Dean Lofthouse

Probably the test centre didn't warm the engine enough. I've had numerous failures on emissions. Never had to do anything more than take the vehicle for a good run to warm the engine up properly. In fact twice I've picked up the motor, drove six or seven miles and straight back to the test centre and passed easily.

I think from now on I,ll send in videos of weekly burn piles. Waste carriers licence was the last bright idea everyone wasted their money on. I think time and money is better spent on regulating the non regulated, the ones going round knocking on doors ripping off the unwary

@Peasgood If you invest in a good inverter charger, they will have loads of good features. One of those is power assist or boost. If you are running on your generator and start up a big machine, the inverter will chuck in th extra power to assist your generator. Likewise the opposite, if your inverter struggles it can autostart your Generator. The reason I ended up off grid is because I was quoted £120K to get connected. Which was around 600m of digging a trench down a road. I have pylons 80m away at the other side of the motorway and a motorway street lamp less than 20m away 😆 One other tip: make sure when you buy a generator, you get what the call a 4 pole not 2 pole. A 4 pole runs at 1500 rpm. A 2 pole runs at 3000rpm For obvious reasons a 4 pole is much better fuel wise

Ill go for Victron next Scraggs simply because they are far more common. Studer are fantastic but no uk service agents

Better photo

This is my setup at the moment, again..still a work in progress.

This is my control cabinet, bit messy still because its work in progress. Its taken a long time of experimenting to get here. I,m lucky because I work part time a electrical motor drives firm so have access to scrap panels sometimes. Im happy to explain anything you see in the picture [emoji106]

You dont need a big generator, I,ve programmed the inverter to limit input from the generator to 32amp . Its a 3ph generator used for running some equipment in my yard. Ive tapped off 240v from phase-neutrel. The only problem with tapping single phase off a 3ph is you introduce electrical imbalance, which is just as bad as mechanical imbalance. This is the reason I have limited the current draw from the inverter. Battery wise, I,ve gone with lead acid because Lithium are silly prices still. I think better and cheaper battery technology is very close and will continue with lead acid till then. As with all batteries, try no to over disharge them, size your battery so that you only draw down to 70% dod, your battery will last much longer. On average we are using 7kw hours per day. You can reduce usage from your battery by boxing clever. Only do heavy usage stuff while you genny is running. Ie washing machine, have a shower, boil the electric kettle, cook tea .....

No heat use from genset, it is a waste I know. Battery is lead acid. I,ll post a picture of the control cabinet in daylight tomorrow.I find the wind turbine is a waste of time unless its gale force winds. All lighting in the cabin are led and draw very little power. Heating is via a log burner.

I'm living off grid and have done for some time. 14x 325w panels 600ah 48v battery 48v 2kw Turbine on a 60ft tower 8kw Studer inverter charger 200 litre water tank with 2 heating elements, top is 3kw bottom is 1.5kw 30kw generator Solar/wind charges the battery then dumps into the bottom element of the water heater. I don't need to start the generator at all in for 7 months of the year. We have more than enough power to run fridge/freezer, kettle, toaster, hot air fryer, hot water for shower every day, television lights, everything. When days start to shorten, we start using stove to boil a kettle When days really start to shorten we come home from work and cook tea with Genny running, if Genny is running it automatically give priority to battery and bottom element in water tank, then brings in top element in tank when battery gets near full. Don't need to run Generator for any more that 1.5 hours per day in dark winter.

Any size motor will run it but it would have to be geared down. You could run it on 1/2 hp but it would take 2 days to do a stroke (-: The higher the horse power, the less the need for lower pulley ratio, but equals more volume, but higher ampage. Like Hairs said above, 32amp domestic wont give you anywhere near a tractor hp.

Ours is the same too, anything over 99L you have to give details. I'd prefer having to register to use any volume of red. Levels the playing field

That should read "taxis" . I live totally off grid and have done for four years. Every time I go for gas oil, there's taxis filling up umpteen 20l drums in the boots and back seats of their cars. Those cars are always diesels with mucky spill marks down the paintwork by the filler caps.

Try getting a carb kit and replacing this, sorry I don't know the name for it but it is a one way valve for the fuel, The "flappers" on it get worn and the machine displays the exact symptoms you are experiencing. I've changed loads and it's done the trick.

GT45/50 centre swivel modification. Been meaning to do this for some time and finally got round to doing it. This joint allows the two halves of the machine to rotate a certain amount to follow the ground and keep all four wheels in contact. A common fault was there were only three bolts holding the swivel stop plate, which would shear allowing the plate to come loose and the machine could very easily tip over. My mod was to machine another three bolt holes to share the load and so strengthen it. It has solved the problem. My other main aim was to check the pivot bushings and pins, couldnt believe the hardened steel bushing weren't worn at all, just the pins showing slight wear. The machine is 16 years old with 942hrs and has worked hard.