#480 My Carrier Generator / APU The Life of an Owner Operator Flatbed Truck Driver

uh so my opinion on the apu's is i'm i'm a big believer in ap is there some guys that say oh that's too much money all right good morning um we're at home as you can see and it's a nice beautiful day here in sunny arizona uh it's right now it's probably about 45 almost 50. just about time to lose the jacket but i wanted to got a lot of comments about the generator so i'm actually had a nice day so i could take the covers off and you guys could really see what's going on in here so this is a carrier apu system minus the heating and cooling part so there there's two different kind of heating and cooling systems carrier uses a 110 heating and cooling system so the the generator the actual motor makes electricity to operate the heating and cooling system so there's no compressor like an air conditioner compressor on here so the carrier system works just like the roof mount up there it's 110 but the carrier system is basically a roof mount system all disassembled so you'll see they'll have their little um what is it the condenser and stuff on the back of the cab with the dryer and all that other stuff and then the box inside the under the bunk and the sleeper so when i was looking for a generator that's what i wanted i just need electricity just need electricity to run my air conditioner up there which runs off of 110 and then for heating i just use a little space here if you guys saw that so here is we're over here in the apu graveyard so these are blackrock apu's these were that that one this apu right here was the very first black rock that i got and there's 37 000 hours on it and you guys have seen me babied that take it apart put it back together but let me show you kind of what the original unit looked like now blackrock is no longer in um business i think they make uh go green is the bought them but anyway if you look right there that's the air conditioning compressor right there and then that's the generator head right there so this this system used both it had a generator head to produce electricity and then had the little air conditioning compressor just like an automotive system to make the air conditioning heating and cooling but uh and if you look closely or just kind of picture it if you look at the motor from this direction right here and look at it like that you see where the motor is see where the generator head is if you come over here they're both little two-cylinder diesel engines this is a kubota so if you look at the motor from this way there's the generator head back in the corner back there so basically it's it's the same kind of setup as the black rock but it's just turned sideways which makes it take a lot less frame rail the other thing different about the carrier it does have a little baby radiator back here um but it does not use any um electric cooling fans to cool the engine this fan right here draws air through it blows the air and down through the radiator uh and it is tied into the cooling system of the truck the blackrock system um was not or they made these so it was not tied into the cooling system it had its own little radiator and it had little electric cooling fans on the back so so this one had the radiator now i had took this system and plumbed it into my cooling system because it really helped in the winter time keeping the engine warm so now the two big ones on the market right now are carrier and a thermoking tripec and that is a thermo king tri pack that a guy had given me so i took it for free now so the thermo king and i'm not gonna go in and dig all the sides off of it but the thermal king does not have a generator head it does not produce electricity it has the auto the like an automotive um heating and cooling system has a little compressor on there air conditioning compressor so the tripac thermo king how they make electricity is they put they install an inverter so um and and i'm i'm not 100 sure because once i knew that they did not make electricity there was no need me of following up but the tripac has an inverter and i believe also the heating system of the tripac is that little websco heater diesel burner heater thing um so uh i mean that and then you got the you got a couple other uh apu systems on the market but those are your two big ones and those are your two biggest differences between the carrier and the tri pack the tripac does not make electricity does not have a generator head the carrier makes electricity and only electricity so here we're going to barn here and i'll show you kind of what the old system that blackrock had so this right here was the heating and cooling unit for the black rock and that was mounted under the bunk of the bed so like i said it was just like an automotive air conditioning system and that would mount under the bed and that's where you got your heating and cooling from on the black rock and that's similar to how the tripac works or the thermal king so when i called around to find a generator i called this place and i'm going to give him a little bit of we'll give him a little bit of advertising so this place right here if you guys remember that was mounted right there this place right here the ap cent apu center over in spring near springfield missouri i called the place there and i told the guy what i wanted and um and he he gave me two options he said you can go with a carrier or you can go with a dyson i think it's dyson the dyson also makes electricity too the reason i went with the carrier is it has the fewest number of parts inside here like i said there's no electric cooling fans you have that little bitty radiator to worry about it has a mechanical fuel pump does not have an electrical fuel pump and then like i said it's got the fan right here now it does have an alternator so it charges the batteries but that was the reason that i went with that um this right here out the door was 4 600 and that was because i had it mounted to the frame like this the standard install system uses like a clamp that mounts mounts it to the frame is like a big clamp that goes here the top and the bottom and i would have had to move my headache rack and all that other stuff so i paid a little extra to have it mounted to the frame like that and give that a little gap back there so but uh that's kind of the breakdown of the generator oh i believe it runs at like 2 800 rpm that's not the quietest little generator but in the truck it's a constant hum and actually i sleep better and even when teresa was on the road she liked having the generator on because it was just kind of white noise in the background killed killed all the background noise even reefers parked next to us but all right so that's it i think uh hopefully i answered some questions about why i went with the carrier and the difference between the two that is a of course you can tell it's a used generator reconditioned and actually i was kind of impressed it doesn't look too bad so uh hopefully it uh it does well but uh all right um as for the control panel and everything there's all kinds of other little youtube videos on there about the control panel this the control panel on here it's the same control panel for the carrier it's just basic on and off um and that's all it does it doesn't control the heating and cooling because there is no heating and cooling system uh so my opinion on the apu's is i'm i'm a big believer in ap is there some guys that say oh that's too much money but especially these new trucks man they do not like to idle um and it's really hard on the def system now like i said that was the original generator i had that generator put on the truck in 2004 2005. this is a 2003 so there's pretty much always been a generator apu on this truck so i wouldn't have to idle um you know and if you're going to buy a truck and you think you're going to keep it for a while then i really don't see why you would not invest in apu yes they're picky they require maintenance most of the problems with them is the heating and cooling system the freon links or you know stuff like that but as for the actual motor part they usually do pretty good so anyway i hope those answered some of your questions today's video was sponsored by dorsey trailer there's a link down in the description if you want to go check them out

Channel: SuperTruckerDan

Views: 41,922

Rating: 4.9504952 out of 5

Keywords: american truck driver, cdl, dash cam, dashcam, dorsey, dorsey trailer, drive a truck, driver, driving, driving a peterbilt, flatbed, flatbed equipment, flatbed trucking, flatbeder, freightliner, how to, kenworth, learning to drive, leasing, lorries, mercer, otr, owner operator, peterbilt, prime inc, super trucker dan, supertruckerdan, tarp, tarping, trailer, truck, truck driver, truck driver training, truck driving, truck driving company, truck leasing, trucker, trucking, trucking videos, volvo

Id: kcY-C3cRKao

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021