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...

[mitt]

I see that harbor frieght has there 300$ on sale now for 299. It seems identical in weight, HP, and ccs to the champion c46540, but has a more realistic rating of 2500/2800.

[mitt]

maybe the pic host site was down last night, try again. It is a public gallery, so no worries there.

mitt

[MrWizard]

mitt none of your pictures show !

are they hosted on yahoo or AOL

if so you need to move them to a PUBLIC HOST, like picture trail, photo bucket, or photolava

[MrWizard]

IMO, if it looks like the profs champion, it is NOTHING to worry about

[mitt]

Prof - thanks for sharing. What do you make of the deformed waveform on my generator at 1500W? I will do some digging tomorrow at work, and ask some of the power experts, and see what they say also.

mitt

[professor95]

mitt wrote:
Well, I did some testing on my new 46540 Champion, and here are my results.

The no load voltage waveform looks really pretty good. A little narrow, and peaky, as some else mentioned several pages back:

These are some waveforms I shared last Spring. I had more but can't find them now :o. Thought you might like something to compare to.

[mitt]

In case anyone is interested, here are 2 voltage wavefores from my cyberpower 685AVR computer UPS:

Output running on utility:



Output running on battery:

[mitt]

My intial post, 1 day ago, mentioned the freq was a little high, around 63hz. With a load, it seemed to correct and stabilize it to around 61.

mitt

[mitt]

My generator has about 1.5 hours on it now. I really bought it to run a furnace, so it should do that no problem, but I was wishing it could run a full size fridge also, but I am skeptical.

Here is the test setup for measuring:



And a final voltage current waveform for it starting and running a 1/3 or 1/4 hp sump pump:

[mitt]

The loaded voltage (ch1, top) and current (ch2, bottom) waveform looks a little ugly though. I used a heater for loading, and it has 2 settings, 1500W and 750W, but it didn't seem to change shape much, just amplitude.

1500W


750W


The generator to changed note, but I would not say it struggled with the loads, but I think 3000W is a stretch of the marketing, like someone else said earlier.

[mitt]

Well, I did some testing on my new 46540 Champion, and here are my results.

The no load voltage waveform looks really pretty good. A little narrow, and peaky, as some else mentioned several pages back:



Close up of a peak, around 200V:

[professor95]

O&S wrote:
Prof95:

You say, "I might be better at predicting the future than I thought" concerning a CHINESE genset with the HONDA name. Well Prof, can you give us your take on this one? Within 5 years or less will our 3000w Chinese Gensets we now use be replaced by the inverter type as the cost of R & D is recovered and we see a price adjustment? What about good ole Champion, they gunna keep up with the competition?


Floyd
O&S

My take is Honda is concerned that they are not selling enough product in the niche filled by Chinese gensets like the Champion 3,000 watt units. Thus, they have decided to enter this niche with their own Chinese built genset. Product name and loyalty do influence the buyer. I just wonder how many folks will fork over $800 for such a unit just because it has the Honda name?

As for the future? Well, as population grows so does the demand for electric power. This demand expands the number of service drops, lines, and the overall grid. As power demand grows so does the need to expand the arm of the utility that provides service to the grid and lines. In short, it is pretty darn big and expanding.

When a storm hits that brings down power lines local utilities can't fix the system fast enough. Too many outages and too few people to fix them. In VA, they often bring in help from NC, West VA, Penn, etc.

As fuel cost rise, utilities often try to cut overhead to maintain a profit. You know the story.... more equipment to fail and fewer people to fix it. L O N G wait times are common when the lights go out.

People do not like being in the dark. More and more folks are buying generators just to avoid being totally without power for long periods of time. As more folks buy gensets for backup power, more folks who don't have one decide it is a good thing to do (Know as "keeping up with the Jones'").

On the home front, the cost of a 12KW auto start genny with an automatic transfer switch is often out of reach of the average homeowner. Folks decide they only need something to keep a freezer, fridge, furnace, well pump and a few lights going. They are willing to pull a rope to start such a genset and lay a few extension cords on the ground. The 3,000 watt class of Chinese gennys fills the bill very well at a really affordable price.

Inverter gensets are nice, but it is not R&D that make them cost more. They have more parts and are more complex. They typically use high frequency 3-phase alternators, which are more efficient (thus smaller) before the computerized switching, voltage regulation and filtering circuits we call inverters. The military recognized this years ago when they decided to use 400Hz equipment in aircraft, etc. to reduce weight, heat and cost. We can't do that because all of our equipment is designed for a somewhat inefficient single phase 60 Hz system. If we could run our appliances on the high frequency alternators used in the so called inverter gensets without the inverter part we could reduce cost and increase efficiency significantly.

The inverter genny is in a totally different niche market. Sort of like comparing a basic Chevy to a fully loaded Caddy. Both get you there but the Caddy usually adds more class to the process. While class is nice, most folks lean more to economy when purchasing a genset that just sits unused 99% of the time.

My crystal ball tells me that the market filled by the 3,000 watt Chinese built gennys that all basically look like brothers or sisters to each other will NOT see a significant technology design shift as long as gasoline is available. You know, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

[Wgeorge11]

Welcome aboard Walkeraw.
Gotta give you credit for perseverance. Anyone committed enough to reading through this lengthy thread deserves a merit mark for something. We're all learning a little, day by day, that there are few absolute answers to our dreams of cheap power thrills. Meanwhile, we've learned there are options for our comfort and convenience when charging batteries while on the road when the sun don't shine, or keeping us cool when it does, and at home when power fails. Not the best of all possible worlds, but a close second.
Just keep us posted so we can also learn from your experience.

[walkeraw]

Awesome thread........thanks to everyone, I finally pulled the trigger and got one! (I had been procrastinating on purchasing a generator, to be used primarily for home electrical backup) I bought the 46540 (RV ready) online from Advanced Auto Parts $329 (they price matched TSC's online listing of $289) plus 10% discount coupon; no taxes..shipping was $43. So, for ~$300 to my door, I'm pretty content!
Excellent double boxed packaging, no damage. Added gas & oil, one pull start. Voltage in specs and stable. Ran 5 hrs with ~1500-1800 watt load; loaded some additional items temporarily...the generator didn't seem to notice. I changed the oil and it should be ready for any upcoming ice storms or the tornado season here in Oklahoma.

I'm in the process of trying to read and digest this ENTIRE thread for more information about transfer switches, sound enclosures, and other mods.

Thanks again for all information!

[Old___Slow]

Prof95:

You say, "I might be better at predicting the future than I thought" concerning a CHINESE genset with the HONDA name. Well Prof, can you give us your take on this one? Within 5 years or less will our 3000w Chinese Gensets we now use be replaced by the inverter type as the cost of R & D is recovered and we see a price adjustment? What about good ole Champion, they gunna keep up with the competition?


Floyd
O&S