Yamaha 3000 iSEB and VA

Hi,

After a while I had to eliminate the fridge. The draw from all items was 2900 watts. I'm now bouncing between 2660 and 2800. Voltage is stable at 120.3 or 120.4

Hi all,

Well, I'm back in Regina.

The genny will run the air, water heater, fridge, and converter all at once.

Either it was an altitude effect *or* the engine had not had enough time to break in when I did the testing. It now has about 26 hours on it.

It did cause me to find a "work around" which is great!

Thanks for all the input and ideas.

Hi KD,

I'll try it with resistive loads and that should tell the tale. I have 3 meters I can use (two of them limited to 1800 watts). I think it unlikely that all three meters will be wrong.

It happens that I am in the mountains.

In the mean time, I am using my inverter powered from the battery bank/solar/alternator/converter to run the water heater. That works well. Approximately 42 amps from the converter, 13 amps from the solar, and 35 amps from the alternator. Any short fall is taken up by the battery banks.

Don't worry about the VA vs. watts. For all practical purposes here it's the same. The calculations involve the power factor for whatever you're running. Your water heater is purely resistive so it would have a PF of 1 so watts and VA are equal. Your AC will likely have a PF of less than one so it will use more VA than watts but I bet it's almost the same.
Either way, a 2,800 gen. should run 2,400 easy without dropping to 95 volts. You have either a defective meter, defective gen, or your load is bigger than you think. If it's the gen. it should most definitely be a warranty issue.
You're manual should tell you how much to derate the gen. for altitude. We're you camped at high altitude? That may be the problem.

Hi Wayne,

I have an Efergy watt meter so I can measure up to 100 amps @ 120 volts.

Wayne Dohnal wrote:

pianotuna wrote:

You mentioned a "weak" generator. Would this be a warranty issue?

I would think so, you just have to prove it to yourself first then the service facility. The generator having more power than the kill-a-watt can measure complicates things. Loading it with the water heater and a space heater or hair dryer would get you close to 2800, then you could top off the load with light bulbs after having measured the draw of each one individually. I've gotten to like the hair dryer. It's a heavy load, somewhat adjustable, and easily portable. I think of it now as my generator load tester that my wife also uses to dry her hair. For proving things I think you'd have to get the air conditioner out of the mix because it will get blamed as the cause.

pianotuna wrote:

You mentioned a "weak" generator. Would this be a warranty issue?

I would think so, you just have to prove it to yourself first then the service facility. The generator having more power than the kill-a-watt can measure complicates things. Loading it with the water heater and a space heater or hair dryer would get you close to 2800, then you could top off the load with light bulbs after having measured the draw of each one individually. I've gotten to like the hair dryer. It's a heavy load, somewhat adjustable, and easily portable. I think of it now as my generator load tester that my wife also uses to dry her hair. For proving things I think you'd have to get the air conditioner out of the mix because it will get blamed as the cause.

Hi,

That covers a host of sins. I'd really rather have gone massive solar but just could not find a reasonable way to deploy and keep under the $2500.00 threshold.

I'll be having my cousin make a storeable ramp and a "come along" so I can wind the 185 lb onto the rack. (better a pain in the behind, than a damaged back.)

mena661 wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:

the brochure indicates that these are only a couple of pounds different. what is the issue with the 4500?
bumpy

I THINK I remember PT not wanting to carry around the 4500.

Hi smk,

An instantaneous reading on a kill-a-watt. I shut down the air conditioner before it could go to overload.

smkettner wrote:
True RMS voltmeter? I know it is SW but it could get deformed.
Seems odd to read 95 volts without overload.

Can't say with the Yamaha, but I was messing with my Honda wrt battery that might relate to using a different battery as in the OP.

My Honda battery died in the first year (ten years ago) from neglect where we never used the gen much. I did not replace it since it cost a lot and I figured it would die too. Instead I just use the pull cord for nine years now. Now that I know more, I think I would use a battery tender on it.

So with the gen in the truck bed all the time, I thought I would rig up a connection to the truck battery or be able to use any battery connection to start it. I opened it up and got the pos and neg wires hanging out to take clamps, and fixed clamp wires to the pos and neg of the slide-in camper connection that comes up between the cab and the box. I was then able to connect, start the gen and disconnect.

BUT- one time I forgot to disconnect and did a two hour recharge of the trailer batts with the gen running, truck off, and the truck battery was completely dead after that. No voltage at all! No idea why it drained the truck batt. I thought the Honda charged its own battery, but in this case it was sucking instead of blowing.

Got the truck battery back up (it still works, so you can get away with that once anyway) and didn't do that again.

Another time I was carrying an extra battery in the truck bed as a spare and connected the gen to that. It started the gen ok. So for sure you can use any battery including a big bank to start it, but I would test how things go if you leave it connected after that while the gen is running.

Bumpyroad wrote:

the brochure indicates that these are only a couple of pounds different. what is the issue with the 4500?
bumpy

I THINK I remember PT not wanting to carry around the 4500.