That's the problem, both sides have stuff that needs to be on and are
not insignificant loads. Both are 200A panels. On the north side there's
the server room, telephone/office network closet, my desk (must have
power!), boss' office, bookkeeper's office and the receptionist desk up
front. Plus some hallway lights and stuff. The south half has offices
and cubicles that must be on, which is probably the most critical
because they answer the phones, but they can't do that if the stuff on
the north side isn't up. This is also the side that has the tower and
generator pad.
So I guess on the south side, just install the transfer switch there and
transfer that whole panel. Then run say a 50 or 60A circuit over to the
north side that has its own simple auto transfer switch of some kind and
put only the circuits on it that I need? Then the south panel should
always be energized, either utility or gen. Yeah, Ken you're probably
right, maybe I'm over-thinking this and that's the easier way to go.
Right now I have two Tripp-Lite 3kVA UPS's in the main rack. Both are
110v L5-30 input. Not all of the servers, switches, routers, etc. have
dual power supplies, but I can fix that either by replacement at some
point or an ATS. So one UPS on the backed up feed and the other not and
let it shut down. We're pulling under 1500 watts in the server room when
the UPS's are charged.
On 10/26/2014 5:06 PM, Ken Hohhof via Af wrote:
There should be a way to make that work. But if the equipment in one
building only draws a modest amount of power, could you put in
something like an APC or Tripp-Lite automatic transfer switch, and
connect one input to power from the other building AFTER the transfer
switch, making this input the secondary? That way you don't have to
worry about starting the generator, you just use commercial power from
the other building if it's available, otherwise the other building
takes care of starting the generator and transferring power to it.
-----Original Message----- From: Chuck McCown via Af
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:58 PM
To: Animal Farm
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Generator question
You could put in the transfer switch that comes with the generator and
connect it up as normal for one of the feeds, then add a slave transfer
relay that would operate with the following two conditions:
1) Mains voltage of second feed is zero.
2) Voltage out of the generator is not zero.
Feed the slave from the input of the generac transfer switch.
It would take some additional puzzling to figure out how to force the
generator to run when the second feed only is down. I am sure it can be
done.
You could have a relay between the meter and the transfer switch of
feed 1
that would cut feed 1 if feed 2 died. That would force everything to
start
and run. Cheap and dirty. Inefficient but it would work. I am sure
there
is a better way.
-----Original Message----- From: George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting)
via Af
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 3:17 PM
To: Animal Farm
Subject: [AFMUG] Generator question
So I have a unique situation at our office. We're looking at a Generac
QuietSource 22 or 30kW running on NG. I'm not dead set on that, but
those are very nice and quiet 1800RPM. And the problem is, our building
is really old and is split in half with two separate 240 services coming
in. And I do have an old empty 1-1/4" conduit between the two utility
closets. The two services is actually nice because a lot of times, one
side will have power when the other doesn't. One comes from the north,
the other from the south.
There's no way we can rewire and combine everything into one service
feed. I'm trying to wrap my mind around how to do something like two
auto-transfer switches on one generator. I have critical stuff to run on
both sides. Probably need a qualified electrician or engineer, but I
thought I'd ask here for suggestions before we go down that road and pay
someone to come up with something that I most likely wouldn't like.
