Yamaha EF1000iS Genset

[SoundGuy]

I've previously owned 2 Honda EU2000i gensets, each purchased used, primarily as back up for those times each season we inevitably lose shore power while camping and may want / need to recharge the battery. Eventually I sold each one for what I had paid due to lack of use ... that and the fact I found hefting a 50+ lb genset in & out of the truck, then rarely using it, got old really quickly. 😞 The one time we lost power for 36 hrs and could have really used it the genset was sitting back in my workshop. :S However, an opportunity has presented itself where I can buy a 2 yr old, lightly used Yamaha EF1000iS for the equivalent of ~ $500 USD, about half of what a new one would cost here in Canada. At 30 lbs it sure would be a lot easier to throw into the truck as back up for camping and although it doesn't happen often I could also use it to run my furnace those couple of times each winter we lose power here at the house. I could also alternately power the kitchen fridge to avoid food loss during the hot summer months. My question for those who own a 1000 watt inverter genset - is a 1K genset small / light enough that you find you really do drag it around with you camping and 2) do you find other uses for it? Any comments appreciated. 🙂

[SoundGuy]

time2roll wrote:
I doubt it would run the home furnace anyway. 2000 would be marginal.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread my previous EU2000i ran my house furnace just fine, barely ran above it's slowest ECO mode speed, so it was anything but "marginal". 😉 My issue is that at my age I'd find it much easier to toss around a 30 lb 1000 watt genset than a 50 lb 2000 watt but my calculations for a 1K suggest that although it would do for charging my trailer battery it probably would not be sufficient to run the house furnace. 😞

[time2roll]

I doubt it would run the home furnace anyway. 2000 would be marginal.

[SoundGuy]

pianotuna wrote:
Rent one.

Easy to say, tough to do - I don't know of any place around here that would rent an EF1000iS ... any rentals are either large open frame construction site gensets or at best 3000 watt inverter gensets. Just not worth it for anyone to rent a dinky 1000 watt genset.

[larry_barnhart]

We bought the Honda 1000 inverter gen to charger our 4- 12- V batteries if we boondocked. I hook it up to the plug in the front that plugs into the truck and run the Honda to power the 15 amp manual charger and then use the inverter for electricity. I still wish we bought the 2000 but have not needed the 1000 that does what we need it to do. chevman

[pianotuna]

Rent one.

[SoundGuy]

time2roll wrote:
I miss the EU1000 and I say grab the EF1000 while you can.

Holding out hope that this EF1000iS might run the house furnace I concluded there was only one way to find out - hook it up and test it, so that's what I proposed to the seller. He declined, so I guess the point is moot now. 😞

Thanks to all who contributed to this conversation. :B

[time2roll]

I miss my EU1000 bought used at a great price in like new condition. Traded on ebay for a 2000 to run a pump and then a Kipor 3000 to run the trailer air conditioner. I miss the EU1000 and I say grab the EF1000 while you can.

[ExxWhy]

I have a Honda EU1000, use it to charge my RV battery when no eletric. It is limited in what it will run, but can run on ECO and run my boondocker 45A converter at full load. Light weight, super quiet, and sips fuel.

[shum02]

I have a 1kw Honda inverter i got for a steal a few years back. Sips fuel on eco throttle and sure is quiet on eco as well but about the only thing i use it for/it's good for is charging batteries while camping. Will run the camper but you constantly have to watch what loads are running and when it's running wide open it's really not that quiet.

When heading out i actually bring both the little Honda and the big yellow Champion, WTH, i got lots of payload.

[pianotuna]

SoundGuy,

Forgive my confusion. I did not realize the generator was Yamaha. Yamaha chose a different route for overload output than Honda.

It just won't have the necessary oomph to do the job.

[SoundGuy]

pianotuna wrote:
SoundGuy,

It might run the furnace for 30 minutes (Honda does a 10% overload for 30 minutes), but it would be pushing things VERY hard.

I know the Honda EU2000i is surge rated for a full 2000 watts for a full 1/2 hr but I remember reading somewhere that the Yamaha EF200iS (not the latest iST) is rated for just 20" at a full 2000 watts. That's a BIG difference, no doubt due to the Honda's much larger engine, but I'm not sure how this relates to the smaller Honda EU1000i and Yamaha EF1000iS. I've considered asking the seller if we can test his EF1000iS powering my house furnace but am reluctant as all the numbers tell me it just won't work. Too bad, otherwise I'd buy it for sure.

[pianotuna]

SoundGuy,

It might run the furnace for 30 minutes (Honda does a 10% overload for 30 minutes), but it would be pushing things VERY hard.

SoundGuy wrote:


So I had a chance to measure my house furnace with my Kill-a-Watt meter and with the burner going & fan running on 120 vac house power got the following readings -

PF 0.61
VA 751
Watts 460
Amps 6.0

The little Yamaha EF1000iS is peak rated @ 1000 watts, continuous rated @ 900 watts, and 900 VA when the load PF is 1.0 ... but with the furnace having a PF of 0.61 the best the genset could provide would be 549 VA. Hmmmm, that's not gonna work if the furnace requires 751 VA. Nuts. 😞

[drsteve]

SoundGuy wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
1000 va may not be enough to run the furnace.

SoundGuy wrote:
Back when I owned an EU2000i I re-wired the house furnace so I could run it directly from the genset sitting in the backyard. Max power draw measured with the furnace running was ~ 550 watts, I don't recall PF as measured with my Kill-a-Watt meter but I seem to recall VA was ~ 750 VA.

So I had a chance to measure my house furnace with my Kill-a-Watt meter and with the burner going & fan running on 120 vac house power got the following readings -

PF 0.61
VA 751
Watts 460
Amps 6.0

The little Yamaha EF1000iS is peak rated @ 1000 watts, continuous rated @ 900 watts, and 900 VA when the load PF is 1.0 ... but with the furnace having a PF of 0.61 the best the genset could provide would be 549 VA. Hmmmm, that's not gonna work if the furnace requires 751 VA. Nuts. 😞

Hence the reason the EU2000 is so popular... it does more stuff 😉

[SoundGuy]

pianotuna wrote:
1000 va may not be enough to run the furnace.

SoundGuy wrote:
Back when I owned an EU2000i I re-wired the house furnace so I could run it directly from the genset sitting in the backyard. Max power draw measured with the furnace running was ~ 550 watts, I don't recall PF as measured with my Kill-a-Watt meter but I seem to recall VA was ~ 750 VA.

So I had a chance to measure my house furnace with my Kill-a-Watt meter and with the burner going & fan running on 120 vac house power got the following readings -

PF 0.61
VA 751
Watts 460
Amps 6.0

The little Yamaha EF1000iS is peak rated @ 1000 watts, continuous rated @ 900 watts, and 900 VA when the load PF is 1.0 ... but with the furnace having a PF of 0.61 the best the genset could provide would be 549 VA. Hmmmm, that's not gonna work if the furnace requires 751 VA. Nuts. 😞

[SoundGuy]

pianotuna wrote:
1000 va may not be enough to run the furnace.

Back when I owned an EU2000i I re-wired the house furnace so I could run it directly from the genset sitting in the backyard. Max power draw measured with the furnace running was ~ 550 watts, I don't recall PF as measured with my Kill-a-Watt meter but I seem to recall VA was ~ 750 VA. The EU2000i easily handled the load, barely ran much above ECO speed, but the question remains as to whether the EF1000iS could handle this task without going into overload. :h

Right now I'm monitoring the house fridge with an energy meter that reads MAX AMPS & MAX WATTS, along with the Kill-a-Watt that reads PF ... max I've seen so far is 613 watts / 4.33 amps which would suggest a PF of ~ 85, which in turn means a VA of ~ 725 VA ... just waiting for the Kill-a-Watt to confirm this.

Our Coachmen has a WFCO 8955 converter which I suspect the EF1000iS would power without going into overload, even at the converter's maximum charge rate ... probably what fitznj is doing with his own EF1000iS. I also have a CTEK Multi US 7002 7 amp charger that I wired into the trailer because it's capable of a true 14.4 volt bulk charge rate, unlike the WFCO which never seems to go beyond ~ 13.7 volts no matter how depleted the battery may be. If the EF1000iS won't handle the WFCO it certainly would power the CTEK, though charge times would be awfully long.

As far as A/C is concerned I was able to run a variety of 13,500 BTU A/Cs with an EU2000i BUT only under limited conditions - when ambient temps hit the mid 80s F the genset increasingly went into overload. Eventually I decided I wasn't going to run any genset 12 hrs a day just so I could power an A/C so that need has really gone away for me. That said, now that the Micro-Air Easy Start Soft Starter Kit is available that would be my solution to running A/C with a 2K genset. Obviously a 1K can't handle this task anyway so the issue is moot for me, as is running the MW oven - nice to do if I could but not important enough to me to drag around a much heavier 2K genset vs the much lighter 1K.

Thanks to all who have responded so far! :B