Old & Slow wrote:
Perhaps DWH could give us some idea about his 1200w Champion C42431. It also has the 80cc engine. Will it spin up a 10a saw?
Possible, but unlikely, that I will be doing any full load tests. I bought it just for charging the aux battery in my camper and so far that's all I've used it for. I had purchased the Honeywell because I was thinking of putting a/c in the camper, but then after adding fans, I decided it didn't need it.
Some years ago, I decided to "simplify my life". I was a single father, and when I began to see the light at the end of the 18 year tunnel I knew I would want to travel often, and travel light, so I jettisoned all non-essentials. These days, the only power tools I have is a Ryobi kit with drill, sawzall, small circular saw and flashlight - all 18v battery operated. I added the 18v angle grinder and a car charger. The whole kit fits in a box the size of a suitcase, serves my needs for the rare times when I need it and is easily portable.
At this point, I don't actually own a garage full of stuff (like I used to), and so I have no way to setup a test lab.
๐I'm old & slow and me eyes need some light on the subject of 'why buy some new finagling electronic moduled gen?
I think noise is a key issue. My little 42431 is certainly louder than the HW was; Though it seems to have better motor mounts (isolation) and vibrates the camper less than the HW so it's less noticable inside the camper, it is certainly more noticable outside the camper.
A couple of weeks ago I was camped near a rock face and the echo made the bloody thing seem twice as loud (outside the camper). If I was the type of fellow to camp in camp sites where there are other people around (I'm not), then I would -very- seriously consider going back to an inverter gen just because of the noise.
As for the a/c. I believe the poster who bought an a/c unit to cool the camper shell on the back of his truck to keep his dog comfortable spoke of buying an 8k btu unit...
Well, that's a problem. When I was thinking of adding a/c to my camper, I did quite a lot of research and the unit I was thinking of buying was a Frigidaire 5,200k btu. That particular unit had a SEER of I think 11, and actually used less power than the 5,000k btu Frigidaire unit that had a SEER of 9.
I contacted Frigidaire support asking what the startup load of that unit was, because I was thinking of running it from a generator, and received this information:
"Electrical Information
Voltage 115
Amps - Cooling 4.5
Watts - Cooling 475
Starting Amps 11.5
Starting Watts 1,322.50 Note: Generator must be capable of
handling this amount of wattage for start up plus whatever else is on the generator.
Fuse/Breaker (Amps) 15
Power Cord Amps Min 13"
I had also asked what exactly was the "Low-Voltage" startup listed in the specs for some Frigidaire units, and the answer was:
"However to answer your question the fan comes on first and about 3 min later the compressor comes on to keep the starting wattage down. The wattage I gave for start up is absolutely required or it could damage the product."
The model number of the unit I was looking at was FAA055P7A and it was sold in many places for around $150. That was a couple of years ago, and I'm not sure what is on the market today.
At that time, I was also looking at RV a/c units, and I saw two different types of "hard start kit". Both types add an extra starting capacitor, but in one type, the capacitor has a "timed delay" which I understand causes the capacitor to not fire for a few seconds, in order to give the fan time to spool up before the compressor starts.
I can see that there could be an issue when using the timed delay capacitor; If the hard start cap is simply piggybacked on a normal cap, then the normal one would fire immediately, while the secondary would fire some time later.
For that reason, I think if using a hard start capacitor which has a timed delay, that one might have to -replace- the existing cap with the hard start cap rather than just piggybacking onto it. Or, perhaps both must be time-delay caps.
YMMV.
