RAB,
I agree with you that the KISS principal is king. I employ it wherever possible but in my own case it was quite practical to use electric fans/blowers due to the layout of my plant and in fact the heat generated by the motors is not wasted, but is used within the building as needed heat in winter. Since diesel generators operate more efficiently loaded up, this provides some beneficial extra load IMO. In summer though it is unfortunately some fuel energy that gets thrown away, but a partially coked up engine,(that way because of insufficient loading) throws even more energy away, so what are you gonna do?
In the case of my VW when I am using it to power primarily or only my welder on heavy oil as fuel I absolutely need to keep a minimum load of 2-3 kW on the genset by way of resistance heaters or it cools down and cokes up a bit due to spininng a lot with virtually no load. One could argue that this is completely wasted power use but it is necessary in my case the way the system is organized to maintain smooth, `efficient` operation.
In my set-up, if I lose a blower I am pretty much guaranteed a problem if this occures unattended, therefore monitoring the airflow which is easy to do with a small vane on a microswitch located in the air stream, is not such a bad idea. I think you have to look at the individual iinstallation to determine what sensors and shutdown means are applicable. I also plan engine coolant sensor overtemp shutdowns as well. Redundancy can yield improved safety. Ditto for lube oil pressure failure shutdowns. Sensors are cheaper than blown engines.
As far as being the clone around here. I try. Doing stand-up in a technical forum isn`t an easy gig.
