My generator and home automation experience

[Uncle Michael]

I hadn't heard of them. Were they available 7-8 years ago?

They also seem to be a bit more sophisticated than a typical home might require. Stuff that I don't want to lose power is plugged into UPS boxes to keep them happy during the 30-60 sec the power is out before the generator takes over. That seems to work well.

I also did not see one that handles more than 10 circuits. That would be much too few for my needs.

[cwhogan]

monitoring generator status

I finally have the generator installed and was able to test it out this past weekend with the home automation and Insteon stuff.

So far, everything works like a champ. I was able to control all my Insteon devices from Homeseer and all the input devices worked as well.

The only remaining item is to add an "On Generator" status input into my security panel so the system will know when utility power is out. Seems to be a couple of ways to handle that...

How did you handle the "OnGenerator" status input?

[Bill Grant]

My generator experience with home automation:

I installed a whole-house 55 kW genset a year or so ago. It's Perkins diesel-powered with a Stamford alternator and is connected to the load via an automatic transfer switch. Although it works really well for just about all my household needs, it wreaks havoc on the Insteon communications and connected devices.

The generator had been running for an hour or two during a recent outage when I pressed a couple of the scene buttons to turn out the lights before retiring for the night. The associated loads and linked devices started to act erratically, blinking on and off, ramping up and down, keypad button lights flashing, etc. There was no way to control the devices so I had to pull out the light pipes to power them down. One keypad that I missed powering down would no longer function when I tried to use it the next day. I ended up replacing it.

The genset was touted to produce "really clean power" which is one of the reasons I purchased this unit. Additionally, I have a whole-house surge suppressor connected to the load at point-of-entry.

After reading through this old thread, I got the impression that most generator users experienced little or no issues with HA devices, even when using budget gensets.