So, on both sides, we’ve got a safety guard over the engine and the radiator fan, so nobody is going to stick their hands in there. Battery disconnect switch, if somebody is doing maintenance, you don’t want anybody to walk up and be able to turn it on, so make sure you use that safety battery disconnect switch. Also, that’s one of the big features. You’re going to get a call, “Hey, this thing won’t work.” Customers don’t look for that switch, so make sure they’ve got it turned on when they go to use it. We also have a lockable cap here so nobody can steal your diesel on the job site.

As we come around to the back, we’ve got a large, clear panel here so you can see the controller without opening this door. So if you have a padlock on here, you can still see what’s going on with the generator through the clear door. On the inside here, all kinds of instructions: how to operate the unit, electrical safety, wiring connections, your voltage selection switch, which is up here. So, a big thing: there’s a safety interlock there. This is going to shut the generator down if somebody opens this door while the unit is running. You don’t want anybody to change the voltage selection switch while the generator is running; it will tear the generator to pieces. You’ve also got your voltage regulator potentiometers in here. You shouldn’t have to touch those as a user; that’s more for your maintenance guys.

Coming around to this side, very important: we’ve got an exposed e-stop, an emergency stop switch. It is best to have these exposed. Some manufacturers put them behind a door; if that door is locked, you cannot stop this in an emergency. If somebody is being electrocuted, there’s a fire or something like that, you want to be able to get to that switch. This is another thing you’re going to get calls on. The switch is going to be pushed in and the unit won’t run, so your customers are going to call, “Hey, this piece of junk won’t run.” Is the e-stop pulled out is one of the first things to ask them.

Here, we have the breaker panel. So you’ve got your main circuit breaker and all of your individual outlet breakers. So these breakers are for all of these outlets here. These are all safety devices; they’re going to protect anybody from an overcurrent situation, short circuit, things like that. If something happens, it’s going to trip the breaker, kill the power to the receptacles or the lugs. If you have camlocks, they’ll be located here. This is the lug panel. Again, we have a safety interlock so that nobody can access these while the unit is running and these are hot. If you’re in 480-volt mode, you definitely don’t want anybody getting in here and sticking their fingers in. If this is an event where kids are going to be present, they are prone to open doors and look inside of things, so you do not want them to be able to access those while they’re hot. They are all lockable. Sound attenuation and we’ve got a grate on this side. That’s it for safety features.

Alright, from an operating standpoint, when this goes out, if you need to go over it with your customer, first things first, what voltage do they need? The standard settings are going to be 120-240 single-phase, that’s like you have in your home, 120-208 three-phase, and 277-480 three-phase. There is a fourth position you can get with a four-position switch and that’s going to be 120-240 Delta three-phase. It’s only used in certain areas around the country, it’s not real popular, but you will see it every once in a while. So just make sure you ask your customer what voltage they need. If they’re unsure, you need to ask more questions because it’s very important that they don’t go out and apply the wrong voltage to some equipment; it will fry it.

So set your voltage selection switch first, close the door so that the interlock isn’t going to trigger any alarms, come around here, turn on your battery disconnect switch. That’s going to supply power to everything on board. Come back here, you can turn on your controller power; that’s going to energize the controller. You’ve got starting instructions here, and you’ve got some other buttons here. This one is called engine speed and it’s got settings for run or idle. Cold weather, some customers like to start in idle. That way, the generator warms up before you put it in run mode. With our units, idle is going to be 1,000 to 1,200 RPMs. Run speed is obviously 1,800 RPMs in the U.S., in North America.

You’ve got a couple other covers here, these are actually not switches on this one, but you will see it on some of the older units, tier four interims, where they had a forced exhaust regen. You’ve got to turn that on or off. With the tier four finals, you no longer have to do that; they automatically do it. The ECU controls the regen on the John Deere units and the Isuzu’s use a system where you don’t need to do forced regen.
You’ve got an option here for a fuel transfer pump. If you do have a day tank or an auxiliary tank that’s feeding this unit, request that and there will be a switch there. Then we’ve got another place there for different options that we offer.

Down here, you’ve got operating instructions. Step-by-step it tells you what to do in order to start and stop the machine. You’ve got your wiring connection diagram here for the lug panel that corresponds to the different positions on the voltage selector switch. So this has powered up, we’ve got our main breaker off and the door is closed. The starting instructions that you go through, you want to put it in manual mode by selecting that, it says manual mode right there. Go over and hit the green start button and it will start the unit. In order to stop it, you just hit the red stop button. The other option for this is auto mode, that’s where you use the remote start terminals to start the unit. If you have a submersible pump with a float switch, that float switch is going to come up and it’s going to trigger the generator to start to power the submersible pump and then once it pumps down, the float switch drops back down, it’ll send a signal to stop the unit. If you need to stop it on your own, you can hit the red stop button or the emergency stop will also stop it if there is an emergency. It is not advisable to use the e-stop to start and stop the unit. It’s going to wear out – it is an emergency stop button only, it is not a stop button, so use the stop button.

Alright, let’s talk a little bit about applications and phases of construction for generators. Again, like light towers, generators are used throughout all phases of construction, whether it’s the initial site work where they’re dewatering, or trying to run a job site trailer, obviously you need power at a remote site or at a tower where there’s no utility power yet. Events are very big for these, so municipalities, schools, churches, sporting complexes where they’re having big tournaments and things like that, they need lights, they need power. From an application standpoint, anywhere utility power is not available or it’s not reliable. A lot of times you’ll see they have utility power available at a site; they may not have the right voltage or it might not be reliable at say, a concert. That’s why movie studios always use generators to power all of their equipment because they can’t run the risk of utilities shutting off while they’re in the middle of something. Everybody probably remembers a few years ago during the Super Bowl; the power went out down in Dallas and the game stopped. Lights went out in the stadium. Obviously you don’t want that to happen, so that’s why a lot of events are run on generator power. All types of contractors, every single trade needs a generator, whether it’s a small portable or something like this or even bigger. You can’t think of a trade that doesn’t have some piece of equipment that’s run off of power. Everybody needs power. Emergency situations like tornadoes, hurricanes, obviously power is out, people are going to need power, so FEMA and local municipalities are good resources as well to go after.