The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread

[pritch272]

8/1/2010 edit: Thread renamed at the suggestion of the Professor.
Renamed from: Champion Inverter and Remote Gens Promo on CPE's web site)

3/22/2011 edit: Thread renamed ...
Renamed from: Official CPE 2000 Watt Inverter Generator Thread

3/23/2011 edit: Thread renamed at the suggestion of the Professor.
Renamed from: (Un)Official CPE 2000 Watt Inverter Generator Thread

Inverter Available August 2010



Remote Available July 2010

[MrRchitty]

Yeah, yeah. Thought of the wing nuts, too. But, plug, unplug. Plug and play. Or maybe, don't go camping. Trying to keep 4 kids in order during the whole process.

[MrWizard]

Grd cables on twins
I would go to OSH and buy some metric wing nuts for the grd lugs ,
No wrench needed, no splices needed
Easy on easy off,

[Wayne_Dohnal]

professor95 wrote:
Wayne, I thought you had a carburetor bowl drain screw and small hose that ran out under the generator case on the Honda? My Kipor has such a system that quickly and easily drains the float bowl after removing the single screw holding on the side access panel.

It does have such a drain. Do I have to publicly admit that I'm lazy? Of the umpteen small gas engines I have on various gadgets, this is the only one that gums up so quickly.

[MrRchitty]

2011 Cabela's Automotive and ATV Catalog just arrived yesterday in the mail.

Here's the ad pictured in there.



No bargain on the price at $699.99. Neither is the Parallel cable at $99.99.

The Little Champ pictured here is being advertised with 1700 Watts running and 2000 Watts max. It also has the 12 volt charging port.

It does not have the circuit breaker, which leaves the module to control the overloads. (as previously mentioned)

In my current manual, it mentions on page six not exceeding 1600 watts (13.3 amps).

Later in the manual it indicates that the overload light will flash at 1750 Watts which we have all seen here with testing.

So, is the new 1700 watt figure advertised in this article (and I believe I saw this somewhere online) the result of removing the circuit breaker from current production models?

Floyd, I could be wrong, as I have not been to my local Cabela's (about 45 miles away from me) but these may be 2011 models. I will take a ride in a day or two with the family, now that school is out.

Edited for content and exceeding your viewing area. 😮

[MrRchitty]

professor95 wrote:

Wayne Dohnal wrote:

THE most annoying thing about the eu2000i is that the carb gums up easily if it is not run frequently. If you're lucky, a dose of Seafoam will clean it up, otherwise the carb has to be disassembled. That's why I needed to run it today, and I got lucky using the Seafoam. And after I put everything away I asked myself if having Seafoam in the gas affected the test results. I simply don't know.

Wayne, I thought you had a carburetor bowl drain screw and small hose that ran out under the generator case on the Honda? My Kipor has such a system that quickly and easily drains the float bowl after removing the single screw holding on the side access panel.

Sea Foam uses Tuloene and Xylol (Xylene) for the primary ingredients. BTW, both chemicals can be purchased at any paint store. The Xylol is an extremely strong and slow evaporating solvent that helps to keep gum (varnish) from forming in gasoline as it evaporates. About 4 ounces per gallon of gasoline will raise the octane rating by .5 points (87 to 87.5). It is also useful in softening and liquifying accumulated varnish deposits. You can readily see this first hand by wiping a xylol dampened rag over a painted surface - just don't do it on a surface you do not want ruined! I make my own "SeaFoam" for use in my stored power equipment. The recipe I use is one quart of Tuloene, two quarts of Xylol, and 6 ounces of Dextron ATF for upper cylinder lubrication lost from the drying effects of the two additives. Normally 2 ounces per gallon of the mixture is sufficient to clean up a stored fuel system.

I seriously doubt that the Sea Foam in your fuel had any impact upon your readings.

Posted:

10/04/10 11:45am

in the 3000 Watt Chinese generator forum

Professor 95 wrote:
My recipe is:

3 parts Naphtha
1 part 94% to 99% Isopropyl Alcohol
1 part MEK or Toluene or 2 parts Acetone

Add 2 ounces of mix to each gallon or gas.

Which do you prefer or are you using alternate ingredients?

[professor95]

DrBaker wrote:
If you don't stack them, what way would you position them side by side? I want to leave them in the truck bed and have limited space. My concern is exhaust heat from one blowing in to the other.

I thought about having them face each other and then decided that it would not work since the exhaust from one would be right on the tailgate. IIRC, you must leave a certain amount of space around the gen for it to breathe.

My goal is to run the gens without unhitching the truck. Space constraints leave the gens behind the hitch.

It is a problem no matter how you look at it. Stacked is a pain since you have to lift one off to add fuel. I prefer side-by-side. But, as you noted, having both in a line facing out puts the exhaust of one up close to the cool air intake of the other. One in front of the other spaced as far apart as the cable allows seems to work best for me. The outlet part of the parallel cables does NOT have to reside on top of one of the gensets which gives you additional space. There is no magic inside, only a set of outlets and crimp connections. We set such on the ground all the time with a simple plastic cover held down with rocks.

Maybe we can convince CPE to design both a left hand and a right hand genset? That would solve the problem nicely 😉

[professor95]

Wayne Dohnal wrote:

THE most annoying thing about the eu2000i is that the carb gums up easily if it is not run frequently. If you're lucky, a dose of Seafoam will clean it up, otherwise the carb has to be disassembled. That's why I needed to run it today, and I got lucky using the Seafoam. And after I put everything away I asked myself if having Seafoam in the gas affected the test results. I simply don't know.

Wayne, I thought you had a carburetor bowl drain screw and small hose that ran out under the generator case on the Honda? My Kipor has such a system that quickly and easily drains the float bowl after removing the single screw holding on the side access panel.

Sea Foam uses Tuloene and Xylol (Xylene) for the primary ingredients. BTW, both chemicals can be purchased at any paint store. The Xylol is an extremely strong and slow evaporating solvent that helps to keep gum (varnish) from forming in gasoline as it evaporates. About 4 ounces per gallon of gasoline will raise the octane rating by .5 points (87 to 87.5). It is also useful in softening and liquifying accumulated varnish deposits. You can readily see this first hand by wiping a xylol dampened rag over a painted surface - just don't do it on a surface you do not want ruined! I make my own "SeaFoam" for use in my stored power equipment. The recipe I use is one quart of Tuloene, two quarts of Xylol, and 6 ounces of Dextron ATF for upper cylinder lubrication lost from the drying effects of the two additives. Normally 2 ounces per gallon of the mixture is sufficient to clean up a stored fuel system.

I seriously doubt that the Sea Foam in your fuel had any impact upon your readings.

[MrRchitty]

So... with the Twins, I like simplicity. To break out with a small wrench to assemble or disassemble the parallel cables grounding wire drives me crazy. I mean, when coupled with the set-up and take down before and after camping, it's one less thing I want to do.

I have done things to make set-up and take down quicker by putting quick connects on the water supply hose, quick connects on the cable, and I cut off the wrench and shaved three flat spots so that it sits nicely in my Dewalt drill to quickly raise and lower the jacks.

This is what I did simplify the parallel cable installation and removal of the ground cable:


Above photo shows a 2 inch 14 guage wire with a number 10 hole electrical connector attached to the grounding stud and spade connector on the other end. This stands ready to receive another connector. I call it: "plug and play".


Above is a picture of the end of the parallel cable with a small 14 guage wire attached to the grounding cable. I used a number 10 ring electrical connector and it is bolted with a number 10 stainless steel machine screw and nut to attach to the ground connector's ring connector. The other end of the wire is the other mating spade connector wich connects to my new connector on the Little Champ.


Above is the picture of the assembly connected. No additional tools to connect or disconnect the connections. Simple.

Edit for spelling, content and to exceed the viewing area of your screen.

[DrBaker]

If you don't stack them, what way would you position them side by side? I want to leave them in the truck bed and have limited space. My concern is exhaust heat from one blowing in to the other.

I thought about having them face each other and then decided that it would not work since the exhaust from one would be right on the tailgate. IIRC, you must leave a certain amount of space around the gen for it to breathe.

My goal is to run the gens without unhitching the truck. Space constraints leave the gens behind the hitch.

[Wayne_Dohnal]

Jumper - I needed to run the eu2000i anyway so I gathered some data that might partially answer your question. A few introductory comments: The eu2000i outputs 128 volts with no load or light loads. At its rated 1,600 VA, the voltage is down to 124. With greater loads it decays faster. IMO when it's down to 120, the genny is working pretty hard. Somewhere around 115, the generator transitions to the backside of its power curve, where adding more load increases the output in terms of amps, but the voltage goes down to the point where there is no power increase or the power output might even be lower. IMO, when the output voltage gets down to 115, you're maxed out in practical terms. Under 115, IMO, you're abusing the poor thing. When I talk about light bulbs, that's the labeled wattage, not the actual wattage. The atmospheric conditions were 80* and 3,500 feet. Here are the numbers.

Test 1, mainly resistive load. One 500 watt light plus "1875 watt" hair dryer on high. Output 111 to 113 volts, 16.66 amps, watts bounced between 1810 and 1860.

Test 2, mainly resistive load. Two 500 watt lights plus hair dryer on low. Voltage 113 to 114, 15.33 amps, watts 1720 to 1750. After a few minutes voltage decayed to 108. Quickly switching to the higher first load voltage stayed at 108.

I think either of these loads is too much for more than a few minutes.

Test 3, using WFCO 8955 providing 55 amps in boost mode, load is converter plus one 500 watt lamp plus hair dryer on fan only (~2 amps). Volts 114, watts 1450, VA 1650, amps 14.7. I ran this for 10 minutes.

Test 4, add 65 watt bulb to test 3. Volts 110, watts 1500, VA 1680, amps 15.3. After a few minutes voltage decayed to 105, leading me to think test 3 was right on the edge.

Test 5 (torture!), add 150 watt bulb to test 3. After 15 minutes, volts 106, watts 1550, VA 1720, amps 16.4 .

THE most annoying thing about the eu2000i is that the carb gums up easily if it is not run frequently. If you're lucky, a dose of Seafoam will clean it up, otherwise the carb has to be disassembled. That's why I needed to run it today, and I got lucky using the Seafoam. And after I put everything away I asked myself if having Seafoam in the gas affected the test results. I simply don't know.

[professor95]

Old & Slow wrote:

Now, Champion (CPE). We will all know the truth some day when it come to the quality and dependability of the Champion 2000i. As a Champion owner, I want to believe the best. My experience with the Champion C46540 has been good. I am a little dissapointed in the last part recieved from these folks, however. I ordered an AVR recently that out-puts 100v/220v. My original is right on the money 120/220v. Is it worth returning ?, no. I'll use the old one. I want and try to parallel the two, to add some possible safety in a possible over voltage situation but have that project on the back burner, it should work. What I am saying here from experience is quality control with Champion could improve. Lot's of AVR's needed to be replaced. Hope the Champion 2000i module's prove to have long life.

Floyd,

As discussed many, many times before on the 3,000 watt Chinese Generator Thread..... there is a screw on the back of the AVR for the synchronous models that is attached to a 10 turn potentiometer. It must be adjusted for individual gensets due to small differences in excitation current and components. You can easily adjust the voltage to equal the old one.

Your vision of putting two AVR's in parallel simply will not work. What would work is to have two AVR's and a DPDT switch on the two yellow wires so you could quickly and easily select AVR #1 or #2.

As for the CPE2000i - I own two and as I have stated before I am disappointed that they are not true 2,000 watt inverter gensets. But, when I bought them I was fully aware that there was a 13 amp circuit breaker that limited the peak sustained current. There are numerous areas where improvement for RV usage is needed, but the market for the CPE2000i is not just RV. Many purchasers simply want a small, inexpensive and quiet genset to run a refrigerator/freezer/a few lights and a TV during a power outage. It should satisfy that market easily. I have passed suggestions on to CPE for possible improvement in future models/revisions. Many of the suggestions WE gave from the 3,000 Watt Chinese Genny thread were incorporated. The CPE 46538 is everything we asked for in a synchronous genny for RV use. You were one of the men that pushed for many of the features on that model.

There is no doubt in my mind that CPE will eventually introduce inverter models that will completely satisfy the needs of RVers needing a 30 amp power source to run air conditioners, big microwaves, etc. But, in the mean time I want to remind those that have a need for that level of power the twin CPE2000i's with the parallel cable works exceptionally well and the total cost is still a grand lower than some of the other brands. My two 2000i's have performed flawlessly with no burps, fuel leaks, module failures, etc. I am sorry for those that have had problems but like dwh seriously doubt that the numbers are deal killers.

As for genset availability, my local SAMS Club had 20 units ready to go last week when I was in the store. I bought an electric pressure washer that was next to the CPE generators and asked the man that worked the section where all of this stuff resides how sales and returns were going. His response was that he knew of no returns and while they were not rolling off of the shelf sales were "acceptable" with about 7-10 units per week. I was interested in his response that most buyers did not truly understand what an "inverter" generator was but were intrigued with the compact and lightweight design and the price. This may be the main sales attraction to the general population.

Anyway - like I have said before it is NOT a Honda 2000, a Kipor 2000 nor a Yamaha 2000. It is what it is - a well designed Chinese inverter genset that falls somewhere between the 1,000 and 2,000 watt Japanese gensets with a more familiar name and much higher price. If you want to power a big microwave, 13,500 BTU air conditioner or a low power factor RV converter/charger that has discharged batteries it will be a disappointment. That is where the twin units and the parallel adapter are needed.

[jumper0407]

I picked up one of these Champions this weekend. It wouldn't run my nominally rated 1,350 watt microwave at the campsite. The generator's advertised at 1700 running watts. It has a November 2010 production date and reputed to have the revised controller board.

Today I rigged up a power jumper cable so I could attach my clamp-on amp meter to see what's what. The genset produces 125 volts. There's a 2 amp AC base load associated with, I presume, the battery charger (and the clock in the microwave) since no other loads were turned on.

I fired up the microwave and low and behold it ran. The meter showed a total of 12.1 running amps, or about 1500 watts out of the 1700 rating. (As an aside, the microwave load started at about 5 incremental amps then jumped about another 5 after a couple of seconds).

I then turned on the refrigerator for a total of about 4 baseline amps. The microwave wouldn't then start up. This should have been about 14 amps total which is the running rating of the unit.

However, this weekend I was camping at a 5000 ft elevation. The guy at Champion's customer service said there's about a three percent per thousand foot performance loss. So at 5000 ft a 12 amp load looks like a 14 amp load. Here at home, at 1500 ft, a 14 amp load looks like its pushing 15. Arguably, neither should be expected to work and they didn't.

Fast forward to the afternoon. I just went back out and tried it again. The generator's been sitting in the 90* sun since this morning. It won't now run the microwave by itself. It tries mightily and almost does so but trips.

Instead, I plugged in my wife's blow dryer and got a sustained 13.1 amp reading on the meter. I suppose the the microwave is a dirty load and there may be some start-up load issues that my amp meter doesn't pick up well. Regardless, that 1350 watt microwave is at the ragged edge of what this generator will or won't support.

I'm not headed to the coast anytime soon but I'll venture that one could expect about 14 amps if you set the generator in the sand at the beach on a nice foggy cold day.

Can anyone state whether they can get a clean 1700 running watts out of a Honda or Yamaha 2K generator at "altitude?" If not, I either need a 3K set, or to decide that I'm not running the larger loads when in the boondocks and return this one and just get a 1K unit for light duty loads and incidentals.

On the other hand, DW's not up for boondocking without that hairdryer. It does have a 7 amp low power mode, but that would probably exceed a 1k generator. What's a guy to do?

[toprudder]

Wayne Dohnal wrote:

I'm glad to see that your WFCO's PF is about the same as mine when running at max power. I had only taken measurements at 55+ amps output. It makes sense for the PF to be lower at lighter loads since the converter is just pulling power off of the AC peaks. I almost got a carbon pile tester but didn't after reading about the duty cycle limits. I've found a ~100 foot coil of 14 gauge wire submerged in a 5 gallon bucket of water to be a good 55-60 amp converter load, and in 30 minutes it raises the water temp maybe 20 degrees (as measured by my fingertips).

I'm joining this thread a little late. (ok, WAY late :)) Just thought I would mention the data I collected on my 55A WFCO (not sure it is the same as yours). I tried using a small inverter generator, and it could not handle the inrush of the WFCO. I connected my WFCO to some test equipment where I worked, and collected the current waveform. At only a partial load, the peaks of the current waveform were over 22 amps. I can see where this would cause problems with an inverter model. Anyway, I posted this a while back in the classic "3000w Chinese Generator" thread started by the Prof.

WFCO current waveform

I'm really interested in the Champion 2000i since I saw one in Sam's club the other day. Just figured I would check this thread to see what is the verdict.

[Wayne_Dohnal]

The USA Costco site doesn't carry the CPE2000i ("CPE Power Sports™ 2000 watt inverter"). The page for the parallel kit says to buy the generator at the warehouse. My local Costco has a rather large stack of the red units. If I wasn't such a tightwad I'd get one just to do my own evaluation. Trouble is, I have no legitimate need for it.

[Old___Slow]

dwh,

Well Sir, I been around the block a few times, the world a few times and also been to China. Due to health reasons, Ive been held up continuing boarding the Airliners and make a trip in the MH on better days. So, as they say, I didn't just arrive on a log raft yesterday.

As for 'The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread' I also didn't appear out of nowhere. I have followed the Champion (CPE) story for a full four years. Read quite a few hundred posts and have been a poster for most of that time. When It comes to RV'ing, been doing that for most all my 78 years. Then power generatation. I attended school on the Kuskokwim River in Alsaks, where we had an 'on demand generator' for the school, the only one at the time anywhere close. And of course the RV was a dog sled.

When I post to the various RV.Net threads, I come as one not wet behind the ears. Try to post in an honest, serious and up to date manner, on what I see and hear about the RV world. RV. Net is a special place for all RV type folks. Many posts are suspect in content. Some folks mention the possible plants and sock puppets, which was a new word to me. The old timers make there assesment sometimes after clicking on the poster profile and reading the content of the posts. In reading back through this thread as suggested, I find a possible large number of possible plants.

Now, Champion (CPE). We will all know the truth some day when it come to the quality and dependability of the Champion 2000i. As a Champion owner, I want to believe the best. My experience with the Champion C46540 has been good. I am a little dissapointed in the last part recieved from these folks, however. I ordered an AVR recently that out-puts 100v/220v. My original is right on the money 120/220v. Is it worth returning ?, no. I'll use the old one. I want and try to parallel the two, to add some possible safety in a possible over voltage situation but have that project on the back burner, it should work. What I am saying here from experience is quality control with Champion could improve. Lot's of AVR's needed to be replaced. Hope the Champion 2000i module's prove to have long life.

Perhaps, I am wrong to assume anything into the 'delisting' with Costco.Ca, of the Champion 2000i. And the return issue. As for any next production of this unit, or a possible new model, I quess we all will know someday. Finally, I watch with interest, as a possible future buyer of some small Inverter generator.