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...

[professor95]

I have been using my ELIM3000 for about 4 weeks now (4 days a week [Mon-Thur] for about 4hrs/night). Always starts up on first pull. Only thing I have noticed is the 110VAC recepticle is not very well made. Contacts loosen up over time.

We covered this problem several weeks back. The forum has gotten so large, it is difficult to sort through!

Anyway, the 110 volt duplex outlet that is installed on the ELM3000 is inadequate. The same may be true on the ELM's brothers and sisters. Not only is the outlet's construction weak, it is not polarized like standard USA 110 outlets (On the Chinese version, the netural slot is the same size as the hot slot). This keeps the user from plugging in any two prong device with a polarized cord.

The outlet should be replaced .

If you visit Home Depot, Lowe's or some other Home store, you will find 15 amp residential grade outlets for around .59 cents each. These outlets are to be avoided for this swap. What you want to purchase is a SPECIFICATION grade 20 amp outlet. These will be about $3.50 each. You can also add a few extra bucks to the bill and get a Hospital Grade outlet, which may be even better.

When replacing the outlet, just remember the silver screw is the one for the white wire (netural), the gold screw goes to the black wire (hot) and the green screw gets the grounding wire. If the wires inside your generator are a different color (and they very well may be) just be sure to get the correct wire back on the same side it came off of.

One other note on the use of these generators and grounding safety. Portable generators are usually operated "above" true ground potential. Thus, you will effectively be using a power source that does not have a grounding connection if you do not attach the frame of the generator to an existing earth ground. I know that this step is often overlooked and even misunderstood. While it may be a lot of trouble, carrying a 4 foot grounding rod with you may not be a bad idea. Just hammer it into the ground and attach a copper wire of at least 12 AWG from the generator frame to the ground. If this is not practical, carry a piece of steel, like the solid galvanized cover for a 4" square outlet box. Drill a hole in the steel plate, put in a nut and bolt and run a wire from the bolt in the steel plate to the generator frame and put the steel plate under the RV tire so it is in contact with DIRT (not gravel or pavement). The dirt needs to be damp - dry earth is a poor conductor. Ideally the metal frame of the RV should also be connected to this grounding plate or rod.

Not to try and teach a lesson here (but that is my profession), there is a difference in ground and grounding in electrical jargon. Grounding is considered to be the "third" wire which is green jacketed or bare copper. The grounding wire is what carries a fault from an appliance case or contact surface safely to earth ground rather than through you. If the grounding connection is not complete to earth ground, and a fault should occur in a non protected circuit, you could get a serious shock! Many sources incorrectly call the groundING wire a ground wire.

[Scruffy5]

I bought the Champion and I'm impressed with it. It is not the RED ONE but I don't beleive it's that much louder than my bosses 3000 Honda. That's my observation anyway!By the way Thank's for the insight Professor,At least this forum has given us all some alternatives.

[professor95]

Several days back, Kevin alerted the forum that he has successfully rewired his Pep Boys Nikota 3500 to provide full available wattage to a single 110 volt outlet. Kevin did not have a way to post the drawing, so he forwarded it to me for posting.

You may visit this link to view Kevin's drawing.

While I do not own a Nikota, I want to express a huge Thank You to Kevin for sharing this with all of us. I am confiddnt the information will be beneficial to may who own Nikota 3500 generators.

.........................................................

Just an observation on the present discussion concerning advertising restrictions and rules on this forum: I do not know who the official forum moderator is and that person has not, to date, made any comments pro or con about our discussions.

But, being the individual who started the forum and has his name next to it, I can say it has never been my intent to endorse one vendor over another. Yes, we have made personal endorsements of particular products based upon our experiences and the availability of the products. Still, to my knowledge, no one on the forum is or has been in a position to personally profit from their statements.

I hope this sharing will continue, including both pros and cons based upon experiences we have with different vendors and products.

I personally have benefited and expanded both my technical and consumer knowledge/awareness from the comments on the Champion, ELIM, Powerwise, Nikota, Harbor Freight, Cummings, Wildfire or other Chinese manufactured generators based on first hand experience. Hopefully, conjecture and assumptions will take a back seat in the discussion.

My initial interest in starting the forum was to learn about other's experiences with these products - both good and bad. This includes the vendors that supply them.

Please, let's don't kill the forum with non relevant disagreements.

[youth4him]

Keep in mind too, this is a blantant cut and paste from an email (maybe corporate) or some other forum. You can tell by the spacing and word wrap.

I'm not entirely sure I get the point he's trying to make anyway...

[Red_Clay_Ramble]

It doesn't offend me personally, but there have been alot of posts on this forum that were dis-allowed for "advertising" that were alot more subtle and less obvious than yours.

Criticizing the forum members who contribute technical knowledge and research to this discussion probably won't win you many friends here either.

[fellow_traveler]

SORRY
no harm intended just wanted to say (not like champion at all) champion is made by champion! Have a nice weeekend ..

[mavapa]

Jon at Wildfire replied to my question (can you get full rated power from one 110V outlet from the Wildfire 3000). The bad part is that he doesn't know. The good parts are that he is being entirely honest and up-front about saying so, and that he promises to look into it. I call that a good sign that a vendor will be good to do business with.

[skram]

That Wildfire unit looks alot like the Champion 3500W genset I got from Checkers auto, only it is red instead of yellow.

[sniffid]

Regarding all power to a single outlet, when I got my ELIM3000 in February I plugged it into my camper and ran the 13,500BTU A/C, microwave, radio, water pump and fridge all at the same time with no problem.

[youth4him]

mavapa wrote:
youth4him, that was my question to the seller - can you get full rated power on one outlet? I am hoping the answer is yes, but I am still a little concerned that the seller might not actually know the answer. I would never have even known to ask that question if the Prof had not posted about that subject.

Yep, they sell a lot of products, but mostly ATV stuff, so I'm guessing their EE skills aren't great. When I get mine, if we haven't answered it already, I'll take a volt meter to it, see what we get...

KD

[LittleBill]

youth4him wrote:
The picture shows that the circuit breaker has 2 110v sides and then both up or down for 220v, does that make it so you only get partial power on one side of the 110v?

thats designed the same way as the elim3000, both outlets work even if only 1 circuit breaker is up, but most be up to get 220

[mavapa]

youth4him, that was my question to the seller - can you get full rated power on one outlet? I am hoping the answer is yes, but I am still a little concerned that the seller might not actually know the answer. I would never have even known to ask that question if the Prof had not posted about that subject.

[RadioNeal]

If you're going to seal the fuel system, better remove the fuel gauge and seal the opening. That gauge isn't designed to be under pressure.

Cheers!

[youth4him]

The picture shows that the circuit breaker has 2 110v sides and then both up or down for 220v, does that make it so you only get partial power on one side of the 110v?

[youth4him]

This is a dumb question, but is there a way to simply modify/add to the fuel cap so as to create a sealed system (ie: to a 10 gallon can) that wouldn't require additional fuel pumps?

KD