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...

[fireguy60]

MrWizard wrote:

fireguy60, you got..it, thats a fairly normal reading, and the way the voltage should read.

top rudder, with out the bonded neutral to frame, it is nOT the issue it would be with the neutral bonded, but think back to the discussion here of all the people that wanted to bond the neutral to genny frame and call that ground..

for those that modded the generator and DID not put the breaker in the hot side then bonded the neutral, they are in a dangerous spot, they have a hazard , waiting to do them harm.

If the bond is on the outlet side of the breakers, I still see no problem. If either of the windings have a leg bonded to ground *before* the breakers, then yes, I do see a problem.

Bob R.

You do both realize that my diagram is EXACTLY like the C46540 Champion when the switch is in the 120V RV Ready mode. THe Champion engineers do not see a problem....

[toprudder]

MrWizard wrote:
fireguy60, you got..it, thats a fairly normal reading, and the way the voltage should read.

top rudder, with out the bonded neutral to frame, it is nOT the issue it would be with the neutral bonded, but think back to the discussion here of all the people that wanted to bond the neutral to genny frame and call that ground..

for those that modded the generator and DID not put the breaker in the hot side then bonded the neutral, they are in a dangerous spot, they have a hazard , waiting to do them harm.

If the bond is on the outlet side of the breakers, I still see no problem. If either of the windings have a leg bonded to ground *before* the breakers, then yes, I do see a problem.

Bob R.

[ChaosAgent]

The Roamer wrote:
Multimeter problem???

I've got a Craftsman multimeter. I paid about 60 bucks for it. It works fine for everything except checking voltage from my Gen. When I get within 3 or 4 feet of the Gen. the numbers go crazy. Has anybody else had this problem?

I have had at least 3 other people check it and they had no problems. (They were all using Fluke meters) Is this something that "Cheap" meters do?

Have you tried actually measuring the voltage even with the numbers going crazy? Or shorting the leads together near the genset?

Sometimes the leads tend to act as antennas and pick up noise from the brushes in motors and generators.

You may find that once you put the leads on the points you want to measure, it will work fine.

If shorting the test leads together zeros the meter, that will tell you it's just picking up stray voltage in the air.

[The_Roamer]

Multimeter problem???

I've got a Craftsman multimeter. I paid about 60 bucks for it. It works fine for everything except checking voltage from my Gen. When I get within 3 or 4 feet of the Gen. the numbers go crazy. Has anybody else had this problem?

I have had at least 3 other people check it and they had no problems. (They were all using Fluke meters) Is this something that "Cheap" meters do?

[MrWizard]

fireguy60, you got..it, thats a fairly normal reading, and the way the voltage should read.

top rudder, with out the bonded neutral to frame, it is nOT the issue it would be with the neutral bonded, but think back to the discussion here of all the people that wanted to bond the neutral to genny frame and call that ground..

for those that modded the generator and DID not put the breaker in the hot side then bonded the neutral, they are in a dangerous spot, they have a hazard , waiting to do them harm.

[fireguy60]

Also, I am measuring 57v from hot to ground, and 57v from neutral to ground. Is that correct on a generator? Normally there should be 120v from hot to ground and nothing from neutral to ground, correct?

I still have the low voltage issue, around 113v at 2500w load. But this is an old capacitor unit so I don't think there is any adjustment to it.

Update: I found the old post referring to the "potential" voltage that I am reading between hot/ground and neutral/ground, I guess this is normal.

As for my voltage issue, a little tweak of the governor RPM and it's up to 118v.

I guess I'm ready to load 'er up....

[toprudder]

MrWizard wrote:
fireguy50

if that drawing is accurate, your Breakers might trip when try to pull a full load , you have one in the neutral of one winding and one in the hot of the other winding, they need to be in parallel with each other, they need each breaker to be in the hot leg of each winding

remove the blue & yellow wires from the breaker ,connect the blue & yellow directly together, remove the red wire from the red, put it on the breaker, then run another red wire back to the red/hot wire connection

breakers need to be parallel on the hot side for safety, it is against code to but a breaker in the neutral circuit

since the windings are paralleled having one breaker in the hot and one breaker in the neutral leave one hot and one neutral online even with the breakers off, this is a safety hazard

they were OK when this was a 220v generator with a split load because what is now the neutral of the second winding was actually the HOT of (1) of the legs for 230 with the (2) center wires being a center taped neutral, but that is no longer the case.

but yes you have 26 amps at the 120 duplex outlet from the windings, but the one breaker is in the wrong leg..

I would agree with you if the neutral of either winding were referenced to ground, but they are both floating - no connection between either winding and ground. So, no problem as I see it.

Come to think of it, even if the neutral and ground were connected at the outlet, I don't think there would be a problem since the windings would still be floating if the circuit breakers were tripped.

As far as the breaker needing to be in the hot side to work properly, I don't think so. The current going out the hot comes back in the neutral. The breaker is current sensitive, not voltage sensitive.

Just M2CW.

Bob R.

[long2729]

looks like the WAMU10 discount has expired that I posted last year for Kragens, schucks, etc... for the purchase of champion generators. there is another 10% discount that is still working, so if anyone is ordering online, you can use geicoten for ten percent off.

good luck, this one says it will last until 1/2008.

[fireguy60]

MrWizard

That makes sense to me, but the professor had posted the diagram for the RV ready Champion awhile back and that has the breaker in the neutral leg when the switch is in 120v mode, doesn't it? I also noticed that diagram showed the TT30 recepticle had the neutral and hot wires reversed from code. The tt30 neutral should be on the right side, not the left as in a 5-20r.

Also, I am measuring 57v from hot to ground, and 57v from neutral to ground. Is that correct on a generator? Normally there should be 120v from hot to ground and nothing from neutral to ground, correct?

I still have the low voltage issue, around 113v at 2500w load. But this is an old capacitor unit so I don't think there is any adjustment to it.

[MrWizard]

fireguy50

if that drawing is accurate, your Breakers might trip when try to pull a full load , you have one in the neutral of one winding and one in the hot of the other winding, they need to be in parallel with each other, they need each breaker to be in the hot leg of each winding

remove the blue & yellow wires from the breaker ,connect the blue & yellow directly together, remove the red wire from the red, put it on the breaker, then run another red wire back to the red/hot wire connection

breakers need to be parallel on the hot side for safety, it is against code to but a breaker in the neutral circuit

since the windings are paralleled having one breaker in the hot and one breaker in the neutral leave one hot and one neutral online even with the breakers off, this is a safety hazard

they were OK when this was a 220v generator with a split load because what is now the neutral of the second winding was actually the HOT of (1) of the legs for 230 with the (2) center wires being a center taped neutral, but that is no longer the case.

but yes you have 26 amps at the 120 duplex outlet from the windings, but the one breaker is in the wrong leg..

[cpeman]

It sounds like your voltage is a little low, you can adjust it by removing the endcover (left of the muffler) and there you should see the AVR (automatic voltage regulator) on the back side of that regulator you will see a very small brass screw, you will want to slowly tighten that screw in waile its running. Bring it up to 116-120 volts.

[fireguy60]

How I wired mine...



Edited to correct the coding.

I recommend you visit the Forum Technical Support and look at the Sticky on posting pictures. MelM

[fireguy60]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been reading this forum for over a year now and it is super. Lots of great information here!

I had already purchased an All-Power 3500W gen and I was having trouble running my AC when I searched for answers and.. voila! Here I am! I have never had to post because all my questions have already been answered here. Well almost...

This may have been covered but I can't find it. Here is my deal...

I rewired the gen head as per one of the several schematics posted here. I left the two 13A breakers on each of the coils and tied them together after the breakers. I added an RV plug and I also wired the plug after a 30A Double Pole switch to allow the gen to be started and shut down without physically unplugging the cord.

My questions:
1) Amperage. With a 13A breaker on each coil do I have 26A at the plug? I have loaded the gen with heaters down to 106V and haven't popped a breaker.

2) Voltage. I have 110-111 volts at no load. Is this low? When I plug in the 5er and crank up the AC the voltage comes UP to 112-113 volts. What is the required voltage for the AC? I thought as long as it was above 110 the motor should be OK. Does the gen sense the load somehow to increase the voltage? Others here say they are reading 117-120 volts at no load, I have never been that high.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks again for a wonderful forum.

[Oldfordman]

toprudder wrote:

ddav15 wrote:
You can put a capacitor on your pump motor for a few bucks then it should start up with a Champion RV generator.

Not sure how you would do that on a submersible pump. 🙂

It is done at the "Control Box" which is often far away from the pump. Someone who knows what they are doing will know where (if it is possible) and those that don't shouldn't be doing it.

[toprudder]

ddav15 wrote:
You can put a capacitor on your pump motor for a few bucks then it should start up with a Champion RV generator.

Not sure how you would do that on a submersible pump. 🙂