Josie

2020 Pricing

Posted on January 27, 2020March 6, 2020 by Josie — Leave a comment

It is hard to believe that a little generator company started shortly before the great depression in 1927 has been around to witness some pretty monumental changes in the world we live in. Not very many companies are able to survive this long. Our success over the years is because of the good people who work here.

Whether you are new to the WINCO Generator family or have been with us for a long time, we appreciate our partnership. We couldn’t do it without your contributions. We appreciate your business, feedback and support. You have a lot of options in the marketplace and we are glad that you chose to work with us.

Pricing is in full affect starting February 1st, 2020. Despite significant pressure on our costs from tariffs, regulation and other inputs we have held our pricing mostly steady. Some air-cooled models have seen minor price increases while our entire line of liquid-cooled products is holding steady after our big price decrease last year.

Our UL142 fuel tanks went up in price quite a bit. We held off on price increases on those for a few years too many and had to make a sizable adjustment.

We reduced prices on the DP5000 and the DP7500 this year along with many of the smaller service entrance rated ASCO transfer switches.

WINCO has a big year planned for 2020. Expect to have some exciting and competitive new products to become available. We’ll be in touch and look forward to another good year working with you.

-BIG DOG

January Service School

Posted on January 27, 2020March 6, 2020 by Josie — 2 Comments

January 21-22^nd we hosted the first Service School of the year. We had dealers from neighboring states as well as some from warmer states getting to enjoy our great winter season.

The topic of this course was focused on our Liquid-Cooled units.

Dwight and Dale from our Service Department started out with warranty procedures, installation and maintenance classes.
Josh from Deep Sea Electronics did a great in-depth training on the DSE7310 Controller.
Hands-on training in the factory with multiple stations set up for paralleling, testing, and changing voltages.
Dan and Kelli from our Sales Department did a presentation.

We enjoy being able to have our dealers visit, to get to know us and learn more about our generators and do have more Service Schools being scheduled and we will keep you posted!

See you soon!

– BIG DOG

What is a Main Line Circuit Breaker (MLCB)?

Safety is important and the main line circuit breaker (MLCB) plays a key role in protecting people and equipment. This main breaker is placed between the generator end and the load. All of the electrical current goes through this breaker. If there is too much load it will trip and interrupt the current to help and prevent damage or overload.

Many of our products have multiple receptacles. The MLCB serves as the main safety gate and feeds additional circuit breakers that protect the individual receptacles. The picture below shows a WL18000VE and how the smaller circuit breakers (CB) and receptacles all wire through the MLCB. The MLCB is normally rated at 100-125% of the generator output.

In some applications it makes sense to have dual breaker systems. For example, the WL22000VE panel below has two breakers that provide the main line protection for half of the receptacle panel. The ratings of both breakers are specified to be equal to 100-125% of the total generator output.

How do circuit breakers work?

Circuit breakers are designed to interrupt current when there is too much load on a circuit. They are designed to stop the flow of electricity to prevent injury or the failure of other electrical components like the wiring, generator end or receptacles. Winco uses multiple types of over-current protection technologies based upon the application.

Thermal

A thermal breaker, as it sounds, works with heat. Current (amps) creates heat as it passes through the breaker, if the breaker gets too warm, it opens a switch that is normally spring loaded to open the circuit and stop the electrical current.

Advantages: Less expensive and has a time delay as the breaker heats up.
Disadvantage: Slower reaction and is affected by ambient temperature.

Thermal Trip — Source: Schneider Electric

Magnetic

A magnetic breaker has a coil. When excess current passes through, it becomes a electromagnet which opens the breaker.

Advantages: Very fast to high current like dead shorts.
Disadvantages: Can’t handle the slow overload trip with time delay.

magnetic trip — Source: Schneider Electric

Electronic

With an electric breaker, a computer chip controls the trip point and delay precisely. We use electronic breakers on our generators above 100kw so you can set the trip point and switch between voltages using the same breaker.

Advantages: Quick, precise trip
Disadvantages: More expensive

Electronic Trip — Source: Schneider Electric

Hydraulic

A hydraulic breaker is similar to a thermal breaker, but instead of using heat, a viscous liquid control the trip point.

Advantages: Not affected by ambient temperature and a delayed trip is possible
Disadvantages: Not available in all sizes

In order to get the best combination of trip characteristics many circuit breakers combine technology. For example, a thermal/magnetic breaker has a slow reacting thermal trip mechanism and a fast reacting electromagnetic mechanism. Winco indicates which safety technology the main line circuit breaker is using on our spec sheets.

What is a circuit breaker?

That is a great question. Simply put it is a safety device that can stop the flow of electricity in a circuit. It is important to understand the limitations of a circuit breaker in your application to make sure you are protected. It is easy to get into trouble when we misunderstand what the CB actually protects against.

A circuit breaker interrupts power in two main configurations switching and interrupting.

Switching

When a circuit breaker is manually opened (power off) or closed (power on) it servers to control the electrical flow to certain appliances. This is helpful when performing maintenance and testing.

Interrupting

The circuit breaker is constantly monitoring the power flowing through it. When the current (amps) exceed the limits the breaker will automatically open (power off) to protect people, equipment and the source from damage. Check out our article on how circuit breakers work to gain a better understanding of the various technologies used to monitor the power.

It is important to remember that circuit breakers focus on controlling the amount of current in the circuit and don’t monitor voltage or power quality. You can also compare a CB to a fuse. The main difference is, when a fuse has too much current, it breaks itself to stop. Where as, a CB is re-settable while normally not getting ruined once it has tripped.

Click to view our spec sheet on circuit breakers.