Tranona
Well-Known Member
Something like this will do nicely tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/exide/ek600/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpL2Stfjj-AIVVYBQBh24nAwbEAAYAiAAEgL0JvD_BwE
Generator quandary.
- Thread starter john_morris_uk
- Start date
geem
Well-Known Member
That's what I have on my gen battery?
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
That would be my thinking. The only anxieties I have are that I’m not 100% sure the Piccolo has a built in charging system for its starter battery. There’s an option to add a charger but I’m not sure if that’s necessary or not. I’ve tried phoning EP Barrus but the only person who’s an expert on these generators is out of office and not returning my calls. The dealer I bought it off doesn’t know. (A whole another story about him…)
geem
Well-Known Member
I had an issue with my generator in as much as the small alternator had very poor voltage regulation. It was putting out over 15v. I was concerned that it would damage the AGM battery. I disconnected the output from the alternator and now charge the battery via a Victron b2b from the domestic batteries. Guess what. The Victron b2b has failed!
It's coming back with me to the UK to go back to the Victron dealer
Zing
Well-Known Member
I switched from two to one several years ago. It worked well. I can parallel my house battery for backup. A backup is important I think.
pyrojames
Well-Known Member
It was this balance of power consumption that persuaded me to fit an engine driven pump for the watermaker. A couple of hours week was enough to supply water, and top up batteries if wind and sun wasn't enough for all the other power needs.
Tintin
Well-Known Member
A year on, how is your Piccolo John? Am thinking of getting one.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Mostly good. The generator performs extremely well but we’ve had a couple of issues.
One was unfortunate and perhaps avoidable and definitely not Whisperpower’s fault. The generator is installed in a locker and it’s reasonably easy to get to but we didn’t notice a problem. When we did the initial checks after the first few hours running, we noticed a small drip from the exhaust. This isn’t unusual as the exhaust hose settles onto the exhaust outlet of the engine, and it was nipped up and the leak/drip was solved. However, because the generator is buried in a locker, what we didn’t notice was that the drip had landed on the electrical connector to the electric fuel pump for the generator. The generator failed a little while later. We eventually discovered that the electrical connector that had corroded and the connection was remade and all was well again. Hardly Whisperpower‘s fault and perhaps I should’ve delved deeper as to where the salt water had landed from the drip that we had cured.
The second fault was that the generator failed completely some weeks later, and I discovered that one of the pushrods had broken. A weld had broken and part of the pushrod fell into the engine. I contacted the nearest Whisperpower dealer and new pushrods were sent from Holland out to the Caribbean. However, when the engineer investigated, he managed to retrieve the broken bit of pushrod but discovered that one of the caps on the valves had also dislodged and dropped into the engine. Metal swarf on the oil filter didn’t bode well. To their credit Whisperpower have replaced the whole generator free of charge under warranty. I haven’t seen the work yet, but I believe it’s finished and I can let you know in a few weeks time when we return to the boat. Kudos to Whisperpower for responding so well to a problem that apparently is very rare but was covered completely under their world wide warranty.
Assuming no more problems, we’re extremely happy.
The generator runs very quietly and starts from its remote control at the push of a button and provides very high quality, 230 V electricity. If you were following the earlier conversation in this thread I can confirm that I fitted a separate start battery for the generator.
It’s not completely clear in the Whisperpower literature that you also have to add a battery charger for this independent battery as the very small generators do not have a built-in alternator. Easily added, but it was another expense I hadn’t expected.
Tintin
Well-Known Member
Thanks John.
I've made a note about the starter battery. Mine would be sited FWD next to the two fwd batteries for the windlass and bow thruster so I had thought to use those, but can see the sense of a seperate one. They do have their own dedicated 240v charger beside then so probably a VSR to avoid getting another charger.
Good to here they honour their guarantees too.
Ian_Edwards
Well-Known Member
Just to add to the feedback on Picolo generators. Mine a 4, not a 5 as I said in a previous post.
Mine has now done two and a half seasons, mostly trouble free.
I've had two significant problems, the impeller on the raw water cooling failed. I think largely because of very silty water in a tidal river, where perhaps I shouldn't have been running it.
And
The electric fuel pump failed, this is out side the main generator, and the fault took a while to find. The generator would run for about 15 or 20mins then stop. It would restart almost immediately. Obviously a fuel problem, air in the line or an air leak on the suction side of the pump. I primed it and, I remade all the joints in the line that didn't solve the problem. It turned out the the electric pump had failed, and the generator was being gravity fed.
The pump is a standard pump, non OEM about £30.
The impeller has a Whisper Power part number, I couldn't find one in stock in the UK, so I imported 2 from the Netherlands @ £££.
It turns out to be a standard Johnson pump part in a fancy box!
I still don't like the 200hr service interval, and have wondered about adding small filter and running it on fully synthetic oil.
Although the generator is quiet, I get quite a lot of hull born vibration from it and I'm thinking about adding engine mounts to reduce the vibration.
Mine has now done two and a half seasons, mostly trouble free.
I've had two significant problems, the impeller on the raw water cooling failed. I think largely because of very silty water in a tidal river, where perhaps I shouldn't have been running it.
And
The electric fuel pump failed, this is out side the main generator, and the fault took a while to find. The generator would run for about 15 or 20mins then stop. It would restart almost immediately. Obviously a fuel problem, air in the line or an air leak on the suction side of the pump. I primed it and, I remade all the joints in the line that didn't solve the problem. It turned out the the electric pump had failed, and the generator was being gravity fed.
The pump is a standard pump, non OEM about £30.
The impeller has a Whisper Power part number, I couldn't find one in stock in the UK, so I imported 2 from the Netherlands @ £££.
It turns out to be a standard Johnson pump part in a fancy box!
I still don't like the 200hr service interval, and have wondered about adding small filter and running it on fully synthetic oil.
Although the generator is quiet, I get quite a lot of hull born vibration from it and I'm thinking about adding engine mounts to reduce the vibration.
Bouba
Well-Known Member
Given a choice I would always go for a fixed speed generator
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
I chose the fixed speed option for our Whisperpower generator. However, this was more to do with the fact that the small sizes tend to run at maximum engine rpm all the time. I don’t see any advantage in having a larger generator on fixed speed. It’s reduced noise and fuel when it’s on low output. What’s not to like?
Elessar
Well-Known Member
I’m no water maker expert but all the ones I’ve used have been noisy. Only used 240v ones. How noisy is it? If noisy you need high output to make it quick.
How about a 240v main engine driven generator as redundancy for the generator? Is there room for that? Even if you have to spanner it into the space the regular alternator occupies that would be acceptable redundancy.
A well fitted generator with water separator exhaust is as good as silent off the boat. Water separator exhaust uses a lot of space so plan well - the radius of the pipes take a lot of space.
But water separator makes less difference on the boat - it won’t be silent on a boat of your size (quiet but you’ll be aware of it) and for that reason I’d have the variable speed one without doubt. Because when you’re at low load you will be better off noise and vibration wise and at high load it’s the same.
