What's the max amount of time you can continuously run a diesel engine? Not talking about a PSD. I'm referring to diesel engines on backup generators. The 50-100kw size. How many hours can they be run before you have to let them cool down, service, etc?
What's the max amount of time you can continuously run a diesel engine? Not talking about a PSD. I'm referring to diesel engines on backup generators. The 50-100kw size. How many hours can they be run before you have to let them cool down, service, etc?
If you could figure out a way to change the oil, coolant, filters, etc while the engine is running you would never have to shut it down. If you are in a situation that absolutely requires non-stop power, like a hospital or something, then I would imagine you have to have more than one generator anyway.
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Dan
1999 F550 4x4 ZF6 pulling a Cedar Creek 36RLTS. Lotta mods.
1999 VW Jetta TDI 5speed stick, all stock.
1996 Audi A4 Quattro. Unstoppable in the snow and ice.
Rest in peace, Todd. We will meet again.
If you could figure out a way to change the oil, coolant, filters, etc while the engine is running you would never have to shut it down. If you are in a situation that absolutely requires non-stop power, like a hospital or something, then I would imagine you have to have more than one generator anyway.
you could use a oil filter relocation kit and use 2 filters. a few valves thgat way you could switch the oil flow to the other filter.
as for changing the oil.....i would say they you could set up a sytem that would drain the used oil and fill it at the same time. although you would have to drain and fill at the same rates. possibly fill faster than drain.
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Daniel In 2010, The United States will start to deport retards. My eyes started to water when I thought of losing some of you. Love you. Be strong and take your crayons
So what is your situation anyway? I'm curious why you want to know how long to run the gen without shutting off.
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Dan
1999 F550 4x4 ZF6 pulling a Cedar Creek 36RLTS. Lotta mods.
1999 VW Jetta TDI 5speed stick, all stock.
1996 Audi A4 Quattro. Unstoppable in the snow and ice.
Rest in peace, Todd. We will meet again.
almost all diesels have a large enough oil sump that you can do part oil changes, probably best to have it tested to determine change intervals. replace any of the filters with a dual remote setup that you can valve off each filter individually and don't forget about a an air vent for the fuel
I'm not interested in running a diesel forever. I'm just trying to find out how long you can run a diesel, on say a 100kw generator, before you have to shut it down for maintenance. 24 hours, 50 hours, 100 hours, longer?
Depends on a few factors. Like oil sump capacity. The bigger the sump, the longer you can run it. In your case I would want to use synthetic oil and a bypass filter. Big rigs can go 100,000 miles without changing oil that way. Perhaps consider a dry sump system and switchable tanks. That way you never have to shut it down unless something broke.
I don't know where you live, but you may want to check into neighborhood noise abatement rules. I would be VERY irritated at a constant engine noise while I am trying to sleep, and would be doing something about it.
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Dan
1999 F550 4x4 ZF6 pulling a Cedar Creek 36RLTS. Lotta mods.
1999 VW Jetta TDI 5speed stick, all stock.
1996 Audi A4 Quattro. Unstoppable in the snow and ice.
Rest in peace, Todd. We will meet again.
this was along time ago, but my uncle used to work for A railroad, dunno which one, but he said the generators were never turned off, not even for oil changes, they let them run non stop and rebuilt them every 2 years which works out to be 17,520 hours of continous operation on the same oil. but fuel was cheaper then, he said they stopped doing that in the late 60's.
At my last job we ran our generators 24/7 for seven months straight. We changed the oil, oil filter, and inline fuel filter once a week. We could have ran them longer without service but its cheap insurance to keep the fluids clean.
From my days in the USMC we ran generators constantly for 7 days before changing oil and filters. We used 7 days because it was easy to compute from start up to change.
Once ran a 100kw 6 cyl CAT 21 days with no damage just a hell of a lot of fuel.
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J. W. "Snake" Early
Houston, TX
2002 F250 Lariet CC, LB 7.3 L PSD
I'm not interested in running a diesel forever. I'm just trying to find out how long you can run a diesel, on say a 100kw generator, before you have to shut it down for maintenance. 24 hours, 50 hours, 100 hours, longer?
It depends on the recommendations of the engine manufacturer. However, most of these recommendations are developed for cyclic use such as in a tractor - something that is started and stopped on a "frequent" basis.
A diesel engine on a generator is almost the perfect application for long engine life. Nearly contant RPM, which yields fairly constant temperature and infrequent start ups. You can probably excede the manufacturers recommendations and be fine.
I have seen many diesel engines in a pumping application where they are started and shut down once a month for maintenance. That's 720 hours on an oil change. As for lifespan on these engines? 50,000 - 60,000 hours was common. I personally know of a couple of instances where the engine ran for over ten years in constant use (shut down for maintenance once a month, sometimes more often for other repairs) without a major overhaul. The engines I'm talking about are small air-cooled engines made in England by Lister. Absolutely amazing engines.
There used to be some Lister factory literature available where they had gensets being used in the Arctic. Something to do with the early warning system. If memory served me correctly they ran for something like 13 years straight - never shut down. They had a large oil sump system like some of you have described. I won't swear by this information since it's been several years since I saw the flier.
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