Thank you for your reply. I am in Australia.

Hi Cujet, we can`t run the solar off grid at the moment. Paid a bit more for an inverter with the option to run off battery storage at night. Lithium iron batteries are still very expensive and I`m not happy to have them under our house as they have a very bad habit of catching fire and they are almost impossible to extinguish once alight. If I do go with battery storage I will put them in a small brick or concrete building away from the house.

Bob

Cool setup and thanks for the pics. It's really nice to see what people are doing. Can you run your solar setup off grid?

G`Day from down under. As many of you will remember we lost our home to a bush fire in 2019. We purchased a property on the East coast of Tasmania and I moved here in 2021 once the covid travel restrictions allowed. I have spent the last couple of years putting up a new shed, landscaping the property, decorating and fireproofing our new home. The most recent project was to have a 7.5 Kw grid tied solar system installed, cost us A$9,000. Our quarterly electric bill has fallen from A$600 to A$13, should pay for itself pretty quickly. We are also going to change our electricity provider to get a better feed in tariff, we should end up with a credit balance during the summer months, with a small deficit in the winter.
So now it`s time to think about generator backup. I already had a restored Lister CS 6/1 and a modified ST5 generator head with an AVR, this should be adequate to keep the house lights burning and the fridges/freezers cold in an emergency. I also bought this trailer mounted generator 18 months back.

This is a 12.5 KVA three phase generator with a Petter PJ2 diesel motor. The generator head has four slip rings so it is in a Y configuration giving three 240 volt single phase outlets and one 415 volt 3 phase outlet. This unit will be dismounted from the trailer and used to provide backup power to the shed/workshop.
I don`t know how you guys spent your Easter but I spent mine pouring two concrete slabs.

The square slab at the back will have the Lister CS bolted to it. the slab is 200mm of reinforced concrete sat on a 1m deep 600mm reinforced concrete pile. The blockwork shelf will have a cooling tank sat on it.
The narrower slab will have the demounted Petter generator sat on it.
After inspecting the PJ2 engine the only apparent problem is that the push rod tubes have rubber sleeves covering the joins. These sleeves have become brittle and split. The bottom tube is 22mm and the upper tube is 19mm they are spring loaded so they can expand and contract as the engine cylinder heats up and cools down. I have not been able to find replacements for the rubber sleeves, I am wondering if heavy duty electrical heat shrink might work, what do you guys think?

I will be posting details of the Petter rebuild as I go

Bob

Just also enquiring if anyone has alternate ideas for replacing pump. I don't have any pump at this time. Was thinking of Putting two single pumps side by side? Any good ideas out there this CE twin cylinder