As I wandered over, I realized this was ‘almost’ a perfect example of the difference between Mil-Spec and what is called COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) procurement…
On the left is a Kohler 30KW portable generator mounted on little two wheel trailer (commercially procured/assembled ‘system’)…
On the right is a Mil-Spec 30KW portable generator mounted on it’s Mil-Spec trailer…
First, note the difference in the trailers. On the left, a ‘standard’ little lightweight 2 ton trailer. Single axle, small ‘feet’ for stabilization, generator is ‘attached’ to the trailer by 4 bolts on the bottom and four steel angle clamps about 3 inches wide. Standard trailer lights too. Weighs about 500 lbs. Standard trailer hitch, no trailer brakes. Small aluminium storage ‘tray’ forward of the genset.
On the right is a Mil-Spec ‘lightweight’ trailer. Dual axles, as wide as a Hummer, diamondplate steel fenders, full articulable large foot stabilizers. The generator is dropped between 12 inch by 3 inch I-beams welded and bolted to the trailer frame, and the generator is bolted to the I-beams by 10- 1/2 inch diameter bolts on EACH side, and also tack welded with 3-4 inch beads at each corner. Mil-Spec trailer lights, air brakes, individual hand brakes for each wheel, Pintle Hook instead of trailer hitch, welded steel storage box 12 inches deep by 36 inches long by 24 inches wide welded forward of the genset in the frame. Weight something around 2000-2100 lbs.
Now the gensets themselves…
Again Mil-Spec in foreground, Kohler in the background.
First the Kohler, note the limited number of access panels/doors, and the ‘lump’ just forward of the genset on the trailer is the ONE cable with ONE set of connections. Weight about 2600-2800lbs (full of diesel).
Next, the Mil-Spec (ugly Army green), note 4 access panels on the left side, repeated on the right side. On the rear are four more access panels. In the tray are a selection of cables, covering ‘most’ requirements, plus the black panel on the front of the genset allows access directly to the master three-phase output.
Weight over 3000lbs (full of diesel).
Now comes the ‘fun’ parts…
Time to procure-
Kohler setup- appx 30 days
Mil-Spec setup- appx 1 YEAR! (paperwork, justification, order, wait for manufacture, MOAR paperwork, etc.)
Cost-
Kohler setup- $15,000 WITH trailer
Mil-Spec setup- Somewhere between $80-100,000…
So bottom line, Mil-Spec costs between $65,000-$85,000 MORE money, but it’s “certified” to perform under all circumstances, go into battle, etc. etc…
(and requires a special school AND a license to operate)…
The Kohler? Hook it up and turn it on…
Any Army or Marine types that can verify costs of the Mil-Spec and weight would be appreciated (I have ‘guestimates’ from the power plant manager)…
Sigh…
In theory, the MilSpec unit is designed to survive the apocalypse and the other unit – well who knows?
A lot of MilSpec equipment really does last a long time and remains in service long after its civilian counterpart gear is dead too. Having said that, part of the problem with MilSpec is that long, expensive (for the manufacturer) procurement cycle and the delay that they need to consider in payment by the government.
In 2005, a person I know wanted to bid a new all terrain trailer (high speed tow over literally all terrain) for use in various ‘sandbox’ environments. There’s no way that you could build it for what USGOV wanted to pay for it, once you factored in the inevitable costs involved in dealing with the government. The company who “won” the contract went broke. He didn’t because he listened to me and passed on it.
MilSpec guarantees what can be salvaged for future use is sold at auction for a few pennies on the dollar.
Probably be smarter to buy 4 civilian models, get all 4 in 1/12th the time and use spares as needed. At least in most cases.
Ah well, just tax payer dollars . . . nothing to see . . . . move along, move along . . .
I think the main problem with the cost of the MilSec is that it is made under a gubment contract … which automatically raises the cost 1,000 percent. The same think could be made for the civilian consumer at a cost of about $500. Just kidding, but the fact that it is under a gov contract will increase the price a great deal. Civilian companies luv dem gubment contracts.
Government contracts often have very specific requirements that do not match COTS gear (including durability, reliability, maintainability, and compatibility with other milspec systems), low build numbers, and ridiculously high testing requirements.
For one, I’ll practically guarantee that COTS generator is tuned for diesel-only, and the milspec one is multifuel designed to run equally well on at least diesel, heating oil, and all blends of aviation kerosene — quite possibly even lighter distillates like MOGAS and AVGAS.
If you only need 300 toilet seats, but they have to fit in a VERY specific shaped (and unusually small) space, have weird environmental requirements (no degradation in performance or service life with temperature swings from -40F to 140F, must not stick to human skin at ANY of those temperatures, must support 300lbs at 3-4G turbulance, must not produce toxic smoke when burning, no degradation if exposed to aviation kerosene, hydraulic fluid, or any other agent commonly found or used on the aircraft including any decon or cleaning solutions, etc.) and you insist on Six-Sigma compliance (verified through destructive testing), the next thing you know, you have a $1000+ toilet seat for a strategic bomber. But it is still the cheapest way to go to get a seat that meets the requirements.
As for just buying 4x as many COTS versions to offset a milspec version that is 4x as reliable, but 5x as expensive (or more), the problem is that you now have to allot storage space, maintenance resources, and transportation assets to make sure you have your replacement COTS generator in position BEFORE the first one fails. And the #3 and #4 replacement gensets in the pipeline behind it. Plus any additional COTS generators you need for redundancy on top that (even with the 4x reliability of milspec, there might well be a need for 1 or 2 replacement sets to make sure that under NO circumstances, will the unit relying on this generator capacity ever find itself in the dark.)
BTW, DoD does use tons of COTS stuff where milspec isn’t required. Or, they’ll take a COTS system, ask for a minor change, and deploy it that way.
Thus, COTS passenger cars and light trucks for Stateside base administration, “semi-COTS” (like a 4×4 pickup that is COTS except it has a diesel or milspec multifuel motor so it can use the same “jet fuel only” fuel delivery system as does every single tactical vehicle or aircraft & has it’s design frozen at a certain model year so there is only ONE list of spare sparts to stock) for “non-combat, but deployable, or at least operated by a deployable unit”, and 100% milspec for combat vehicles.
(Yes, we pretty much run EVERY combat vehicle, manned combat aircraft, AND NONNUCLEAR SHIP, exclusively off milspec jet fuel these days, even though the engines are generally multifuel capable in case we have to refuel outside US DoD channels. It is actually CHEAPER to use jet fuel for everything than to maintain parallel fuel distro systems in a combat theater AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, make sure everyone gets the type of fuel they need, in the proportions they need, when they need it, without PVT Snuffy screwing up and tanking up your AV-8B with MOGAS, or your gasolene engined truck with JP-8. [Jet fuel will burn just fine in a diesel engine, which is why most airport-specific support vehicles have diesel engines and run jet fuel, even at civilian airports. Gasolene in most jet engines will cause Bad Things to happen in rather short order, whilst dumping jet fuel into a gasolene engine is no different than pouring diesel or heating oil in.)
The difference between “must work in every environment and conditions” and “good enough.” How many Kohler’s could you buy for one mil-spec version? Seven? Now consider which is more effective, more cost effective.
Special school to run a 30K? Heck, all I got was 10 minutes of “Here’s the dials, this is where the glow plugs and filters are, and don’t touch the sparky bits”.
The trailer on the MilSpec generator has to be rugged because of not only where it’s going to be used, but also how it’s going to get there and what’s going to haul it. I dragged either a 10k set or a 30k generator behind my track across desert, mud, gravel, rocks, and whatever else came our way, in all kinds of weather, and at speeds that bumped up against the max the engine and transmission would allow. The trailer has to be that heavy and strongly built to stand up to decades of such use. COTS equipment is usually designed to be towed on improved roads, preferably ones with few bumps and ruts. The couple times we rented COTS power equipment for big exercises, it was either damaged in transit or down for maintenance a lot more than the military generators if it was taken out of garrison at all.
We delivered COTS equipment to different military units because performance was better than the MILSPEC instruments in the system.
We would make minor changes for specific units as needed and everyone was happy.
When some folks asked if we could make things to MILSPEC, we declined. It would have doubled the weight and size and increased the cost by 4-6 times without accounting for additional govermental accounting burdens and complience costs.
We ended up working a deal for USN to make a NSN so we could supply the gear without the auditors getting their panties in a bind.
I’ve designed electronics systems in MilSpec, Space qualified, and industrial. I’ve never worked in consumer electronics, which is probably more like that Kohler.
A simple component in a circuit might cost 4 to 10x the industrial price for a MilSpec part, and most importantly, may not even be available in Mil Spec temperature ranges. For a space rated (Class S), it’s probably closer to 100x and whole families of technologies can’t be used in space.
What few people realize is that the basic piece of silicon for the Mil system isn’t made on a different production line and it isn’t treated differently during manufacture, and that’s where the quality is baked in. They just test it and treat it differently afterwards. If you read the Mil data sheet for a part, you’ll see looser performance specifications and wider tolerances. That’s simply what happens to the same piece of silicon in the COTS package when you operate it over a wider temperature range.
All you’re buying is the paperwork that certifies it over the wider temp range. You’re buying the right to blame someone for a problem.
Same goes for Space, only “even more so”. Standard joke is that before the rocket can lift off, the paperwork has to outweigh the launch vehicle. A $100 amplifier may approach $10,000. It’s still a $100 part, they just give you $10,000 worth of paperwork.
Some time ago, at Major Aviation Electronics Company, the president asked the VP of the Government Systems side, “Why is it that when I buy a regular comm radio from the commercial side it costs me $X, but when I buy it from you it costs 10 or $20X?” These stories were shared. And the Government Systems guys started buying a lot more commercial radios from us a COTS to sell to the .Gov customers.
12 years ago (around Y2k, if you get my drift) I bought a 5kw Dayton generator from Grainger’s.
I remember a lot of discussion at Hog on Ice about gen sets and not buying “cheap”.
That $500 genset is probably one of the best investments I’ve made besides my wife’s engagement ring.
I can leave it in the shed for a year, have a storm and fire it up and run the house for a week.
I do not maintain it.
It just runs.
LL- Don’t disagree, and yeah your friend was ‘smart’ NOT to try that trailer!
Jess- True!
Eia- 🙂
CP- Closer to the truth than you know…
Geo- Both posts are correct, but the Navy IS going back to bunker fuel for ships to drive costs down (at least some)…
Crucis- Good point!
DB- Well, obviously YOU were special! 🙂 But there is now actually a SCHOOL on how to run portable generators and is required for your equipment license!
Anon- That happens quite a bit…
GB- Yep! BTDT, stole the radios from the Army 🙂
Ed- That is a WIN! 🙂 My luck I’d pay $500 and the sumbitch’d fall apart the first time I hit the start button!
$500 comes with a pull rope.
Ed- Then I’d break the shaft off… sigh…
I’m with graybeard and geodykt on this.
Yeah, the COTS stuff will *probably* do the job, but when TSHTF, I’d run to the milspec stuff.
I’ve been involved in the design and procurement process of commercial, milspec, and medical stuff. The medical stuff is actually MORE of a pita than the milspec stuff.
And our saying at Boeing was the rocket wasn’t ready to launch until the stack of paperwork was as tall as the rocket.
Graybeard just used heavier paper than we did!
the generator is bolted to the I-beams by 10- 1/2 inch diameter bolts on EACH side
Hahahahahahahaha, I totally read that not as “10 (ten count) 1/2 inch diameter bolts” but as “ten and one half inch diameter bolts” and my brain went “No. Just no.” Then I parsed it correctly and everything was better. 😀
Yeah, between the reduced cost of bunker fuel and the drive to go “biofuel” for the fleet, I can see them trying to reduce the JP-8 useage.
However, I’m not an HM&E guy — how does bunker compare to JP-8 in the turbine powered canoes, in terms of “go per gallon”?
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