3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

Boy Racer wrote:

Max49 wrote:

We've had this generator for 3.5 years now and it's worked great. Until this year. Previously, on three different TTs the generator has run the roof air great. Now we've got a 2010 Outback with a 13.5k Coleman Mach III, and the Champion won't run it. A 4000W surge rating at 29+ amps, and it won't start the A/C?!? Really?

The engine runs fine, the governor varies the RPMs as usual, it starts first pull every time. But as my wife and I would test it with variable loads, the harder the load, the more it will struggle and shake and eventually stall from the strain.

From the e-mail I sent to Champion Tech support on Wednesday morning June 30 (which no one answered, so I went ahead and follow-up called them Friday afternoon):

"...Last night we tested it with some assorted loads:
it ran a box fan fine, it ran a hair dryer on both low and high
without any problem. It struggled to run a vacuum cleaner, but the
RPMs did eventually settle out after about 5-10 seconds and it ran OK.
It will not run a Craftsman portable 6 HP 33 gallon air compressor at
all.

"The generator would not run the vacuum and hair dryer together,
either. The whole thing would shake like a paint mixer and the engine
RPMS were erratic, just like when the air compressor was hooked up.

"With no load, on 120V setting, the generator was producing a pretty
steady 13.9 - 14.2 amps. The fan as a test load had a negligible
effect on the amperage read out; the hair dryer test would drop the
amps to around 13 even; and the vacuum would drop it to about mid-10s
to low-11s. The vacuum and hair dryer together would pull the amps
down to mid- to high-8s, but again, the shaking and erratic RPMs meant
the unit was not functioning properly."

Shouldn't the 30A plug be producing nearly 30A, not 1/2 that? And why can't a 4000W surge/3500W service rated generator run a vacuum and a hair dryer at the same time? If it can't run those two, how can I expect it to run our TT's A/C and fridge at the same time?

I had a champ as well and it did work great when new and for a while after.Last year it was starting to struggle staring the air on my camper and toyhauler.It was now a couple years old and alot of hours on it.even a lil 1500 watt heater or the micro would put some strain on the gen too.Finally jsut bought another gen.

IMO i really dont think the surge is as high as claimed cause my new gen can start my home air compressor without struggle and its only a 3k surge while my champ when new struggled or i had to manually rev up the motor as the compressor started but once started it ran easily.

Will say that the champs are a great buy for the money and feel i got my moneys worth out of it.