Large Deisel Generators

[Rage]

I've tried to find where people rent the tow behind generators and all the ins and outs of them from fuel consumption to amount of power generated, cost etcetera and have gotten nowhere.

This is really a question for people that have done power for the large dome, club environments.

Is this overkill when you are feeding a triamped sound system with need for maybe 1000 watts max...hell, maybe less. Peavy 2000 for bass, Crest Audio for mids and a couple others...minor lighting.

Maybe a few 5000 watt portables? What has been your experience?

[diane o'thirst]

One of my campmates in Opera Camp had a tow-behind diesel gennie. He owned it, so I don't know what the rent rates are like. It was one of those ones they use to power construction sites so it had plenty plenty plenty power.

What I know is that 1) It's quiet. You can stand next to it going full bore and hold a conversation in regular conversational tones. Another friend had his tent five feet from it and it never bothered him. 2) You can run biodiesel through it but I would check with the company first to see if they allow it. If they do, that'll probably offset the costs of running it. 3) He only ran it for a few hours at night, despite its quietness, so you'll probably have to bring a synergistic boatload of fuel. But when it was running, ooooh baby...we were seriously stylin'!

[Chai Guy]

53115 10KW - Diesel
1 DAY $80.00 1 week $350.00

53124 25KW Whisperwatt - Diesel
1 DAY $140.00 1 week $350.00

The 10KW gernerator consumes .08 gallons of fuel per hour (approximately).

Biodiesel is usually more expensive than regular diesel, so no cost savings there.

If you don't absolutely need that much power, check out the smaller honda generators, they are also incredibly quiet.

eta: We did a 30ft. dome, huge sound system etc. We used the all the power in the 10KW diesel gennie and added a smaller gas generator to run lights.

[Dustdevil]

I stayed in Illumination Village last year and we rented a 50KW MQ genny. Tandem axle tow behind. It was a little over $100 per day based on a two week rental. Here is one of the rubs, a day is based on eight hours of running time. We ran almost 18 hours a day. 50KW supported all the needs of 400 members of the Village. The cost per person was minimal Someone must be responsible for fueling, getting there and back again. Now the really expensive part, the spider boxes and cabling. We were fortunate that a member of the camp had access to all the boxes and cable we needed. Charlie from the Box Shop calculated that 25 KW would have met our needs, but it would have taken a more elaborate cable layout. We rented our unit in SF and towed it up there. We arranged for an outside fuel source to refuel it as needed. Trying to transport and store that much diesel or bio D is a nightmare. The genny ran multiple motorhome AC's, lighting for the entire Village and a substancial amount of lighted art at night. It also ran equipment needed to construct Passage and The Angel. The sound output of that unit is approx 57db at 37'. Our supplier did not wish for bio D to be run in the unit. Due to the size of some of the art projects and the length of time we were there, I believe we had the unit for close to two weeks. IF the hobbs meter was accurate, that would equal 4-5weeks of rent. I have been looking into the feasablility of buying such a unit for 06' as I have other uses for it and could recoupe some of the cost. The units sell new for close to 20K. There seems to be an abundance of them in Northern California. Often times they are siezed by the DEA or Sheriffs and sold on Ebay. A good unit can be bought for 8-12K if you watch the ads. It really makes the rental look good. There is also maintainence that must be performed periodically.

[Chai Guy]

Oh and here is another thought that I wanted to throw in. The year we did this we were camped right next to another generator that was 2x the power of our generator. So in theory, had we known about this camp, we could have gone in with them (they had plenty of power left over) and both of us could have saved $$$.

So if you know of an established camp, you might want to consider contacting them and asking them about sharing costs and power. You should have your exact power needs mapped out and everything, but sharing power could yield a considerable cost savings for you (not to mention lessening the evironmental impact and such).

I've always been granted my requests to be placed next to other camps, but make sure when you're registering to include this information on both camp registrations. (or if you're going non-registered even better, you can just choose a site next to each other).

Also, the place we rented from did not have "running time" rate, we rented our genny in a 7 day increment, with a flat fee, so shop around as this apparently will vary from place to place.

[Rage]

I found a rental company and an attractive price for a 50k. Who was this outside source for fuel delivery? The gate people let them through?

I'm definately going to look into a smaller unit.