3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

professor95 wrote:

Dr. Austin is an aerodynamic type of guy with his experience in his larger flying toys. He is in a prime position to provide info to the thread with his knowledge and rear mounted genny. Hopefully, John will give some test results. ........ John?..........

One observation I've made is that I'm getting less "aerodynamic" as I age! (i.e., greater cross-sectional area! :B) It's my biggest problem! (pun intended!) Oh ... lessee ... you were talking about generators!!!

I recently took the FW to Oshkosh to the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture event (1500 miles round-trip). My genset is receiver-hitch mounted over a relatively open frame (no solid "floor") and I had a heavy nylon cover that covered the top and sides and left the bottom of the genset open. It would have been interesting to observe the cover from behind the FW during highway speeds, but as far as I could tell, it didn't appear to shift or move, so perhaps my FW indeed creates either a negative pressure or at least "dead" area in that region.

My genset is different from most of the others in that it is enclosed on all four sides and the top and is modified with a 500 cfm power vent to pull stagnant air out of the top and a 125 cfm ducted fan pushing airflow to the alternator. It is so efficient at cooling that I suspect it would do fine even with the FW in motion. I also suspect an open-frame generator without ducted/forced cooling might have much more variable cooling results depending on where and how it's mounted and at what speed the vehicle is moving, as the Professor suggests.

It'll probably be a few weeks before I could do any in-motion tests, but if I get a chance, I'll certainly get back with the results!

BTW, it was rather hot and humid early last week at Oshkosh and the genset did fine - I had one issue with the 500 cfm vent fan working intermittently due to a poorly crimped wiring connector, but once that was resolved, it "kept its cool" and ran my 15K BTU A/C without a whimper of complaint. Interestingly, it "grunts" a little harder momentarily when the microwave is used (A/C has to be "off"), but it comes right back to speed and works fine. I had two golf cart batteries on the FW and used a 400w/800w surge inverter to run a 32" LCD, DVD, and surround-sound system. A typical 2 hour or so movie would pull the batteries down only about 0.2 volts!

Regards,
John