3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

Wrace wrote:


Also recommended against the SPP6E for generator applications.

Well, lets look at this a minute.

IMPO, it is not as much of a question of the capacitor doing harm or being damaged as it is that the capacitor will not function as designed - maybe?

A portable generator/alternator is essentially a coil of wire being spun inside of a magnetic field by a gasoline engine. Of course, it can be the other way around and the coil of wire can be outside the magnetic field or both the stator and rotor can be eclectically energized magnetic fields (electromagnets) without any permanent magnets other than a small field to get the process started.

In any design situation the amount of surge or reserve power available is more dependent on the electromagnetic force field that surrounds the wire coils outside the physical parts of the alternator.

What happens when the alternator is called upon to deliver a significant amount of current to start a locked rotor electric motor (air conditioner compressor) is the load is so great that the opposing electromagnetic forces created choke the engine. With the engine unable to supply the needed power to spin the rotor the electromagnetic field surrounding the coils of wire literally collapses into the core, providing an instantaneous surge of power that can be much greater than the engine's ability to create by just spinning the rotor. Depending on the size of the wire coil in Henrie's (uH) the amount of surge energy available can last from a few cycles to several seconds.

A starting capacitor is a non-polarized device that stores electrical energy between insulating plates called a dielectric. Like a battery, the more or the larger the plates, the more it can store.

But, a capacitor often depends upon power from the peak wave of the power source to keep it at full power. When a generator "chokes", the peak wave of it's output is nonexistent - thus the capacitor may not be able to do its designed job as well as it would on "shore power".

But, never mind all this theory because it DOES (most of the time) store enough power to get a troublesome high starting current electric motor rolling and allows the generator to gasp for enough power to recover.

I believe what Supra is trying to say in their disclaimer for the supra6 is that it will not operate exactly as designed on "some" generators. OK - we know that. But, it does operate good enough to do the job we need.

Sorry for the theory lecture. But, bottom line, it will not hurt anything to add the capacitor, and it should help enough to accomplish your goal of getting the A/C running.