What Users Say About Marathon Generator End

by Generator D. Diesel Generator

After experiencing high voltage with my Kohler, I opted for a new 15kw Marathon solid state brushless head to mate with my Yanmar. I had already disconnected everything from home, changed the coolant hoses, and changed the fan to 12 volt. It was already insulated and still in good shape. I then drove it to PA to allow Shane's local genny guy to put the new head on. We removed the tray with his forklift and left it with him for him to switch out the unit. His biggest challenge was arranging the control boxes, and ended up making a new bracket to tilt the existing one up to allow room behind it for the new one. Unfortunately I have no pic of the boxes yet. To help provide space for the boxes I removed the two genny compartment circulation fans in the ceiling, that essentially are worthless. The challenge during reinstall was/is the exhaust piping. The new unit is of larger diameter requiring the piping to be rerouted around it, plus the Kohler had a pipe bracket available on its side. For the time being I am temporarily using flex, and even with some new brackets fabricated the piping does not consistently quite mate up very good. I will replace this with new stainless piping when I get home and have use of the pit. I was however able to reinstall the piping's heat blanket wrap, necessary since the two control panels are adjacent to the heat.

I can't thank Shane enough for his work during the reinstall, as he certainly went "over and above", and I could not have done it without him. I learned a bunch. John Heckman and Shane's neighbor Paulie helped a whole bunch too; and I sure appreciate it John.

I am $3,058 dollars poorer, with roughly $2,400 of that for the purchase of the unit. Added to this would be the costs of hoses, clamps, 12v fan, etc., but I hope I am set for the continued life of the coach. Marathon is a U.S. company of course, but unfortunately the unit itself has "Made in China" on the plate. I feel comfortable that it was made to Marathon's specs, but hated seeing that. Something we continue to have to live with in America. It may even be made in the same factory as the Chinese named/made unit John Hall recently bought for much less.

I've got 'mobile juice' again, and am a happy camper.

I picked up a 1.6l 8v 'zuk motor, and will be converting it to propane.

I am looking at a 20KW ST gen head.

I can get the 1.6 running, and I can have a coupler made, but I am not real familiar on the generic ST gen heads out there.

All the little briggs and stration type gensets have a flyball type govenor in the engine. The governer is very very important for a generator, the rpm need to stay within about 2% of either 1800rpm or 3600rpm depending on which generator head you use. If it strays to far from that you can wreck anything that is plugged into it. Most of the gensets that use a automotive type engine (gas, propane, naturalgas) have a electronic governor (computer, speed sensor, throttle control).

Saying that it would prolly be your best bet to just buy a used one. You see those home backup ones go for about 1500-2000 used.

However it is easier to build a genset using a diesel power unit. Most diesel engines have a internal governor. I have built 1 using a cummins 6ct that is a 120kw, 1 using a 471 detroit 110kw, and one using a 671t detroit that is 200kw.

But all that said the best generator imo is a marathon generator end. Most are internal regulating, and if you get a 12 wire head it can be wired to make 120 1p, 220 1p, 208 3p, 240 3p, and 480 3p. All of the generators I built use them. Got over 10,000 hours on the 200kw, and only had a $200 regulator go out on it.

If you have any more questions let me know, I enjoy building these things.

Many of the newer high efficiency furnaces have a lot of electronics in them that will not tolerate dirty power, even some of the purpose made standby generators aren't clean enough. Last year I bet we ran across 10-20 furnaces that wouldn't run on a properly connected portable(transfer switch/panel)and a couple on lower end whole house generators that either wouldn't run or would have an intermittent issue. We also replaced a few control boards in furnaces that were run on generators, these may have been due to overloading the generator or under/over voltage.