Bjarney
Quote
24V engine-control and 480V {voltmeter/freqmeter} wiring mixed on control-panel doors and every lead white.
Day tanks, pumps and assorted controls and alarms............Very expensive but still sleazy transfer-switch controls

Oh yeah I see you have been there too.

With about 100 sites and 170 Gen-sets to connect remote monitoring to we got to see a lot of different brands, age, and voltage of both the gen-sets and the ATS.

It would be very easy if you are not careful to get messed up. All the wiring as you said would look the same, a lot of 16 AWG tapped of off the line terminals with no OCP. Some of the older ATS switches used 49 volts as the internal control wiring.

We needed to have 12 VDC, 24, 120, 240, 277 and 480 VAC relays with us to make sure we were ready for anything.

George I am not advocating Natural gas over Diesel just pointing out how it is in other areas. For better or worse it is an accepted practice in this area .

I still would prefer battery units for lighting or both as Ron stated. A diesel generator even as reliable as they are is still only one source, if it fails as many did during the last big black out your left with nothing. [Linked Image]

Maintenance is without a doubt the biggest problem with any of the methods.

Storage of fuel on site also has it's problems, the day tank of a gen-set in an upper floor mechanical room twice overfilled and flooded the offices below with fuel oil. We got involved after the second flood as the building owners where not happy with the original installers.

We have also had to change a gen-set from Diesel to Natural Gas because of a wetlands issue.

No easy answers, I did see a fluorescent lamp that would glow for hours after power is removed, it works even if it hits the floor and breaks. That could be the next generation egress lighting. [Linked Image]

Another long post, sorry [Linked Image]

Bob

Bob Badger
Construction & Maintenance Electrician
Massachusetts