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]

In tthe manual I think it says to change oil after the first 50 hours then every 100. I don't have time to look, but that is reasonable. 10/30 should cover you. I use synthetic.

[VoR]

Not sure if this has been covered in here or not (search function here is not the ideal), but does anyone have a good break in procedure for these small inverter gens?

I couldn't resist picking one up (Red Black CPE branded 2000i) for under $300. Just need it for running the TV/SAT during the day for the small kidlets and some extra lighting at night when dry desert camping instead of running the big noisy onboard generac.

[toprudder]

Hybridhunter wrote:

toprudder wrote:


My thoughts, too. However, my camper will charge from the truck as long as I have the pigtail connected, up to 40 amps. No need for jumper cables. I had to install the 40 amp fuse, though, as it did not come from the factory with that fuse installed for some reason.

Haha. Try taking a reading when charging through the 7 pin. You will be lucky to get 7 amps. Been there, done that.....

Yeah, I agree, 40 amps is VERY optimistic. 🙂 I do remember reading over 15 amps, when the G24 house battery was low. The nice thing about my truck is that it does put out over 14.1v continuously. The truck manual says that if it is in tow/haul mode, the battery voltage will be higher for charging the trailer battery, although I can't say that I have observed that behaviour. The wiring in the truck to the 7 pin is very heavy guage, larger than most jumper cables, which is what I was comparing to.

A while back, the alternator in my Ford van died, when I was about 20 miles away from home. I knew the battery was also low, since I had been charging model airplane Lipo batteries from it most of the day. (Probably what killed the alternator!) So, I had my wife drive her Honda out to meet me, and I hooked up the two with the jumper cables from her car. A current clamp told me I was getting less than 10A. So, I pulled out my jumpers that I made from welding cable, and measured over 50 amps. It was a good lesson on wire size, resistance, current, and voltage drop. Was able to drive home with a dead alternator after charging for 30 minutes.

Anyway, it sounds like you have figured out the best solution for your scenario.

[Old___Slow]

Old & Slow wrote:

vandoc wrote:
I've had 2 of these Champion generators with a parallel kit for a month now. This past weekend I had problems with one of the generators starting. There was a great deal of resistance on the pull start, and I couldn't start it as a result. The 2nd generator has the burping issue that's been described here. I wound up returning both generators because of the issues. The units paralleled ran my 13,500 AC unit fine at 6,000 feet elevation. They would not run both the AC and microwave at the same time with eco mode off. I was considering returning the generators because of the burping issues; the last issue with pull start problems was enough to convince me to return them. These were the Red color with a build date of March 2011.

The idea of a bad batch, as mentioned in one of the recent posts, with the first production run will not fit in this case. The build date was 'March 2011'. The $64.000 question is*is 'why the burbing with some units and not others?' And the Champion 2000i handling starting a 10/11 amp saw or an A/C cycling. It has been stated somewhere, I do believe, the hard start issue has something to do with the EC Module. The modules are upgraded AVR's correct? Some owners with other brands of Chinese Inverters have uncovered P.Pots on the modules for adjustments, just like the AVR. So if the AVR failed in many cases, is it not possible we are having Module failures and will in the future??. The only brand (Kipor) that shows retail parts, to my knowledge, has a price of $500 just for the Inverter module. WoW. However, IIRC, the Kipor has totally different tech (like H@Y) than the Champion 2000i, right? I have never heard of H or Y module failure but there must be one somewhere?

Looking forward to a new and improved record from Champion. And retail listing of parts available.

I'm more curious than ever to hear how many Champion 2000i generators have defective EC Modules. The build date on the post above was march 2011 and now a new post with the same problem. Do these Champion 2000i gensets come from different factories perhaps.

Randle,

Don't forget you also had one defective Champion 2000i that had to to returned.

[MrRchitty]

Agree with the exchange policy.

I loaned out both of mine to my neighbors to save their food. These generators are amazing. They have run continuously without issue. My furnace requires a little more amperage on the startup. Because I only have one right now, (one neighbor brought one back) I turned eco mode off, and with fridge running the furnace fired up with nominal dimming. This power outage has been no challenge so far.

I too, hope other storm victims faired well.

[Hybridhunter]

Angus_NB wrote:
There was a post in this thread similar to yours where the generator would not start and turned over with a lot of resistance.
I believe it had something to do with a bad electrical connection with the overload circuit.
I tried searching for you but couldn't find it.

In any case, take it back to Costco and try another one.

I had stated previously that I had 2 of these 2000i's. In actuality, my Dad bought 1 and I bought 1. I had forgotten, that in addition to the problems mentioned, my dad reminded me that the first one he got went straight into overload when he started it. It never locked up though. He also bought from Costco; he exchanged it for another, and the second so far has worked fine, except for the inability to run our WFCO 8955's, when they go into boost mode.
Buyer beware, as I know for a fact that Canadian Tire, as an example, will not take back the generator after it had been run. Make sure whereever you buy has an easy return / exchange policy.

[byates]

Old & Slow wrote:
I didn't mean to change the subject from the storm post by B.Yates but I was typing at the same time, sorry. Must add, I feel for all the storm victims. Plenty of stories to come, I'm sure. Just hope none of our RV folks were hurt.

No problem, Floyd.
I am still curious how much wind velocity the RV withstood as the TS came through.

[hedge]

I put 10w30 in it as it said in the manual.

[DSchmidt_2000]

hedge wrote:
Now when I attempt to start it the cord has a lot more resistance than it did before and it doesn't start.

The inverter module has failed and is shorting the alternator phases making it really hard to turn over.

It's a dud - exchange it.

[PrivatePilot]

What kind of oil did you put in the crankcase?

[Angus_NB]

There was a post in this thread similar to yours where the generator would not start and turned over with a lot of resistance.
I believe it had something to do with a bad electrical connection with the overload circuit.
I tried searching for you but couldn't find it.

In any case, take it back to Costco and try another one.

[hedge]

Help...

I just purchased one of these tonite. I put gas and oil (400ml) in it and it fired up after a couple of pulls but then went straight into overload mode (didn't have anything plugged in). I shut if off right away. Now when I attempt to start it the cord has a lot more resistance than it did before and it doesn't start.

I got it at costco so it's likely going back unless someone knows a quick solution.

PS: is 400ml the correct amount of oil? it says 0.4L throughout the manual but when I put 400ml in it seemed like it wanted to come out the fill port. I measured exactly 400ml and turned it over to make sure there was no oil in it to begin with.

[Hybridhunter]

toprudder wrote:


My thoughts, too. However, my camper will charge from the truck as long as I have the pigtail connected, up to 40 amps. No need for jumper cables. I had to install the 40 amp fuse, though, as it did not come from the factory with that fuse installed for some reason.

Haha. Try taking a reading when charging through the 7 pin. You will be lucky to get 7 amps. Been there, done that.....

[Hybridhunter]

PrivatePilot wrote:

Hybridhunter wrote:
If you want to have 12volts / charging at the same time as you run your A/C, you could pick up an efficient 15amp speed charger. I sometimes run that off my truck's built in 400 watt inverter, so it is low amp draw, and a decent unit all around. Less than half the amp draw of a converter with a bad PF.

What you suggest is an incrediblyby lossy way of charging a 12 battery from a truck. You're taking 12v, stepping it up to 120, and then back down to 12 again, all via a method that looses a lot of it's effeciency to heat, and will only output a few amps at the end.

You'd be a LOT better served turning your truck around and hooking some booster cables between your trucks alternator and your house batteries - mere minutes will yield much better results.

You have your theory correct, but practically speaking you are incorrect as it applies to my situation. The crappy Tacoma has a "smart" power management system; for the most part, it spend little to no time around 14v. It spends some of it's time around 13.7, and most of it's time at a system voltage of 13.3. A very lousy charger indeed, toyota has set it up as a maintainer for the truck battery.
The truck will put out more than 15 amps briefly during the beginning of the charging cycle, but then it goes waay down, as the truck does not, for whatever reason, respond to the added load of the RV battery.

Here is the other part you are missing. The Schumacher puts out a relatively steady 15amps. **(not sure why you mentioned it will only put out a few amps, and erroneous statement for sure) It runs from 13 to 15.5v during a normal charge cycle. So what I do is run the schumacher for and hour off the truck inverter, start the truck for and hour, (then and only then does the truck sense the inverter / low battery load and crank out high amps). It burns roughly 2 litres of fuel during that hour, as reported by my scangaugeII.

I have metered. tested, experimented, and tried every method of charging, as I currently run only 1 battery, and charging it effectively is key. The quickest, most reliable way of charging my 1 grp 24 deep cycle, has always been with the WFCO 8955, as it goes into boost most of the time. That was why I bought the CPE 2000i, and it failed. Now with the 1200 / 1500 watter, life is good.

But maybe you missed the point I was originally making, the schumacher will run with a input of 4 amps, and would likely run with the OP's 15K/BTU AC.

[Angus_NB]

I thought it was my place for a second.
A garage full of junk and a Black Lab with a happy tail. 🙂

Irene wasn't too bad here. Just a couple of hours of hard rain and very windy last night and today. We were only without power for a few hours.

Good luck.