It is a cute little thing. This one is being installed at a mountain top transmitter site for a class A WKIP-FM in Ellenville, NY. It is way up in the air (at least by local standards) at 2,450 feet AMSL. As such, the TPO is only 300 watts into a one bay antenna. Therefore, even this little generator will be loafing along. I added all the rack equipment up, both transmitters (main and backup), and the electric resistance heater and came up with a grand total of 6,300 watts. The working load today was 3,200 watts, which I would assume is about average.
Onan RS-15000 at transmitter site with ice shield
Denis, my sometimes helper, build an ice shield over the top of the unit with pressure treated wood. This unit was placed about 40 feet away from the 140 foot tower, next to the concrete block building. Still, on a windy day, I could see some chunks of ice flying off the tower in this direction.
It has a Lister/Petter 1900 cc engine, 1800 RPM, 240 volt split phase generator. At 25% load, it burns 1.2 gallons of propane per hour.
Onan RS-15000 gaseous generator
This is annoying. The gas installer blocked access to one of the through holes in the bottom of the enclosure frame. Actually, more than annoying, downright annoying as it blocked the exact center of the hole. I had to move the regulator up about two inches so I could run the 1 inch flex under the gas line. This, in turn, led to some amount of swearing.
Gas supply to generator installed by selfish gas man or woman
Other side of the engine:
Lister Petter 4 cylinder 1900 cc engine
Push rods going to rocker arms over the cylinders. Low tech, under head cam engine. That’s okay, so long as it works when it is supposed to.
Onan RS-15000 generator wired to transmitter building
PVC conduit running into the transfer switch. The final connection is made with liquid tight flexible metal conduit (FMC). The control wiring is run in a separate 1/2 inch conduit, as required by NEC.
I was fortunate enough to acquire this generator last fall. It was new in 1969 and has unknown hours on it, but it appears in decent shape. I am going to do a level two overhaul and install it as backup power for my house/shop. The first order of business is a complete inspection. I discovered a few problems; the starter didn’t crank, the distributor was loose, and the carburetor had some burned out chunk of metal attached to it.
Onan 12JC4R generator
First, the starter: These units use a Prestolite MEO3006 starter, which is common to several Chrysler products from the late ’60s and early ’70s. This is obviously a replacement unit, as it is not “Onan Green.” When I hooked a battery up and tried to turn the motor over, the start relay clicked but nothing else happened. I dismounted the starter and removed the starter solenoid. The interior of the starter motor looked in good condition, which points the solenoid. Sure enough, I removed the back of that unit and found two wires burned through and a large blackened area. While I had the starter off, I hooked it up to a 12 volt battery and it worked fine. A new starter costs $469.00, a new solenoid cost $59.00. I opted for the solenoid.
Onan 12JC4R burned out generator starter solenoid
The next thing is the distributor. I was checking the points and contemplating replacing the breaker points with an electronic ignition when I discovered the distributor could turn 1/8 of a turn in each direction, as when making timing adjustments.
Onan 12JC 4R distributor clamp
I used a 3/8 box wrench and tighten up the clamp holding the distributor shaft. It took several turns and makes me wonder why it was loose. I will have to check the timing with a light once I get it running. This also could be why the generator was not running when we took it out of service.
Onan 12JC 4R rotor and breaker points
As for the points, they look brand new, as does the rotor and distributor cap.
Onan 12JC 4R generator spark plug, champion H8C
The spark plugs look well used and the plug wires look original.
Finally, there was an electric choke mechanism on the carburetor which is completely unnecessary for a propane fueled unit. The choke plate itself was wired open. The electric choke was was burned open, so I removed the assembly. I then spent some time at the local NAPA cross referencing parts. Here is a tune up list:
Nomenclature
Onan part (old)
Onan part (new)
Napa Part
Alternate
Oil Filter
122A185
122-0193
1084
Fram PH16
Points*
166P245
166-0245
CS709
Rotor
166P234
166-0234
AL58/AL52
Distributor cap
166B307
166-0235
AL91
Condenser*
166P310
166-0310
AL38
Ignition Coil**
166B310
166-0859-02
701002
PRX 405011
Plug wire #1
167A1410
167-1602
701064
Plug wire 2,3,4
167A1409
167-1602
701063
Spark Plug
167-4
167-
Champ H8C***
Air Filter
140B640
140-1907
7-02241
Starter
191C324
191-0324
Prestolite MEO3006
Solenoid
N/A
191-0433A
ST103
*Electronic ignition set
N/A
166-0825
Pertronics 1545**
**Ignition coil W/PRX 1545
PRX 405011
*Condenser and breaker points can be substituted for electronic ignition kit, either Onan 166-0825 or Pertronics 1545 with Pertronics PRX 405011 coil.
**Pertronics electronic ignition must be used with Pertronics coil
***Champion RH8C plugs should be used with replacement wires without noise suppression plug boots.
This is for an Onan 12JC generator circa 1969 with a Studebaker engine. Other models/years may vary. The other issue with this unit is there is no supervisory monitoring and control. There is no oil pressure loss, overheat or overcrank faults. This is why the starter solenoid failed. To remedy that situation, I started to design a better control circuit. Then I looked around on the inner tubes and found somebody had already done this. DynaGen makes the GSC400p which has can monitor oil pressure, engine temperature, frequency, engine RPM, hours, voltage and current. It can fault for any out of tolerance condition, as programmed by the user.
Retrofit generator controller
I plan to install this in the original control box, leaving the original control circuit intact by using the remote start/stop connections. I keep the original remote/start/stop switch and hand crank switch in place for use if the fancy controller fails.
The WICC transmitter site, Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport, has been cut off from normal access since the bridge to the island burned in 1996. Since that time, access has been by boat with a 0.93 mile walk from the dock to the transmitter building.
Last summer, LVI Construction, under contract from the Town of Stratford, put in a temporary road and began removing the burned out cottages. While that road is in place, the radio station has been able to access the site and get many important things accomplished. These include:
Removing several decades worth of stored crap, garbage, obsolete and unused equipment
Repair the electrical service to the building
Replace the generator transfer switch
Repair the Sonitrol building alarm
Replace the old Onan Generator
Have the power company replace the 3 phase circuit from the point where the under water cables come ashore to the transmitter building.
All of these projects should greatly improve the reliability of the station. This should make Bill, happy, who appears to have a WICC chip implanted in his brain because every time the carrier is interrupted he posts about it on the radio-info.com website.
The biggest issue with the site was the utility feed from the shore to the transmitter building. The original circuit was installed in 1936 when the station moved to the island. It was old and the poles were all rotting and had horizontal cross arms. Ospreys especially like the horizontal cross arms as they made good nesting spots. That is, until the nest shorts out one of the phases catches on fire and burns the top of the pole off. This has happened several times over the years causing many hours of off air time.
WICC new utility service
United Illuminating, the local utility company, was very cooperative and installed new utility poles, wires, breakers and transformers, this time with a vertical phase arrangement, which should keep the Ospreys off of them. Additionally, the cottage removal project included installing Osprey nesting poles.
Pleasure beach cottages removed
With almost all of the cottages now removed, the area looks much better than before. Actually, it should be a nice nature preserve and hopefully, the absence of the buildings might reduce the number of vandals in the area. The work is almost done, so the road is about to be taken up. This means we need to wrap up the work out there, so the final push is on.
WICC transmitter building
In the last three weeks, 10 truck loads of junk have been hauled out of the transmitter building and generator shack. Over 1,500 pounds of scrap steel, 640 pounds of insulated wire, 2,000 pounds of particle board furniture, old t-shirts and hats (something called “Taste of Bridgeport” which, if anyone knows what that was let me know), old propane tanks, batteries, etc. We also managed to fix the fence and gate in front of the building, cut down the over grown yew bushes and bittersweet vines.
Transfer Switch
The old Kolher transfer switch was also an issue. There was no place to mount a new switch inside and mounting one outside is out of the question, so the guts from the Kohler switch were removed and replace with an ASCO unit. This was done in the summer of 2009. The breaker on the right side is the main service disconnect for the building, which was installed in September.
Onan 12 KW 12JC 4R air cooled generator, removed from service
Today, it was time to replace the Onan propane generator. The old generator is an Onan 12JC-4R air cooled propane unit which was installed on April 4, 1969 at a cost of $1,545.00 new. For many years, this unit gave reliable service, but it has many, many hours on it and it lacks the fault/self control circuits needed for remote (read desolate) operation. Several times over the last few years, the generator would run out of gas or the propane tank would freeze up and the starter would crank until it burned out.
It was cold out on the island, with temperatures in the twenties and a bitter west wind blowing right into the generator shack. All of this conspired to make working conditions difficult. Wind chill readings were in the single digits all day long, and in spite of long johns and extra layers, by 3 pm I was shivering and even several hours after coming inside, I still feel cold.
Using tractor to move new generator
The new generator is an Cummins/Onan 20GGMA which is rated for 20 KW. We used a John Deere bucket tractor to move the generator from the flat bed truck to the generator building, then push it inside. The old generator wiring to the transfer switch was reused, but a piece of flex was used to connect to the generator instead of the solid conduit. The building fan was also wired up so that it will run whenever the generator is running.
The generator load with all possible things switched on and the transmitter running at full power is about 12,000 watts, but this would mean the air conditioner and tower lights were on during the daytime. More likely, the transmitter will be at low power when the tower lights are on and the AC will be intermittent on/off at night. At full load, this generator uses slightly less than 2 gallons of propane per hour. At half load, I’d estimate that to be 1.4 or so gallons.
Cummins Onan generator in new home100 pound propane gas tanks
HOCON gas came out and connected six 100 pound propane tanks in series, which should prevent tank icing. Propane weights about 4.11 pounds per gallon, therefore the fuel supply should last about 100 hours, or 4.5 days, give or take. Why 100 pound tanks? Because we will have to shuffle them back and forth between the dock and the generator shed, a journey of about one mile, in a cart. Anything larger would be impossible to deal with. Even so, refilling the propane will be a 2 person job and will likely take all day.
I found this fuse in an old electrical panel that we were removing from the WICC generator shed. This was the original service entrance for the site as it was built in 1932 or so. The generator shed had a manual three pole two position transfer switch, which was fine back in the day that a licensed transmitter engineer was on site whenever the station was on the air. The generator, according to the old records I could find, was an upright 2 cylinder slow speed engine with a belt driven generator. They were mounted on concrete pads about 5 feet apart. The motor had a big fly wheel that was hand cranked with the compression off. Once a good head of speed was built up with the hand crank, the compression lever was thrown and the engine would start. Alternatively, the procedure was tried again.
That was all replaced in 1971 when the transmitter site underwent a major upgrade. The old electrical service was bypassed and abandoned in place when a new meter and panel was installed on the transmitter building. The old service seems to have been frozen in time, untouched for forty years.
Kirkman Engineering renewable fuse
This fuse is a Kirkman Engineering Company and has a manufacture date stamp of January 1945. It is a replaceable link AKA “renewable” fuse. In has “peak lag” links, which I think would be called “slow blow” today. Peak lag may also indicate a large inductive load, which would lower the power factor. What I find interesting is that someone, once upon a time, placed two 100 amp links in parallel, then crossed the 100 AMP label out and wrote “200” on the fuse body.
Kirkman Engineering fuse links
The problem with this setup, the panel and wiring were all rated for 100 amps. The wiring is #4 copper, and the transfer panel and switch are clearly labeled “100 amp, 3 pole.” It would appear that the finger stock holding the upper blade in place was loose, causing the fuse body to overheat. In fact, it became so heated that the case and the wood fiber holder are charred and missing.
Fortunately, there was never a fire.
The reason why we use properly sized fuses and breakers.
