3000W Chinese Gensets Info.
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...
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Hey everyone, here's my journey with gensets and TT's
I take my 1995 Holiday Rambler 32' Travel Trailer to a festival where I need power for a few weeks (several hours a day) without the hassle of refueling all the time. Another issue is that it needs to not be so loud. As many of you know, many travel trailers have no place to put a genset, and a fuel tank too.
My first generator was a portable coleman 5 KW gas with a briggs and stratton engine. It was not so great, it was loud, used about 1 gallon per hour with a 5 gal tank, and tripped the breaker often.
My second one was a 6 KW enclosed silent diesel from Eastern Tools and is made in China. It cost me about $2,500. I bypassed the fuel tank and used a 55 gallon barrel full of diesel. I also wired a remote ignition switch so I could start it from inside my TT.
THE GOOD: Plenty of power. THE BAD: The engine shutdown system is controlled by cables, linkage and solenoid. VERY tempermental, if the adjustment on it is not perfect, it will not shut down. One week into my vacation it did this, and drove me nuts :(
After I got back home, I returned it and went back to the drawingboard.
Now here is my latest. you won't believe what I've done. Are you sitting down for this ;)
I bought one of those Light Tower towable units that you often see on the freeway at night for road construction. It's used and picked it up for $2,500. It has a Mitsubishi 3 cylinder diesel with an onboard 30 gal fuel tank. The one concern is that I found out that this particular generator head does not use a regulator, it is capacitor excited. (Those big lights don't need clean power, so its only equiped with a capacitor generator head).
I thought it might blow out appliances in my TT, so I monitored in with a volt meter, and it stayed steady at 130 volts just as long as I did not turn on the big lights, if I did the voltage would jump about 15 volts. So I thought it could be used for my TT just as long as the big lights were not turned on while my TT was plugged into it. The good news however about the capacitor excited unit is that all I had to do to get full power at 110 volts is to rewire the genator head. On a regulated genset, to convert it to full power at 110, you must replace the regulator, at the tune of about $600.00. Most of us RV'ers don't have a need for 220, and on any genset that has the 110/220 capability, half of the generator is sitting there unused if you only use 110. I also wired a remote start so that I could start it remotely from inside my TT. Oh yes, I now have to tow doubles, the light tower behind my TT but it tows great!
The result:
It worked great. Plenty of power for my 15,000 BTU A/C and other stuff at the same time. It started and stopped when I needed it to, never had to refuel it in my two week stay, did not damage sensitive electronics in my TT, and its much quieter than anything I've had in the past.
I have gone crazy trying to find a good solution to RV power over the years, how funny that the solution turned out to be a LIGHT TOWER TRAILER. :B
I take my 1995 Holiday Rambler 32' Travel Trailer to a festival where I need power for a few weeks (several hours a day) without the hassle of refueling all the time. Another issue is that it needs to not be so loud. As many of you know, many travel trailers have no place to put a genset, and a fuel tank too.
My first generator was a portable coleman 5 KW gas with a briggs and stratton engine. It was not so great, it was loud, used about 1 gallon per hour with a 5 gal tank, and tripped the breaker often.
My second one was a 6 KW enclosed silent diesel from Eastern Tools and is made in China. It cost me about $2,500. I bypassed the fuel tank and used a 55 gallon barrel full of diesel. I also wired a remote ignition switch so I could start it from inside my TT.
THE GOOD: Plenty of power. THE BAD: The engine shutdown system is controlled by cables, linkage and solenoid. VERY tempermental, if the adjustment on it is not perfect, it will not shut down. One week into my vacation it did this, and drove me nuts :(
After I got back home, I returned it and went back to the drawingboard.
Now here is my latest. you won't believe what I've done. Are you sitting down for this ;)
I bought one of those Light Tower towable units that you often see on the freeway at night for road construction. It's used and picked it up for $2,500. It has a Mitsubishi 3 cylinder diesel with an onboard 30 gal fuel tank. The one concern is that I found out that this particular generator head does not use a regulator, it is capacitor excited. (Those big lights don't need clean power, so its only equiped with a capacitor generator head).
I thought it might blow out appliances in my TT, so I monitored in with a volt meter, and it stayed steady at 130 volts just as long as I did not turn on the big lights, if I did the voltage would jump about 15 volts. So I thought it could be used for my TT just as long as the big lights were not turned on while my TT was plugged into it. The good news however about the capacitor excited unit is that all I had to do to get full power at 110 volts is to rewire the genator head. On a regulated genset, to convert it to full power at 110, you must replace the regulator, at the tune of about $600.00. Most of us RV'ers don't have a need for 220, and on any genset that has the 110/220 capability, half of the generator is sitting there unused if you only use 110. I also wired a remote start so that I could start it remotely from inside my TT. Oh yes, I now have to tow doubles, the light tower behind my TT but it tows great!
The result:
It worked great. Plenty of power for my 15,000 BTU A/C and other stuff at the same time. It started and stopped when I needed it to, never had to refuel it in my two week stay, did not damage sensitive electronics in my TT, and its much quieter than anything I've had in the past.
I have gone crazy trying to find a good solution to RV power over the years, how funny that the solution turned out to be a LIGHT TOWER TRAILER. :B
