Larger diesel engine and generator

[Cas]

After reading the post on smaller diesel engines I thought I would post asking about larger diesel engines. Looking for a used 150 kw 3 phase generator. A few Caterpillar Olympiian generators have been posted for sale. One has a Perkins. The other has a Cat 3208 engine. I kind of thought staying with Cat since we have a Milton Cat dealer in town. It would be used regularly for 2 to 3 months. After that it would be used for standby.
Cat guy told me to figure 7 gallons of diesel per 100 kw. Have owned both Cat and Perkiins engines and worked on both. But the little diesel posts got me thinking. Owned a few detroits over the years and they seems to be the most economical(kinda loud). Do not think that would be an option for my application. I am open to any suggestions.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Which model Perkins? If it's a 6-354, hands down better than a 3208.

 

[David G]

You can't go wrong with a big Cat or Cummins.

 

[J. Schwiebert]

There is a sawmill near me, Edison charged way too much to go 3 phase or the mill.The owner purchased this generator set-up through CAT. The owner called and wants an oil leak fixed and the injectors swaped out. It is a later Perkins (Phaser version) of the 354. It has 14,000 hours and this is the first work to be done on the engine!

 

[Billy Shafer]

I was with the group that did the field test on the 3208.When it first came out. Biggest problem we found was weak injector pump seals. On the generator version. About every thousand hours they would leak. Didn't have the same problem on the truck version for some reason.

Good engine. I would think they improved the seals on later version. But something you should be aware of. Perkins is a very good engine

 

[notjustair]

I'll second the 3208 pumps. I have an L8000 gettin a new pump right now. That's about $3000 without labor. If it didn't have new tires on it I would have just better rid of it. Good runner, I'm just not a fan on that 3208.

Side note - the core charge for that pump was $3500. They really want those back.

 

[Bob M]

Keep in mind Caterpillar now owns Perkins. Your Milton Cat dealer should be able to supply Perkins parts and service.

 

[Pair-a-dice farm]

I had a deutz 125 KW generator at my chicken farm. I never tried to figure diesel per KW but the deutz 130HP would burn about 2 gallons per hour with 60+ 3hp single phase motors running. As long as diesel was less than $2.50 I could produce electricity cheaper than buy from the power company but that was also figuring in demand charges,

 

[El Toro]

We tested big Cummins on 100KW generators. We had more trouble with the load banks than the generator's engine. Had to use jet fuel when it was below 0°F. They would start with a little whiff of starting fluid. Hal

 

[buickanddeere]

Have another look at your numbers. Something doesn't jive.

 

[NCWayne]

Got to jump on the bandwagon again and say to teer away from the 3208. I've got several customers that have/had them in trucks and construction machinery and the one common problem with all of them were leaking seals on the injection pump. As others have said CAT does own Perkins. The problem I have found with that is our local Perkins dealer now (didn't used to) knows enough about the cross over to get the actual Perkins parts for the "CAT" branded engines, for about half the CAT price. On the other side of the coin try to find anyone at CAT that knows anything at all about a Perkins. More than likely that isn't going to happen as the two brands are still seperate even though owned by a single, parent company, because CAT would rather sell parts for their 'Perkypillar' engines for twice the price as the same part would cost through the Perkins dealer....and they usually all have Perkins part numbers stamped on them regardless of how the engine is branded. To go a different direction there are alot of military surplus engines out there with the A/C engines in them. Most of them are low hour generators and can be had for a good price. Too, the A/C engines, especially the 3500 series, are really good engines. At least that's what I have always heard from my Dad who used to work at the local A/C dealership back in the 70 and early 80's. Parts aren't as hard to come by as many thing for them either. One of our local military surplus guys told me the other week he could get anything needed for one of those engines, all I needed to do was give him a call.

 

[Bill(Wis)]

If you ran continuously, that would be 8760 hours of run time in one year at $5 per hour which would cost you $43,800 per year to do it yourself. Power company would cost more??
And, after 8760 hours of run time your diesel engine would have about had it. How much to overhaul it?

 

[Anonymous-0]

A lot of the bigger gen. sets only run at 1200 RPM which saves some fuel but greatly increases engine life. The shop that did my Cat engine rebuilt a huge old Cat generator used on an oil rig. It cost about $75,000 to rebuild it. Next rebuild will be in another 50,000 hours! Even at 1800 RPM, most gen. sets go for a very long time.

 

[Billy Shafer]

Maybe we got lucky during our test. Truck unit had no problem. But with the generator. We had all kinds of problems. Went to a field site. Where the customer had been running one for two months. Found fuel running down from the valley of the engine. I think it leaked more than it used.

 

[buickanddeere]

Much of that engine life can be attributed to continuous operation. Very few cold starts and little operating time below rated coolant and oil temp.
Probably moderate load from 50-85% of rated without being lugged.
RPM is one thing but some of these supposed "slow speed" engines have very high piston speed due to the long stroke. They ain't slow at all.

 

[Roy Suomi]

A friend of mine has a 10K military surplus "genny" with air cooled 4 cylinder diesel engine.. What a sweet genny for the price.. And way under rated wattage.. Starts well and runs sweet, not real noisy ..Runs various voltages and phases with a twist of a control knob.. and best of all , sips fuel

 

[Bob Huntress]

On my last Navy ship, the USS Nassua, we had stand by diesel generators. They were Alco 251C. They were huge, even larger than the 16v149 Dietroit engine. It was a slow turner, 900 rpms @ 60hz. The same engine was the main propulsion engine on my USCG cutter. If you could get one it would power the electrical needs of the state of New Hampshire. Probably not, but it is a big power producer.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Just remember, on a 3 phase you need to balance the load on the phases...it won't live long if you do not.
I was a generator mechanic in the Army for 23 years, I design 100 mega watt units now.