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...

[Trimsters]

Quick question about something that was covered somewhere in the 498 pages of this wonderful thread....and I can't find it.

I am mounting my Champion in the nose compartment of my 5er. I need airflow to pull off the heat. There was a nice series of install pics here about putting a fan through the floor of the compartment. If someone remembers where the posts are (pages), that would be helpful. But what I'm planning on doing is installing a car radiator fan. Will that work?

Thanks all.

[Dtank]

MrWizard wrote:


Helloooo Professor...nice to hear from you again

Was making a referral to this thread, had to get "caught up"

We're overdue for a 2015 hello -
IMO - think the Prof is having too much fun with his HDT..;)

What say you Prof?

.

[daxxruckus]

MrRchitty wrote:

I'm not implying that you did this, but if the carburetor has any fuel left in it and it's allowed to sit for a while it may collect moisture due to the alcohol content in the gasoline. This causes the jet to become partially clogged with the materials created by the gas. When shutting down the generator, shut the gas of first if your done using it for a while and let the gas run out. I'm on 5 years with a 3500 watt and the two 2000 watt inverter generators. No issue, yet. My brother owns a repair shop, and he replaces carburetors all of the time with this same complaint.

Hey MrRchitty, thanks for the reply. I thought about that too that it might have been the jets gummed up from letting gas sit. But I'm pretty careful about that and always shut the gas off and let it run dry before putting it away. I doubt it was from that, but hey who knows it definitely could have been. I'll put the new carb on and see what happens.

[MrRchitty]

daxxruckus wrote:
Hey guys, just wanted to relay my experience with the Champion 3500 remote start generator. I got one that came along with my Attitude 19' that I just bought a few months ago. The generator is brand new, I've only started it a handful of times. This weekend I took it out to let it run for a while (The first time running it for more than a minute or two).

After starting it and letting it idle for a while, I noticed that it wasn't idling smoothly, rather was revving up, then back down constantly. I looked it up online and apparently it's called "galloping". I tested it with a heavy load on it, and without any load. Same results regardless.

I called up Champion customer service on Monday, and they were very helpful. The manual that came with the generator says that galloping means that the "Engine Governor is Defective" and to call customer support. I got through to a rep (in the US too!) within 5 minutes, and he was great. He immediately said they would send out a new carb for me to replace. I told him what the manual said about the governor, but he was adamant about the carb needing to be replaced.

Anyway, I should have the new carb in a day or two, and I'll let you guys know if this resolves the issue just in case anyone else has similar problems.

I'm not implying that you did this, but if the carburetor has any fuel left in it and it's allowed to sit for a while it may collect moisture due to the alcohol content in the gasoline. This causes the jet to become partially clogged with the materials created by the gas. When shutting down the generator, shut the gas of first if your done using it for a while and let the gas run out. I'm on 5 years with a 3500 watt and the two 2000 watt inverter generators. No issue, yet. My brother owns a repair shop, and he replaces carburetors all of the time with this same complaint.

[daxxruckus]

Hey guys, just wanted to relay my experience with the Champion 3500 remote start generator. I got one that came along with my Attitude 19' that I just bought a few months ago. The generator is brand new, I've only started it a handful of times. This weekend I took it out to let it run for a while (The first time running it for more than a minute or two).

After starting it and letting it idle for a while, I noticed that it wasn't idling smoothly, rather was revving up, then back down constantly. I looked it up online and apparently it's called "galloping". I tested it with a heavy load on it, and without any load. Same results regardless.

I called up Champion customer service on Monday, and they were very helpful. The manual that came with the generator says that galloping means that the "Engine Governor is Defective" and to call customer support. I got through to a rep (in the US too!) within 5 minutes, and he was great. He immediately said they would send out a new carb for me to replace. I told him what the manual said about the governor, but he was adamant about the carb needing to be replaced.

Anyway, I should have the new carb in a day or two, and I'll let you guys know if this resolves the issue just in case anyone else has similar problems.

[MrWizard]

Helloooo Professor...nice to hear from you again
Hope you manage to stay away from that Missouri tornado

[professor95]

We have been "on the road" since early June. Just logged 5,000 miles and still have another 800 to go before landing at brick & mortar home base next week.

Finished reading post from rlchv70 a few minutes ago. Golly, I'm impressed. Looks like a class A job with the conversion. But, agree with Mr. Wiz that moving muffler to external location would be a major plus in cooling. Been there, done that. Big fan is nice but robs power. Extended exhaust pipe to muffler and then a 2-3 foot tail pipe really cuts down on exhaust noise as well. I could not determine a loss of engine power using 1/2" exhaust pipe and 3/4" tail pipe. I wrapped my exhaust pipe with header heat wrap as well. Of course, one must use a flex joint to keep from cracking piping. Just my humble opinion 🙂

[MrWizard]

i missed seeing the Fan mentioned in your post

[rlchv70]

MrWizard wrote:
nice work..
i would have tried to move the "muffler/exhaust" underneath to remove the heat from the compartment
and wrapped the pipe in header exhaust heat tape

to be safe..watch the compartment heat level the first couple of scorching hot highway trips, running genny and A/C

I'm not concerned. The fan that I put on the bottom is quite large and moves a lot of air.

[MrWizard]

nice work..
i would have tried to move the "muffler/exhaust" underneath to remove the heat from the compartment
and wrapped the pipe in header exhaust heat tape

to be safe..watch the compartment heat level the first couple of scorching hot highway trips, running genny and A/C

[rlchv70]

Learjet wrote:
nice job, how does it work and noise level?

Works well in testing; runs the AC fine. Haven't went camping with it yet. Planning to this weekend.

Little noisier than I would like, but tolerable.

[Learjet]

nice job, how does it work and noise level?

[rlchv70]

I recently purchased the Champion 3500/4000 genset. My Onan was shot and it was on sale at Blain's Farm and Fleet for $250. I decided to mount it in the enclosure where the Onan was. This is a 1996 Eldorado Class C.

Main motivation was so that I could run it while going down the road to run the AC. I've seen a few people mention it, but haven't seen a detailed post on it, so here goes.

First of all, the generator was too tall to fit in the same space as the Onan. Besides, I wanted to run it off of the RV's fuel tank. So I removed the fuel tank and cut off the top of the frame. The fuel tank vent line is routed to the clean side of the air filter, so I plugged that with a bolt and RTV.



I then mounted an Onan replacement fuel pump on the front of the unit, a Holley fuel pressure regulator on the side, and put a fuel filter inline.







I mounted an electrical box with a solenoid to the back side of the control panel.



Here is the solenoid that I used:

Supco 90341

You can also see in the above picture a stud for 12V power and the inline fuses for the fuel pump and the fan.

I wired it with a momentary push button to the normally closed terminal that was connected to the fuel pump. That way, I can prime the carburetor before I start it.



I wired the solenoid so that it will be activated when the generator is producing 120V. When activated it sends 12V to the fuel pump and fan.



I didn't get a good shot of the fan, but I mounted it below the unit to the RV frame. You can see it in the exhaust picture below.

I wired the RV electrical directly to the RV plug.



I added a bracket and rod to extend the choke handle.





I mounted the unit in the enclosure. I used a 1 1/4" exhaust pipe with a 90 degree bend to route the exhaust out of the closure. I had to bend the end of the pipe in order to make it narrow enough to fit between the screw heads. I fabricated a plate to mount it to the existing screws. 1" or smaller pipe would fit better, but had a hard time finding exhaust tube that size. I also used an exhaust hanger to support the pipe.



Finished install:





Overall, I am pleased. I would have done the exhaust differently, and ran into a few glitches along the way, but overall was fairly straightforward.

[MrRchitty]

sherpaxc wrote:
No i don't. I'm embarrassed to say, I'm not sure how to turn the converter off! I would love to try that out. We are camping this weekend and could try it.

Mine shared the same circuit as my general plugs. I bought an additional circuit breaker and put the converter on its own for ease of shutting it down for situations like this.

[mrekim]

Your breaker panel should have a breaker for it. A reasonable test would be to turn off all the breakers except the microwave (and the 30A main) to see if the generator will power the microwave.