my work

Generator

Im waiting on the fuel line I ordered to finish the fuel delivery system, but in order to connect the fuel lines when they arrive, I had to mount the generator.

The generator is powered by a 3 cylinder Isuzu engine, wet exhaust, and is rated at 10,000 watts @ 240 volts. Ive been rolling it around on 3/4" pvc pipes for the last year now, and to be honest with you, Im glad Im finally getting it mounted.

Before I could mount the generator, it was going to be easier to finish installing the conduit from the wheel house to the engine room. The 1.25" conduit terminates in a pvc junction box along side the generator. Since I am going to finish the conduit run, I might as well install the wiring since all this gets a little more difficult once the generator is mounted.

I dropped the water lift muffler in its location to see how things lined up. Ill have to rotate the exhaust elbow on the generator a few degrees, and use a 45 to get the line from the generator to the water lift.

The conduit from the wheel house passes through a junction box in the master cabin. All the AC wire from the cabins make their way to the wheel house through this junction box, just as all the AC wires in the engine room pass through a junction box in the engine room. I already have the lower hull lighting circuit in the conduit but I wanted to pull as much through the duct as I could think of on this pull. I pulled the four #6 wires for the generator, I pulled the #10 wires for my inverter, I pulled the #6 ground wire for the AC system ( this will bond to the hull at the engine bed along with the DC ground), I pulled the lower hull receptacle circuit (#12), and enough 12 wire for my battery charger circuit, water heater circuit, and the air conditioner circuit ( two ac units on board with one residing in the lazzerette). There is a fair amount of wire in that 1.25" conduit, but there is room for more so I left a pull string in the duct for any future wire installs I might want to make. Because the duct is filling up, leaving a pull string in the duct is easier than trying to suck one through with the shop vac or using the fish tape.

When it comes time to connect the generator to the hard wires in the junction box, Ill have a four wire rubber cord made up using stress relief cord grips and clamp it to the drip pan. A six foot cord should be plenty to get to from the generator to the junction box.

Now that I have most of my AC wires in the engine room, I can finish wire all the receptacles and AC lights in the cabins and engine room and start getting away from extension cords.

The generator has a stainless steel pan it is mounted to via some nice isolation mounts. I had been planning on mounting the generator and stainless pan directly to the aluminum diamond plate sole I installed in the engine room. I decided to replace the aluminum diamond plate under the generator with some 3/4" painted plywood. I also added some rubber pads to place between the stainless steel pan and the plywood. The metal on metal of the stainless pan and the aluminum sole was causing me some worry in regard to vibration, and also the potential for more than one path to ground should a failure of the generator circuit might occur. I do think the plywood will add a little more of a buffer vs the aluminum diamond plate.

The fuel line will be in the shop on Monday, and Ill be able to drop off the lines and have Chuck at the Parts Connection crimp on my JIC fittings. All the hard piping is completed and now that the generator is mounted, Ill finish the fuel delivery system this week.