3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

[professor95]

professor95 wrote:
EDIT ADDED 45/5/2013- When this thread started in March of 2005, I never expected to see it survive this long or amass the quantity of information that has been shared here.

In the eight year run of this thread we have amassed almost 10,000 postings and surpassed a million views. This creates somewhat of a dilemma for anyone who has just discovered the forum.

Since the amount of information is virtually overwhelming, I suggest you set your preferences for this thread to read "newest first" and then begin to page backwards.

What you will find in these pages is a wealth of info on virtually any make or model of Chinese manufactured synchronous (non-inverter) generator in the 3,000 watt performance class. Info will include how to rewire series coils to parallel to obtain maximum wattage from a single 120 volt outlet. Tips on further reducing sound levels, how to care for these generators, which ones are "RV ready" and provide the best overall performance for the dollar invested. Which companies NOT to deal with, where the best prices are, how to safely wire the generator into a home or RV, how to check your RV for electrical faults, sources for generator accessories, which 20/30 adapters are safe to use and which are not. How to convert a gasoline generator to propane or NG. This is only the beginning. The forum has a life of its own with the focus sub-topic switching frequently. Still, the main topic of utilizing the amazing, inexpensive Chinese gensets is always there. The amount of creativity and innovation presented in these pages is indicative of the talents shared in the diverse backgrounds of the folks who make up our combined RV community.

Many of the original brands and models of Chinese gensets mentioned in the introduction and early pages of the thread have since disappeared. New EPA and CARB emissions requirements, company bonds assuring the emissions warranty will be honored even if the company goes out of business, and fierce competition in the industry have changed the playing field. Champion Power Equipment has become the apparent "trophy team" providing an ever expanding retail outlet, an ample parts supply, a strong warranty and excellent customer service. CPE has continued to improve their product and now offers a new model (#46538) with exclusive convenience, safety and performance features aimed at the RV market. Big names like Cummins/Onan, Honda and Generac all now have Chinese built open frame synchronous gensets available. Ironically, the prices often found on these gensets has not significantly changed during the past eight years - even with the devaluation of the American Dollar and new EPA/CARB requirements.

I also encourage you to use the search function and even the advanced search options to find information. Key works such as "rewiring", "PowerPro", "Champion", "Onan Homesite", "Duropower", "ETQ", "Jiung Dong or JD", "Tractor Supply", "Costco", "Lowe's" and "Home Depot" are all examples of keywords that will give you specific information on different models being sold by retailers today.

Or, you can fill your glass with your favorite beverage (keep more close by - maybe some munchies as well :D, sit back at your computer, tell your wife (or significant other) that you will see her in the morning and spend the next 10 or so hours reading through the postings.

No one on the forum gets mad if you ask a question that is a repeat. Please do not hesitate to post to the forum. All questions are considered important and those active on the forum will do their best to respond with a valid answer.

Also note we are not out to knock the Honda, Yamaha, Kipor or other brands of high end digital gensets. We recognize the quality of these products and their suitability for quite, efficient RV use. But, there is a flood of reliable, inexpensive and comparatively lower cost gensets coming out of China that are excellent alternative choices for the RVer wanting power to run an air conditioner, microwave, etc. without excessive noise or breaking the budget.

Oh, one last thing. The folks on this forum are true gentlemen. We do not flame one another or the product discussed - period. Ugly contributors usually have their comments and remarks ignored by our masses. It is not a forum to start arguments to obtain a clear win. We do disagree on many issues, but we have all agreed to do that in a respectable manner.

We now have the introduction of more and more inverter gensets. There is a rather extensive thread named "The Official Unofficial Champion 2000i Generator" on this forum. Today, I added info on the new Champion 3100i inverter genset. Discussion on this product may get moved to its own thread at a later date.

Many have looked upon this thread with distain saying Chinese is cheap and doomed to failure. I remember saying exactly the same thing about Japanese products a few decades back. But, over the past eight years the track record for Chinese built generators has shown otherwise.

Please, join us in a fascinating journey down the Chinese built genset road of knowledge.

This is the question I posted that got it all started back in March 2005.......

Randy

For a little over a month now, I have been somewhat intrigued by the availability of a 3000 watt, 6.5 HP generator at Pep Boys and Northern Tool for under $300.00. The engine on this generator looks identical to a Honda 6.5 HP OHV engine. Knowing that the Chinese have become very adept at “cloning” reputable technologies from other manufacturers, I was not surprised at the similarities. Neither store could give me any information on the generator nor did they have a “running” display model.

I have done a little research. This is what I have discovered:

Many of these generators are imported by ELIM International (www.eliminternational.com) out of Buffalo, New York from Jiung Manufacturing in China. (The unit at Northern is identical but carries the JIUNG name.)

The engines are indeed a Chinese knockoff of the popular 6.5 HP 196cc Honda Engine. “Supposedly” Honda has licensed the engine technology to the Chinese manufacturer of the product.

The Chinese company that makes the ELM3000 generators is a rather large, diverse, long-standing company with a reputation for “above average quality” Chinese made products (Jiung Manufacturing). There are many more Chinese companies making almost identical gensets.

The generators at PepBoys do have a six month limited warranty. But, it is only on the engine (not the generator) and requires paying for shipping to and from Buffalo. Probably not a very practical thing to do if you have warranty issues.

ELIM does supply replacement parts (a PDF parts manual is available on the ELIM web site). No prices are given for replacement parts nor is there an “availability listing”.

The generator head itself is a brushless design. The only really significant wear parts in the generator are the bearings – most likely universally available.

The published dB rating is 67 at 23 feet. This is “reasonably” quite for a generator of this size as most comparabl.... The 67 dB rating is the same as Honda gives their 3000 watt CycloInverter with a “look alike” eng...

[alvinc]

Wyatt-S wrote:
I did this mod yesterday. The voltage never dropped below 112 at full load (28 amps) but the breaker will trip if I pull a sustained load above the 28 amps. This is with the RV connected to the normal 120V outlet.

The current output of the generator as originally wired on 120V will be limited to the capability or limits of the circuit breaker on each leg of the 240V circuit. That is if one circuit breaker might trip at 17 amps, the other might not trip until 19 amps over several seconds. For a 240V circuit, it will be limited to 17 amps (the smaller of the two 120V breakers) at 240V.

After changing the wiring to parallel the windings, the maximum current that you will be able to obtain is not the sum of the two breakers. One winding will provide more current than the other winding. If this happens to be the winding with the 17 amp breaker limit, the other winding is likely providing only 11 amps of the load. Continuing with Wyatt-S's example above.

This has a lot to do with how similar the windings are with respect to impedance.

In this case, I would argue that, you want two breakers, one to protect each winding of the generator. If you had only a single breaker and one winding had an open, the other winding would try to carry the full 30 amps and I believe you would be in a smoke and fire situation.

Circuit breakers (or fuses) are used to protect the wiring from over current situations. It's not clear to me that a single winding in the generator can support 30 amps.

Willing to be wrong.....tell me why.

[wildnfree]

Wyatt-S,
Thanks for the information. I thought just moving the jumper would be fine since I didn't see anything else attached to the red post either front or back. I would have used a jumper like your schematic if my box of electrical supplies had been available, but it is 25 miles away. I got into this project mainly to see what it looked like under the generator head cover and got impatient and wanted to getter done since it is so easy to do. I have a copy of your schematic with my owners manual if I ever need to convert it back. Thanks again.

[Wyatt-S]

wildnfree and pup:

You are both right, but why cut wires and move gen leads. I meant to keep this simple. It's confusing enough as it is. That is why I made a color coded schematic, basically, the old "KISS" concept.

You can move the red gen lead to the brown post or cut the red panel lead and attach it to the brown post (that makes it just a jumper anyway) and re-attach what's left of the panel red to the blue post but now you have a shorter red lead to work with without a terminal on the end. No need to do any of that!

Moving the red gen winding lead to the brown post makes sense if you do not want to place a jumper. But, placing a short jumper keeps all the gen leads in their original place making it a little bit easier to go back if you wanted to. Electrically, it makes no difference, I would choose whichever method seems easier to you, but I would not cut the red panel lead simply to reattach it.

[pup]

From what I can tell, you have to cut the red wire before it is attached to the white wire. This short red wire then needs to be jumped over to the brown wire. The red wire with the white wire attached then needs to be attached to the blue wire.

All of this takes place before the CB. Am I right in what I'm thinking?

[wildnfree]

Instead of using a bridge across the brown screw connector and the red screw connector like in the second drawing, move the red generator winding wire to the brown screw connector. That does the same thing doesn't it??

[NM_Desert_Rat]

Wyatt-S,

That's exactly what I did, moved the red output lead to the blue lead and made a jumper from the red input to the brown lead. I'll reverse the changes as see if I have 220V at the 4 prong plug.

Thanks,

Desert

[Wyatt-S]

nm_desert_rat said:

I re-wired explicitly per your drawing, and also using another suggestion, moving the red lead to the brown lead from the gen, thus eliminating the jumper. The gen voltmeter read ~220V before and ~110V after the mods, so I'm pretty confident that I did it right. I'll restore it to factory config and measure voltages again.

Desert,

There need to be two bridges at the gen head in order to wire in parallel. My schematic shows one bridge and the other bridge is placed by moving the red panel lead (since it is connected to the white panel lead in the sleeve) effectively placing two bridges. one across the red-brown gen leads and one across the blue- white gen leads. One brige will only allow one coil at any given time.

[NM_Desert_Rat]

Wyatt-S,

I re-wired explicitly per your drawing, and also using another suggestion, moving the red lead to the brown lead from the gen, thus eliminating the jumper. The gen voltmeter read ~220V before and ~110V after the mods, so I'm pretty confident that I did it right. I'll restore it to factory config and measure voltages again.

Thanks for the input, any other ideas are welcome.

Desert

[MrWizard]

The gen starts like a champ, and I live at about 5000 feet.

Any ideas? Do I have a bad gen based on the voltage readings and inconsistent behavior?

Thanks in advance,

Desert

if the wiring checks out try adjusting the carb

i'm sure the stock settings are NOT for your altitude

wyatt-s

you tested the breaker

I agree it should be safe for the 'RE-wired' units

it's the stock units that are endanger of frying a winding by trying to draw too much current from only one primary because the breaker won't trip

[azbronco96]

Actually you can adjust the voltage rather simply. Remove the generator cover then remove the voltage regulator(two bolts)and when you flip it over there is a small potentiometer adjustment screw.Dial it clockwise until the output voltage reads approx 130 volts no load. Then connect the load and adjust engine speed to correct for Hertz. I actually had to slow down the engine as it was about 64 Hz and the microwave didnt like that. 130 no load volts gave me 115 full load volts.

[Wyatt-S]

NM_Desert_Rat wrote:
Wyatt-S, allpraisebob, et al:

I rewired my PP3500 per Wyatt-S's drawing on his profile page, without any noticeable difference in performance. Here are the symptoms (same symptoms before and after mod):

Desert,

I had those same symptoms prior to re-wiring but have not had that since. Are you sure you followed the instructions precisely? If you did not, then you may still be pulling current from only one coil. You have to bridge the red and brown coil leads and move the red panel lead to the blue Gen lead. This should put the coils in parallel and you should no longer have the symptoms you describe unless you have an open coil on the Gen. The easiest way to test for this is to put the Gen back to factory wiring and test for 240 volts. If you have 220-240V then both coils are fine if you have 0 volts then one coil is open. There are other methods but this one is the simplest.

You might have overloaded the primary coil when you had all the RV appliances on, prior to rewiring. I tried that and recall that the voltage was dropping significantly. Did not do that too long for fear of frying one of the coils.

[Wyatt-S]

I did this mod yesterday. The voltage never dropped below 112 at full load (28 amps) but the breaker will trip if I pull a sustained load above the 28 amps. This is with the RV connected to the normal 120V outlet.

BTW MrWizard, I was thinking the same thing. When I originally tested the Gen with the factory config the breaker did not trip until about the same amperage although the voltage at that point was below 100V. You'd think the breakers would trip at a lower amperage than that, but they never did. If anything, the CB's should be tripping with the rewired config since all the current is flowing through a single CB. Testing shows the CB does not trip until 28 Amps at which point you can hear the gen is under heavy load. I ran it for an hour this way, (pulling about 24.2 amps and 112.8 Volts, basically just over 2700 watts). CB never tripped. In any case, this should not be a safety hazard since the worst that should happen is for the CB to trip below full load. At which point I would consider wiring the CB's in parallel or changing them out for a higher rated one.

To wire the CB's in paralell you would simply have to move one more wire. The blue panel wire would have to be moved to the red gen wire. Then the NEMA outlet would have one CB on the blue wire and one CB on the brown wire, both on the same phase. Then either bridge the wires at the outlet (requires opening the panel) or bridge them at the male plug. I did not like that option since it effectively paralells the CB's and they are not tripping the way my re-wired schematic shows. I would rather have one CB trip at too little current rather than two in paralell at too much. Specially when testing! However, the CB is not tripping prematurely, so there is no need to go to the extra length.

Single CB is safer and if it does not trip at too little current, then my preference is to leave it that way.

The schematic is posted in my profile for those that wish to view it.

[SieraSam]

If you have bought any kind of electrical device in the last few years that has wire windings inside, i.e. an electrical motor or something similar like a weedeater from sears for example, you know that the windings will almost always shorten out prematurely. Most of these are made in China. That is because the Chinese use a poor grade of insulated wire that will not stand up to any kind of heavy elecrrical load.

[wildnfree]

The 120 volt plug on the PowerPro is a 20 amp, not a 15 (at least it says 20amp) so the circuit is probably good for at least 20 amps or else they would have used a 15 amp plug. I know mine put out much more than 15 amps without tripping and without dropping below 108v.

[NM_Desert_Rat]

Wyatt-S, allpraisebob, et al:

I rewired my PP3500 per Wyatt-S's drawing on his profile page, without any noticable difference in performance. Here are the symptoms (same symptoms before and after mod):

1. More often that not, when turning on A/C, the gen rapidly looses RPMs until I turn A/C off. Then I cycle A/C on/off and eventually it will start and run fine. When it decides to work, the A/C comes on quickly (less that 1 sec surge) and will keep on going (two hours sustained so far).

2. Sometimes the voltage reading inside the RV is around 100VAC, with just the inverter on. Sometimes it is around 108VAC. When the RPMs drop (symptom #1), the voltage drops also (<100VAC). When the A/C runs, the voltage will sometimes pop up to 110+, sometimes will stay at around 108, or will sometimes exhibit an oscillation (maybe 1-2 Hz, between 110 and 120VAC).

3. Using my old Sears VOM, unloaded voltages at the gen are line-line 125VAC, line1-ground 70VAC and line2-ground 40VAC.

4. With A/C on, running MW will cause the RPM drop symptom until turning it off.

5. Have never popped a CB.

Before the mod, I pulled only from the 110VAC plug. After the mod, I pulled from the 110VAC plug, and made an adapter cable and ran from the 4 prong plug (pulling from the same internal wiring but from a different plug). Same symptoms either way.

The gen starts like a champ, and I live at about 5000 feet.

Any ideas? Do I have a bad gen based on the voltage readings and inconsistent behavior?

Thanks in advance,

Desert