Well,

I have to tell you, Meiko41 that I was pleased to see that a local guy got a new PP2000. I kind of on the verge to get another PP2000 and this was a good preview what newest state of the PP2000 is. Even it was very clear the with PP2000 the guys system was doing MUCH better then driven from the wall but it was not my own playback where I know how I shall be. Also, the guy palsy is challenged in few areas, the areas where I would like to look at the PP2000 critically. So, to have a final assurance that the latest PP2000 was up to specks I tool scope and asked the guy to measure his new PP2000. My primary concern was if they have addressed this problem with “fuzziness” that I reported in my unit:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Site_Images/APS_Purepower_2000_3.JPG

Yes, the “fuzziness” does not exist anymore, wonderful! However, this newsiest PP2000 does much worse things then the “fuzziness” – it does VERY severe clipping under load, not only clipping but asymmetrical clipping. Amassing, I do not believe that APS ever tested this unit.  A regular 200W CLCRC powers supply of a preamp clips the sinusoid with perfect horizontal line down to a few volts; at time even more then it is clipped in the wall. Ironically the unit maintains perfect sinusoid shape what it driver from battery but clips when it connected to the wall. Since it runs fine from buttery then we cannot blame the idiosyncrasy of the load. The only thing that I can blame is the unit again has some implementation errors and never was properly tested. I took some picture that I will post when I have time later on.Romy The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

In the light of my forthcoming move I deal nowadays with much more prosaic problems then NASA's Mars programs. I for instance am trying to strategize what alternative power I might use to power my sump pump and am trying to figure out if it is possible to have a gas to electricity converter if the power is out… As, you see my mind is occupied nowadays with the subjects remote from Sound.

Sure the PP2000 is great but could it be even more kosher? Her is a direction to think – to regenerate the electricity and completely decuple from the grid. Te idea is not new – we were talking about it before but this time it has anew twist.

The house that I trying to close is next to a river (stream) and has venerable to water basement that getting wet during prolong rain. It will be dealt with and the Basement Treatment Company that I brought came up with various proposals how to address it (sump pump + French drain). One of the proposals suggests the use of battery backup sump pump. Well, I have currently 2 friends on my who live in towns next to where I will be moving in and they have no electricity. So, what the Basement Company proposes does make sense. Well, I was looking what the better performing submergible pumps suck out. For instance ½ HP Zoeller M98 sucks 9A and therefore the flimsy buttery that Basement Company proposed would be great to keep pump uninterrupted for an hour but it will be out of game for a day long interruption.  So, I was considering another power source and I got a good idea. The house has infinite supply of natural gas (heating, boiling), so who do not use gas power regenerator? When I begum to look at the park of the automated standby power regenerators then I asked myself a legitimate in context of this thread question – why do not create isolated  audio grid and power it from heavy-duty gas-driven power generator?

The idea sound great and I spoke with a few tech supports. Here is some data.

There are a number of gas generators out there, they all are more or less compatible. The smalls and cheaper of them are do not provide a perfect sine wave but larger of them have electronic stabilization, better frequency stability and they reportedly do good sinusoid with less than 5% harmonic distortions.  Mind you that this sine wave is pure mechanical made with no noise of any kind. All stabilization and regulation circuits might be bypassed and the playback system might be driven right from the generator’s collector. Let look for instance at the Generac Guardian Series 5502, 10.000 Watt, Air- Cooled gas generator. It is a unit that sits outside of house and produce 65dB of noise – compatible with noise of outside air-conditioner.  So, noise is not a problem at all. It is 10kW of new clean power absolutely decoupled from power grid – looks very good to me.   Generic suggest that this unit it has the best stability numbers - harmonic distortions are under 3%.

http://www.amazon.com/Generac-5502-Air-Cooled-Automatic-Generator/dp/B001DZLKGY

http://www.generac.com/PublicPDFs/0168170SBY.pdf

There are a number of alternative regenerators

http://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/Briggs-&-Stratton-40243A/p1979.html

Now, about the cost. The unit itself is not expensive – it could be bought around $2K that is less expensive then my current PP200 regenerator. So, for $2.5K it might be bout, shipped and installed. As the result the house would have assured infinite uninterruptable power supply. Then there is a cost of regeneration. The 10kW unit loaded 50% (my playback will never do it) need 103 cub feet of natural gas per hour. The cost of natural gas is falling nowadays, that is good.  Let do some math now.

The electric company charges Generation + Delivery, all together is about 40 cents per 1kWh. One 1 kW of electricity is about 3,4 BTU. 1 cubic foot of natural gas = 1 BTU, so to make 1kWh using natural gas I would need 3.4 cubic foot of natural gas.  The cost of Natural Gas is approximately $0.25 per cubic feet, or to make 1kWh via Natural Gas I would need .25x3.4 = 85 cents. From this number we need to subtract the efficiency of the regeneration methods. The PP200 is 90% efficiency and gas generators are I would estimate do no better than 40% efficiency. I was not able to get those numbers from anyone. I think it would be 40% as the large commercial very efficient regenerators do up to 50%-60%. So, the comparative cost of one hour 1kW loaded PP2000 regenerator would be sub $0.45, while the same 1kW regenerated from gas would be around $1.30. (Let discard that playback will not use 5kW). So, with all equal the bill got gas regeneration might be 3 times higher than electricity regeneration). I would ay it is expensive but marginally tolerable. Nowadays my electric bill for my Playback-only is about $100 per month; with gas it would be $300 per month (for Playback Only). Important is that it would be my chose if I power playback from grid, from PP2000 or from naturally-clean gas regenerator. However…

And this is the very biggest however. I have absolutely no idea who the alternators that are used in gas generators sound. It might be anything from a perfect sound to a complete shit – no one I spoke in the subject in the gas generators world knows it. I think if I know that there is one alternator out there that is sonically tested and that sound good then it would be possible to mount it on the axis of the gas generator and it will be the solution of solutions. Does anyone have any experience with alternators and with powering playback from them?

Regardless many unknown this field I find it is very lucrative direction to look. For sure it will take care about my sump pump but could it take my electricity battle to the new level of perfection? How to sonically test alternators?

Amir wrote:

AC power generation with gas seems to be a good idea, my friend had a idea about using AC motor coupled to AC generator for generating AC power. he told me we can use 50hz (in iran AC frequency is 50hz) AC motor (connected to home AC power) for generating mechanical rotation and couple it to a 50hz AC generator. he told me in this state distortion of home AC power can not effect on output AC power. I'm not sure it's true or not but this is a idea.

I find an interesting local Boston company where I might test the Motor-Generator option. They manufacture exactly what I might need: Motor-Generator sets for ultimate isolation. They offer single-phase brushless synchronous Motor-Generator pair with maximum distortion of 2.5% at full load. They offer ±0.5% voltage stability and since it is synchronous thing then a very naturally-stable frequency. The thing produces 80-85 dBA noise and made to handle any inductive load.  They make small Motor-Generator sets down to 5kW that I guess might be less noisy. I like their model version that has 10HP motor and 17A generator.  There is however an interesting question how a generator would behave under load.

After a 100 load is applied or released, the output voltage might change and return to the regulation value within some time. It called voltage recovery time and in their generators it is 500 milliseconds. Sure if I have 100A generator then it would not a subject at all, but how about the small unit? If I keep the operation as I have now then I would not worry about it as all my power-handle devises are running in class A and draw constant current. However, I might not have enough power in new room for my woofer towers and it would force to use class A/B SS amp. So, what would happen when 200-300 A /B amp run strong bass serge? This would easy suck 17A from generator and the question is: how the bass would sound if the Generator sinks for 500 milliseconds. It might be not auditable at all or it might be auditable. It might be buffered by the capacitance of the amp PS. Alternatively I might run a large coil in serial with bass amps to buffer current flow (what Richard Gray's Power Company dose). Anyhow, this all need to be tested and since the guys are local I might very much do so.

The biggest problem in this test is… that PP2000 does very well that might discourage me to do any efforts in the Motor-Generator isolation. Let see how it goes… but I like to have and to know my options.

OK, I agree – it might be not necessary as PP2000 does produce fine electricity in a convenient package. Furthermore it violates the rule that I try to follow in audio generally: define snick objective and ONLY then render audio methods.

http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=432

So, if the PP2000 produce a good sounding electricity then why I still bather myself to look into this subject? Well, probably because I am a Moron and intellectuals masturbation is very much not alien to me. The idea of TRYING the conceptually perfect electricity bugs me and I know that no one by myself would be able to satisfy my interests… So, I ate he bullet and got the motor-generator assembly. Did anybody believed that after I get ½ acre of unused lend then I will not try this option? Well, I did not get the house yet but being a fool I got the damn generator.

The really is that I did not what the opportunity pass by. There was a deal for one of those machines:

http://www.horlick.com/products.asp?prod=79&cat=65

http://www.horlick.com/images/MG-60RC-v4.pdf

It is not the induction motor-generators that commonly used everywhere and that suffer from slippage, voltage droops problem to care load, low efficiency, high distortion and frequency fluctuation. What I got is a set of true synchronous brushless motor and synchronous brushless generator, even they much more complex and much more expensive but they produce a perfect waveform that is synchronized with the rotation – a true mechanical regeneration.  It is very expensive set but I got a very good deal on it, not to mention that it is not current production but older machine that use US/UK made parts. It is 6.5kW and optimized to care inductive load– perfect for my application, with exception of 950 pounds weight and 80dB self noise.

The only problem that I see with this devise would be dealing with noise and with… unknown quality of sound it will produce. If the sound of electricity will be better than PP2000 then I think to build a soundproof generator shed on backyard.

http://curezone.com/upload/Members/ChazTheMeatHe/Books/Survival/BW_Mag/Generators_En/How_to_construct_a_soundproof_generator_shed_By_Skip_Thoms.pdf

I can do much better that what article suggest and I have many idea how to make it very chip but very effective.

So, the attempt is here. Funny that I made the move without having the house yet but I truly did not what the opportunity for a good motor-generator set to pass. I think if I get the house in March then sometime in the end of summer I will be able to try the motor-generator and to hear the sound it produces.  Let see how it goes but I know now that I will not be bitching that I never tried it. At this point I need to found somebody guilty if it will not sound good.

Romy, you referred us to the Horlick website.  May we assume you have not gone and bought a "small" 30 HP Horlick unit?  Sure, something like that might put out a "perfect", smooth, clean, full, suitable-for-hi-fi wave at 60 Hz under load, but you probably do not have the "wall power" to drive it, even if you re-routed the service cable coming into your house!

When you mention 6.5k V, all of those I have seen are worlds apart from those big commercial Horlick units.  What have you found that is so small that will maintain perfect hi-fi power under verigated load?

For hospitals, etc., we build block walls around the big diesel backup generators.  That ought to do it for an electric re-generator.

Best regards,
Paul S

For the last 2 days a spent a lot of effort to learn about the power regeneration by frequency converters. That is very fascinating subject, though I have no idea to what kind sonic result it might lead. It is very much possible that my new place will have good electricity to begin with or the PP2000 will be perfectly enough.  Still an each to have my own high current true synchronous alternator that would have no HF noise or any kind and completely immune from power grid is too sweat to avoid trying it. To me the most important even not the concept of generation itself but an option to have no thousands transformers and hundred regulators between the power source and my amplifiers. My motor-generator set came with own regulator but I would like to bypass it and I would drive it directly from alternator, regulating the output voltage by manually exiting the filed coil of the stator. (Considering the my playback run in class A)

The set that I got is truly interesting.  It has 6HP Allis synchronous motor made in Alabama:

http://www.louisallis.com/about.html

It also has a true pride – Minnesota-made, Kato, 12 wire, synchronous, 6.5KWA alternator:

http://www.kato-eng.com/aboutus.html

I spend some time with this application engenders and it shell be very interesting to try those things. Kato do not do those tiny alternators anymore and they did not believe that I found one.  When I said 6.5KWA then they insisted that it was 6.5 megawatts. They reportedly do the best generators in the country; we will see how it goes.

I will need to devise a way to try and see how it sound without permanently installs it as it will be costly. The bigger thing will be to move that 950 pounds monster in the basement of on the yard… Perhaps I need to do it with a hydrogen air balloon…

Paul,

I do not know how perfect would be my old small generator – what I learned was that among all small generators the type that I got shall be the best. It still might be unusable for my purpose, I just do not know yet. This type of the equipment is rated for continuous duty. I spoke with generator people today and they told me that many of their machines are serving for 40-60 years of continuous duty. Do not forget that I will be loading the thing of 1kW of class A – it means the load will not fluctuate.

Regarding the moving. I am planning to weld pneumatic casters udders the frame and to dump the thing in pool house for now. I think 1000 pound on wheels with 57’ by 28’ dimension will be able to be moved by two people. I will get the deliver of the thing in the end of this month and consider to plug it up to see it will be somewhere in 2-3 month after that. If it produces good sound then the noise it will be generate will indicate what it need to be installed. I guess if it on the pneumatic wheels it will do a handleable noise then it might be running even in basement, which would be very convenient. The house has a large basement and a lot of room to  set the generator up.

Romy, you might want to re-think 2 guys and pneumatic casters under a bare frame dolly for a 950 lb. unit.  If you insist on doing it this way, I hope you will make and post a video of the event.  I'd at least consider solid, rated casters, especially if you plan to leave the unit on the dolly for any length of time.

The regulators they put on generators are, best case, tailored to the anticipated load.  Since I got disheartened about it I have not followed through to try to figure out the differences for resistive, capacitive or inductive loads, but I have read that each load type responds best to a somewhat different AC form.

My own idea of "perfect power" is still pretty basic: a steady, clean, full 60 Hz sine wave of 15 or 20 A and 120 VAC.  This is not something I've found yet from loaded porta-power.  Another thing is noise vs grounding.  I have to say that I never tried to get the grounding right on porta-power, either.  With systemic backwash inevitable, I think this would go a long way to quiet things, at least.

The one area where the portable units truly lag vs wall power is current.  As I have said before, one "secret" to [good] wall power is a helluva lot of current.  But I think another "secret" is grounding.

Best regards,
Paul S