I am going to hook up a generator so that it starts automatically in the event of a power outage. I thought someone may have done this type of thing before.Not an electronics project so much, but you folks have a lot of knowledge. We would like to put in a pole building 150 ft from the cabin. I was thinking that I may be able to use the same wires we are going to power the building with to power the cabin. I would need an automatic transfer switch on both ends, I believe. If I sense that the voltage is low at the building, I can start the generator and switch off the power lines from the cabin. The power comes from the street to the cabin, and then out to the pole building. Now I can use a set of control wires to switch the cabin from line power to the pole building wires. A second set of control wires would then sense the switch had changed. Now I can turn the switch in the pole building so that the generator feeds the power wires back to the cabin. I would need a 3 pole contactor at the cabin, and two three pole contactors at the pole building. One to switch off, and one to connect the generator. This is all so that we don't need to run a second set of 100 amp wires to the pole building. Any thoughts?

 

Been there, done that. The price of all the switching and the generator will be more than the wire. Do it right. Do it once. Install the wire and avoid fussing around with switches for the rest of your life.

 

Been there, done that. The price of all the switching and the generator will be more than the wire. Do it right. Do it once. Install the wire and avoid fussing around with switches for the rest of your life.

 

I may just do that. It does seem like a lot. I am trying to consider all the options at this point. We could also build a small shed for the generator. Since it needs to come on automatically anyway, a little more complexity may not be out of line.