Does WMSTR have any working examples of self-starting stationary engine light plants?
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From the 1880s up until about 1936, electric utility power was available in the USA only in high density city areas. Rural areas were thought to be too expensive and unprofitable to wire for grid power.
It took the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 for transmission line power to finally start to arrive for farmers, through member owned cooperatives that did not exist to make a profit, but would try wire everyone they could possibly reach.
During these dark days, it was common for farms and rural homes that wanted electricity to have a small private onsite stationary engine, generator, and lead-acid battery bank, collectively known as a light plant.
A simple light plant needed the engine to be manually started to recharge the batteries, but the more sophisticated systems could self-start and stop the engine, often fully automatically without the homeowner needing do to anything more than turn on a light switch. This was before transistors or vacuum tubes were widely available, and so was instead accomplished with relay networks, and voltage / current sensing meters.
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Depending on the design, the lights could run on batteries for a while before the generator started, or the batteries were mainly for engine starting only and the engine would start immediately when the first light was turned on.
This light plant runs devices on batteries, and doesn't start the engine until discharged or more power output is needed than the batteries alone can provide:
This light plant starts the engine immediately when the first load is turned on:
,
From the 1880s up until about 1936, electric utility power was available in the USA only in high density city areas. Rural areas were thought to be too expensive and unprofitable to wire for grid power.
It took the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 for transmission line power to finally start to arrive for farmers, through member owned cooperatives that did not exist to make a profit, but would try wire everyone they could possibly reach.
During these dark days, it was common for farms and rural homes that wanted electricity to have a small private onsite stationary engine, generator, and lead-acid battery bank, collectively known as a light plant.
A simple light plant needed the engine to be manually started to recharge the batteries, but the more sophisticated systems could self-start and stop the engine, often fully automatically without the homeowner needing do to anything more than turn on a light switch. This was before transistors or vacuum tubes were widely available, and so was instead accomplished with relay networks, and voltage / current sensing meters.
,
Depending on the design, the lights could run on batteries for a while before the generator started, or the batteries were mainly for engine starting only and the engine would start immediately when the first light was turned on.
This light plant runs devices on batteries, and doesn't start the engine until discharged or more power output is needed than the batteries alone can provide:
This light plant starts the engine immediately when the first load is turned on: