Micro CoGen.

What can I expect longevity-wise?  Any tips or techniques?  Overall opinion?

Its a 3600 rpm "screamer" but from what I understand its a very _GOOD_ 3600 rpm screamer.  When I bought it I plugged in two 2000 watt electric heaters and the engine noise didnt change one iota.

Its supposed to be contractor grade and super reliable but I've never actually talked to anybody who's owned one.  I'd looked at their website before and it all looks pretty good, but a new one was out of my price range.

Gillette goes on and on at their website about the generator head being super reliable w/ ultra robust capacitors and diodes, extra higher grade insulation, etc etc etc.

I've heard that Lombardini diesels are very reliable as well, but again I dont know much about them.

I came across this one on the Seattle craigslist for $1000 (about a third the cost of a new one), it has 143 hours on it and and is clean as a whistle.  The guy who sold it was using it as a whole home backup, but he changed over to a natural gas standby genset (which I'll also do eventually).  He praised the genny to the sky - but then he would since he sold it.  
He also said that during last winters ice storm it was running for 6 days for 12 hours a day and he'd change out the oil every other day.

I removed and cleaned the fine mesh metal screen filter and it was clean, he said he'd never changed it.

BTW, this mambajama is oh-my-god LOUD, I'll be building a hush box to put it in.

Through my work I have access to a LOT (5-10 lbs every two months) of indicating silica gel beads.  The beads are fairly large, about 5mm across - they're out of cannisters we use to keep the vent air for the 400 gal hydraulic oil reservoirs dry.  Because of the design of the cannister when the silica gel is used up or contaminated with hydraulic oil fog badly enough they're thrown out. 

I've already figured out how to clean the beads of the hydraulic oil film (a quick bath in acetone) and I know I can regenerate them easy enough, but can I use it to dry out gasoline/diesel/WMO or will the fuels dissolve the silica gel beads and contaminate my fuel.

I also posted this on the listeroid forum

Saw a lister(oid) for sale in craigslist for sale after a fire. 

http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/for/2829774121.html

A new surplus Stamford Newage 7.5KW, 2 pole 3600RPM.  He's got a lot of them.  My main concern is if it's a two bearing unit or not, I'm sure I can adapt a pulley attachment to it but I dont know how well it'll take a side load.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-5-KW-Stamford-Newage-Generator-End-New-Surplus-/230557910201?pt=BI_Generators&hash=item35ae5284b9

Thoughts?


Edit to the edit:

It's 3 phase - but according to the wire diagram they can be configured to double delta single phase (??).   As I want to rectify it to DC and feed a battery bank I'm unsure how well this'd work. 

Anybody have any experience with these?  According to a couple of online reviews they're supposed to be excellent quality heads, their main claim to fame is their "Kleen Power" with only 7% harmonic distortion.

If weight is any indication of quality they weight about the same as equivalent sized Winco heads: i.e a 6000W head weighs 84lbs

http://www.gillettegenerators.com/index.html
http://www.gillettegenerators.com/beltkit/specs11.html

I'm in the design phase and I've bumped into the disparity between the amperage that the generator can generate vs the C/10 limitation for flooded lead-acid batteries.

For example the generator (after feeding through the controller) can output 111 amps at 36V, however the 36V 750AH bank can only take 75 amps without shortening the life of the batteries.

The genny output will be fed through a outback charge controller which I trust will not overcharge the battery bank, however this leaves the genny only running at just below 50%.  From what I understand optimum loading of a generator set is approximately 80% of max load.

There's a lot of potential power not being utilized.

How do you guys resolve this?

Planned specs:  Listeroid 8/1 derated to 6/1 pushing a 5KW ST AC head rectified to DC feeding a Outback power Flexmax80 which charges the battery bank.   I chose to rectify (and heavily filter) the AC output of a ST head because that gives me a failover option of using an 1000 watt inverter/charger that I already own for the bank and passing the AC load directly to the listeroid gen set.
The reason I prefer recified AC power is my understanding that ST heads AC waveform is rather dirty, and my load contains sensitive medical life-support equipment (a home peritoneal dialysis unit).  Thus a separate inverter for my load.

Edit:  Sorry boogered the post, remnants of the marine alternator backup plan that I thought I'd removed.