft a completely sealed room? how are you going to keep bugs and/or mold etc out?

I would save your money, time and sanity.
 
Corso312

Corso312

Well-Known Member
Little legs said:
Why tho? People can run houses off generators, so I dont get why I couldnt work out what to buy, so I can run a couple of lights.
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Every house I see with a back up generator has an automatic transfer switch that engages when power goes out, they run on natural gas and cost 6-10k ... The generator you speak of is for emergency, lights, sump pump etc. Some kids will probably stumble upon it to explore the shaft and steal the plants( that wont yield dick and your generator)
 
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