Our engine room
is small (approx 8ft x 6ft). Sufficient size for engine, batteries
calorifier. hospital exhaust and webasto heater. But not much room
for a generator. Indeed I first thought it impossible to get a build
in generator into the engine room. Just not possible!!. But the
compact gen sets are very compact.
If space were not a
problem, we would have chosen a 1500rpm gen set (half speed of 3,000rpm
sets, with longer service intervals and generally longer life).
Why Fisher Panda?.
Victron (manufacturer of our inverter / charger combi) had done a test
on a number of different manufacturers of generators, Fisher Panda came
out very well, especially when linked to the Victron, which we know from
experience (with cheap petrol generators) needs a good smooth power
supply.... and FP were price competitive. They also make a dry exhaust
system, which would suit our needs, as otherwise we would need to dry
dock to have a water intake valve fitted (around £1000).
Why
Dry Exhaust? Besides having no 'river' water valve (needed for
cooling the generator), I felt that the we should try to use the 'wasted
heat'. So my thinking was to connect the 'cooling water' side to our
central heating system. Free Heat. A dry exhaust generator is still water cooled, but I have used
the central heating radiators (and calorifier) as the coolant.
Was the installation
difficult?
The
first thing I did was install a solid (level) base plate. I did this
prior to delivery of generator. Bolted to base plate frame (see
photo left).
However the hardest part
was installing the dry exhaust, this was simply because of space
limitations. The dry exhaust pipe required was 1.5" and the hole
outlet through the hull side was finger tip reach away. I used 1.5"
iron screw fitting to connect pipe to elbows, exhaust etc. Many
chandlers stock these, and will put a thread onto a length of pipe.
I used a 200mm long stainless stell flexible pipe to connect exhaust
to generator, this to allow the generator to 'move' on start up and
shutdown (which it does quite considerably).
I
used the diesel supply to the Webasto heater, and the return
connected to main engine return. Not recommended in the FP manual,
but seems to work fine. Maybe issues if I were to run generator with
engine or webasto heater, but I can not see why I would ever want to
do this (with engine running we have sufficient power supply from
alternator, and with generator running we can heat up the central
heating radiators).
Photo right -