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...

[MrWizard]

I would soak the carb in a bucket of carb cleaner safety solvent, and then blow it out again

also check the springs on the throttle linkage make sure nothing is broken or jammed,

maybe the throttle governor is sticky

[Wgeorge11]

We didn't go south this winter, so old yeller (46540 Champion) has been sitting and waiting without fuel. Fired her up the other day. She needed 3/4 choke to run and couldn't clear her throat for full throttle rpms. Pulled, cleaned and blew out the carb and tank without effect. Any suggestion for a fix is appreciated.

[MrWizard]

whether or NOT a particular MW can/could be powered , will depend on the MW rating and ANY OTHER incidental loads that might be online at the time
like converter or lamps etc.

my 1100 cooking watt MW needs 1560watts input power

that would be a real strain and marginal operation for a 1600w generator with 13.3 amp circuit breaker

and have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with MSW or PSW power, in fact a MSW input would very likely power the MW at a reduced level of cooking while a PSW would possibly trip the CB on overload, because the MW could & would use EVERY WATT produced by the little champ producing a PSW output

if the 1600w champ can't power a MW , its because its a BIG MW not because there is something wrong with the sine wave power it produces

I looked , I can't find the post where the Prof says the champ won't power his MW

Floyd do you have the link to that post ?

[professor95]

Should one want to know more about sine wave, square wave and modified sine wave inverters I suggest a paper written by Trace Engineering. You can find it here.

While it was written in 1999, little if anything has changed.

You may find other graphs or representations of MSW signals that show the MSW maximum voltage to be equal to the peak voltage of a true sine wave. I have yet to find a MSW battery powered inverter that operates in this manner. The signal represented in the article above is closer to what I have observed.

'nuff said. Let's get back to the Chinese gensets. 🙂

[Old___Slow]

Just one comment to respond to Champion Inverter genset reference from the previous post. Prof, stated he was unable to operate his MW with the Champion 2000i ~~ Sorry for getting off topic, I'll try to do better. Not a bad idea.

[MrWizard]

comments were about MSW inverters,

NOT about inverter generators

you left out the "MSW" and other text and took the inverter wording "OUT OF CONTEXT

The only thing i see is 'ONE PERSON' TALKING about a MicroWave oven sounding different when operating from "MSW inverter" which has NOTHING to do with operating them from a 'Pure Sine Wave' inverter generator champion or Japanese

I have run MW from MSW inverters, many people on this forum have done so, most say they cook slower, a couple say its not as loud or 'different
IIRC we have one member who said the MSW killed his MW (after one year of use) and he replaced the inverter with PSW model when he replaced the MW

statistically this does NOT add up to a big problem, too worry about
and has nothing to do with PSW inverter Generators

Old & Slow wrote:

Skibane wrote:

MrRchitty wrote:
we toasted the little night lights.

A few small, inexpensive devices (LED night lights and some digital timers) use a transformer-less circuit to produce low-voltage DC from AC. This scheme works fine with the sine wave waveform that normally comes out of an AC outlet, but doesn't work at all with a "modified sine wave" AC waveform.

A couple other devices that are often reported to have problems with MSW power: Makita cordless tool battery chargers, and certain laser printers. Some fan motors also run slow and noisy on MSW power.

This thing about the,

DC/AC Inverters/gensets and genset Inverters and the Microwave has got me bummed out. With my sync type Champion, sometimes the lcd, power and clock display scramble. Now we hear many reports the MW's sound funny with some Inverters and cook slow, if at all.

From the above post, some noise (HUM) must come from the fan motors, or is it possibly something else also?

Still waiting for those in the know to contiune giving us more info'

[professor95]

Dan86300zxt wrote:
Professor stated:
"The magnetron requires something like 1 KV to operate properly and produce the 2450 MHZ that is the opium cooking frequency".

*haha...."from micrave technology to Opium production", the professor tells all in the 3000W CHinese Genset Thread!!
:h

Well, the EPA won't let us cook the mash we need to make moonshine no more. Us Hillbillies gotta do somethin' to make a livin' out cheer.

[Dan86300zxt]

Professor stated:
"The magnetron requires something like 1 KV to operate properly and produce the 2450 MHZ that is the opium cooking frequency".

*haha...."from micrave technology to Opium production", the professor tells all in the 3000W CHinese Genset Thread!!
:h

[Old___Slow]

Skibane wrote:

MrRchitty wrote:
we toasted the little night lights.

A few small, inexpensive devices (LED night lights and some digital timers) use a transformer-less circuit to produce low-voltage DC from AC. This scheme works fine with the sine wave waveform that normally comes out of an AC outlet, but doesn't work at all with a "modified sine wave" AC waveform.

A couple other devices that are often reported to have problems with MSW power: Makita cordless tool battery chargers, and certain laser printers. Some fan motors also run slow and noisy on MSW power.

This thing about the,

DC/AC Inverters/gensets and genset Inverters and the Microwave has got me bummed out. With my sync type Champion, sometimes the lcd, power and clock display scramble. Now we hear many reports the MW's sound funny with some Inverters and cook slow, if at all.

From the above post, some noise (HUM) must come from the fan motors, or is it possibly something else also?

Still waiting for those in the know to contiune giving us more info'

[Skibane]

MrRchitty wrote:
we toasted the little night lights.

A few small, inexpensive devices (LED night lights and some digital timers) use a transformer-less circuit to produce low-voltage DC from AC. This scheme works fine with the sine wave waveform that normally comes out of an AC outlet, but doesn't work at all with a "modified sine wave" AC waveform.

A couple other devices that are often reported to have problems with MSW power: Makita cordless tool battery chargers, and certain laser printers. Some fan motors also run slow and noisy on MSW power.

[professor95]

jlaustin wrote:

Professor, it's been my observation that the microwave "works" with the inverter, but it definitely seems to have lower power output (takes longer to accomplish the same heating). It even sounds different running on the inverter. Could you explain a little further (in plain English! HAHA!) what's going on with the microwave?
Regards,
John

Well, apparently Bob and I are looking at the lack of performance differently.

My explanation is that the magnetron is powered by a voltage step-up transformer and then a half-wave voltage doubler. The magnetron requires something like 1 KV to operate properly and produce the 2450 MHZ that is the ideal cooking frequency.

A modified sine wave has a peak power equal to the RMS of a conventional sine wave. The transformer and voltage doubler circuit in the microwave rely on the peak voltage in a sine wave to produce the needed (approximate) 1KV plate voltage. With a MSW as the supply the expected plate voltage will be reduced to approximately 700 volts. Thus the magnetron will not oscillate at 2450 MHZ nor produce as much RF energy.

Now, all that said, I really know very little about microwave ovens. My wife is the chief operator of those devices. My explanation is based on assumptions of how I believe the device actually operates as the result of a dissection of a specimen some 15+ years prior. Circuit designs change and perhaps the internals of newer microwave ovens are different than my old cadaver was.

[MrRchitty]

The reason I asked about msw inverter and LCD TV is, after I built my switch over for my inverter, I tested the set overnight, running the TV, cell phone chargers and 3 LED night lights. Well, we toasted the little night lights. Don't mind that, just don't wanna take the flat screen out. Thanks for sharing your experience. It's pretty much what I found elsewhere on other forums.

[toprudder]

During some lab testing I did years ago, I remember having a discussion about microwave ovens, specifically the difference between industrial microwave (not necessarily used for cooking food) and residential microwave ovens. If I remember correctly, one difference is that residential microwaves usually don't filter the AC going to the magnetron, so the magnetron only operates for segments of the AC waveform, essentially turning on/off at 120 Hz. Since the output of most inverters are modified sine waves, it does not surprise me that a microwave oven would have reduced output when operating from an inverter.

I think I remember correctly that industrial microwaves are usually rectified three phase so the magnetron can run continuously.

[jlaustin]

professor95 wrote:

MrRchitty wrote:
Since we're on the topic... I have a 750 Watt msw inverter. Any issues using with LCD flat screen?

There should not be any issues with a modern LCD TV and a MSW inverter. I know I have none.

The LCD TV uses a high frequency switching power supply (AC to DC) that does not depend upon the peak power component of a true AC sine wave.

Older TV sets with transformers along with microwave ovens that utilize the peak power (1.414 x rms) will not run as efficiently on a MSW inverter since they cannot reach the maximum voltage necessary for proper operation.

Same experience here ... I've got a 32" Samsung LCD TV and I've used it with shore power, generator power, and two different inverters and it always works fine!

Professor, it's been my observation that the microwave "works" with the inverter, but it definitely seems to have lower power output (takes longer to accomplish the same heating). It even sounds different running on the inverter. Could you explain a little further (in plain English! HAHA!) what's going on with the microwave?
Regards,
John

[professor95]

MrRchitty wrote:
Since we're on the topic... I have a 750 Watt msw inverter. Any issues using with LCD flat screen?

There should not be any issues with a modern LCD TV and a MSW inverter. I know I have none.

The LCD TV uses a high frequency switching power supply (AC to DC) that does not depend upon the peak power component of a true AC sine wave.

Older TV sets with transformers along with microwave ovens that utilize the peak power (1.414 x rms) will not run as efficiently on a MSW inverter since they cannot reach the maximum voltage necessary for proper operation.