Hello. I have read through the 3000Watt Chinese Generator Forum over the last 18 months and now, have stumbled on this forum when I spotted the CPE 2000i Generator at Sam's club few months back. This forum helped me make an educated decision to purchase one. It was difficult, however, after purchasing the 3000Watt Gen on Ebay from East Coast Wholesale. It's claims, in my opinion were overstated. It would stall when trying to run 13500 AC and smaller inductive loads like a household refrigerator. In addition, it was a very loud generator despite the claims to be as quiet as the Honda or Yamaha versions.
So here it goes. I am a firefighter/paramedic and we use a Honda 2000i to operate a large ventilation fan after fires to remove smoke from a structure. The Honda works very well and is very quiet.
The Champion 2000 inverter generator is pretty similar in sound (from my memory, not side by side) I am impressed, actually. However, I feel that the sound from the Champion at higher rpms, 1500 Watt Load from a frier, is a bit louder (very tolerable). Quieter than the 3000 Watt from East Coast and in my opinion, worth the $499 going price. Certainly, if you buy 2 of the Champions with the parallel cable, it will run at lower rpms keeping the decibels down.
I did some small tests. One was two 500Watt rated lights (1000Watt total) and ran perfectly. I ran an old ceramic heater ( going back about 25 years, remember when they first came out by KEROSun). I plugged it into the Champion and its rpms revved up and about 4 seconds later the circuit breaker popped. I grabbed a newer model ceramic heater by HOLMES and plugged that in. I started at a low setting and ran it for 1/2 hour. Rpms were slightly increased. I then turned it up to high power and the rpms increased a little more. I ran it for 1 hour, no problems. I pulled the clamp meter out and returned to household power to find out why the first heater popped the breaker since both heaters were rated at 1500watts on their labels.
KEROsun drew 20 amps @ 116 volts =2320 Watts until the element got hot.
The amps decreased as it got hotter.
KEROsun hot and set on high was 13.4 amps @ 116 volts =1554.4 watts.
Holmes heater set on low started from 0 amps and increased. Once hot it settled in at 7.14 amps @ 116 volts =828.24 watts
High setting 10.25 amps @ 116 volts =1189 watts.
So, it was not the generator. It was the design and nature of the older ceramic heater (no safety features) where it started out at 20+amps and decreased it's demand, however, not fast enough before the generator popped its breaker.
So far, I am pleased with the sound produced from this generator, very easy to have a conversation along side of it, well worth the money at this point and plan on going for the second. I will conduct my own time test at 500 watts and report back.
If I may, I have the open synchronous gen by Champion 3500/3000 from Cabella's and have been very happy with it. It runs the 13500 AC and Microwave simultaneously. Just looking for less sound production.
And to all those who put in their time to report and to Professor who has put in so much on both forums, thank you. Wish I had come across this stuff prior to dumping over 300 bucks on the 3000 Watt by East Coast.
Randall J. Chittenden
CT
Fire/Medic
Former Auto Parts Sales 12 years
