When we purchased the Northern Lights genset for
Wind Horse it was only available at the time with a sound shield. Since we were paying for it we decided to give it a try. However, a hidden salt water leak and less than robust latches convinced us to leave off the side panels. We were not comfortable with having to remove the side panels for routine inspection.
If you think think this a bit paranoid we offer the photo above and below as evidence. This is the salt water injection elbow on the exhaust where it exits the manifold. That crack – apparently typical with smaller Northern Lights units – is directly over the generator forward end cooling vents. This makes it easy for the rusty salt water to mess with the generator windings.
Because our side panels were off, the leak showed up right away, and we were able to protect the vent openings until we could get a replacement injection elbow.
Posted by Steve Dashew (April 10, 2009)
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Dashew Logs, Tech Talk.
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Comments or Questions?
April 27th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
We have run 600 hp compressors and air boosters in the kalahari desert for years without sound shields or dust covers for exactly the same reason. It has saved me two compressors so far. One when a member of the crew left his mattress on the catwalks because it was warmer near the engine and it then blew into the fans when started up. The other when an oil pipe blew on a turbo spraying hot oil onto a glowing turbo…. seen as it occurred and closed down. keep the covers off!
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