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

[JConatser]

MrRchitty wrote:
... That ventilation fan is designed to slowly ramp up to prevent high surges so that we can power it under different situations, avoiding unnecessary overload conditions.
...

Just wondering... any idea how much that fan costs relative to a similar fan without that ramp-up capability?

[MrRchitty]

Old & Slow wrote:


Randall,

Maybe with the new 'Kill-a-Watt P3' meter, you could give us some idea of the pf on the large fan motor used in your demo video. The Champion 2000i red overload light came on at 11 amps. The Honda 2000i was different. My 10a saw shows the pf to be 1 ~~ thanks in advance.


~

Floyd, I haven't forgotten about you. I am still recovering from bone fractures. I am doing very well, though. The clamp meter indicated approx. 14.4 amps when the Little Champ went into overload. Which makes sense cause we went over the rated capacity. The Honda is a little forgiving. At about 400 bucks more, though. I will put the fan on the "Kill-a-Volt" thingy and let you know. That ventilation fan is designed to slowly ramp up to prevent high surges so that we can power it under different situations, avoiding unnecessary overload conditions.

Randall

PS. Beautiful weekend here at the camper. With shore power....

[Old___Slow]

I guess the smart Changers are not designed for the smaller inverter generators. If your batteries are really in need of charging, it seems the smart chargers go right into the work they are designed to do. Charge a battery. Sometimes called bulk charging. Looking back on the previous posts that show what the Champion 2000i will do in handling loads, this is what I see. Any load must be added 'slowly' or lights start flashing or shut down. If you were to throw a switch on 19 100w light bulbs, what would happen? The 'immediate' 1900w demand is apparent. Inrush?? Somewhat like starting a motor or A/C, or maybe the C/C with no time delay. And more and more posts state, the Inverter gens have little or no quick start peak above rated max output, does adding 150 ms to the Champion 2000i module really do the trick of added time delay, to get most loads going?

[Hybridhunter]

PatM wrote:
I'm 98% sold on getting the CPE2000i but I'm wondering if my WFCO 35amp converter would also be tripping out the genny due to battery charging? I only see the 55amp version of my converter mentioned and don't know if the 55amp actually delivers more amps to the battery than the 35 or if it delivers more amps on total to battery and accessories.

.....

The 55 Amp is over 50% more than the 35 amp. It really only delivers more current when either of the following occur...
-Very depleted single deep cycle battery
-Low single battery with many 12 accessories(lights / fans, etc) running
-Dual 12c deep cycle batteries somewhat depleted, <60 SOC (state of charge)

For your scenario, you should have no problems, the CPE 2000i runs my converter in all but the highest ranges of the converters abilities.

[Five_Nine]

Pat, my buddy has a 45 amp converter charging two trojan T105's and his Champion 2000i works great, so you should be fine.

[MrWizard]

I think you will be okay,
Unless you are in the habit of letting the battery go dead before recharging, even then it should work as long as there are no other loads
Just let it warm up for 2 minutes, with econ off, and be sure to leave econ off while connecting power cord,

After connecting you can attempt switching to econ mode
From all the posts it would seem that engine speed ramp up response is NOT fast enough for sudden inductive loads,

[PatM]

I'm 98% sold on getting the CPE2000i but I'm wondering if my WFCO 35amp converter would also be tripping out the genny due to battery charging? I only see the 55amp version of my converter mentioned and don't know if the 55amp actually delivers more amps to the battery than the 35 or if it delivers more amps on total to battery and accessories.

Going to go the costo route so I can return it if needed but it'd be nice to know ahead of time and avoid an ugly scene at the first campsite.

edit: Sorry, not enough info...

What I meant was I have the 35AMP version of the WFCO converter and it's hooked to a single 12V 100AH deep cycle battery. The problems expressed earlier were by a person with a 55amp WFCO converter but I don't know how much battery capacity that was charging/how much current was being drawn. So I was wondering if anyone thought the 35AMP converter with the single battery would produce the same problems. I know I can't delivery 55 AMPs (800 or so watts) to the battery since my converter only does 35 amps BUT, I don't know what load on the 55 amp converter actually tripped the CPE2000.

[Hybridhunter]

They burp at low altitude as well, I'm at 760'ASL. There is more to it than jetting.

[Searching_Ut]

I could have played around with my little champion, and done a lot of measurement tests, but it’s all about whether or not it works that counts, so I took the unit on a road trip using it as my primary power source for a week plus. Here is how it worked for me:

As long as I take the generator out of ECO mode before plugging it in, it only tripped once from my WFCO 55 amp converter when the batteries were down to about 50 percent. Re-started gen and it worked fine the second try. I have a stand alone charger I could have used if necessary. Once the trailer is plugged in, I found that after a few seconds I can switch to ECO mode no problem.

1000 watt sunbeam microwave won’t run without tripping the generator unless I power only it off an extension cord straight from the generator. Even then, the generator is struggling, and the voltage output drops down to around 100 volts, too low for comfort so running the microwave off the little Champion isn’t an option.

The most important items, which are the wife’s hair dryer, and curling iron: I did have to find her a smaller hair dryer that only draws 1200 watts though because she kept turning the big one on high, which would trip the overload. Even with the 1200 watt unit, I have to turn off ECO mode first, as the converter is generally drawing 300 watts or so, and I’m pushing the limits and the engine tends to spool up to speed to slowly for comfort.

The engine burps approximately every 30 seconds as others have described, and the higher the altitude, the more inclined it is to bog itself down, stutter momentarily, and then speed up to recover, which is does in addition to the burping. You’ve got to love the EPA for taking away our ability to adjust carbs. Which I think would solve the bogging down difficulty as the engine appears to be running too rich.

Finally, one day I had serious difficulty getting the unit to output power. I’d start the engine with nothing plugged in, but the output light would never stop flashing even after several minutes of running. I shut it down and re-started 4 times before it started working. It worked fine the next 6 days after that.

Over all, I’d only rate the generator as 1500 watt, with virtually no surge capacity. Even at 1500 watts the engine is struggling, and the voltage tends to be quite low. The generator is reasonably quiet, but the burping makes it an annoying sound rather than a steady background drone which tends to fade from being noticed. I’ll have to contact champion to see if they have a high altitude jet for the carb, and enquire about the flashing output light.

[Old___Slow]

Well, out in my genhouse is a box full of old 250/300w PSU's. Why I haven't tossed them, God only knows. Any way, almost every MB used in the last few years required 400w's up, so thus the box of old power supplies. I looked and not one showed this new, to me, pf. Easy to see tho', more going in than coming out.

Now, my question from the novice. Could there also be a conflict between the Champion Inverter module and the Charger/Converter, other than dealing with the pf in some brands or models within the same brand? How is it the Honda/Yahama, is handling the pf of the C/C without comments?

Also in the mix are the questions with the operation of the Microwaves and the Inverters. Like the Champion 2000i and others ~??

[Wayne_Dohnal]

There are active power factor circuits that are designed into products that otherwise would have poor power factor. Wonder if something could be designed as as a generic add-on.

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=power+factor+correction+device&sourceid=opera&ie=...

Almost all the hits from this search apply to motors (inductive loads) whose current waveform is basically a sine wave out-of-phase with the voltage, and somewhat easy to correct. This unfortunately does not apply to an RV power converter, which is a "non linear" load. The current waveform for a power converter is pretty much in-phase with the voltage, but is not a sine wave. Almost all of the current is drawn during a small amount of time during the voltage peak. Correcting this isn't so simple. Here are a few links specifically about power supplies. One message is that while power factor correction reduces the power consumption in VA terms, it increases it in terms of watts.

Power factor correction in PC power supplies
SWITCH MODE DC POWER SUPPLY TUTORIAL
Power factor correction for switched mode power supplies

Here's a picture of PD9160A converter waverforms, at maximum power, current on top. IMO all of the non corrected converters will look pretty much the same.

[Old___Slow]

Are we to add this if we have a Converter/Charger with a pf of .60>66.
Now I understand why some are saying the correction is build in, in some Converters/Chargers. Where else do we as RV'ers need this add-on?

[-_dwh_-]

DSchmidt_2000 wrote:
There are active power factor circuits that are designed into products that otherwise would have poor power factor. Wonder if something could be designed as as a generic add-on.

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=power+factor+correction+device&sourceid=opera&ie=...

[DSchmidt_2000]

There are active power factor circuits that are designed into products that otherwise would have poor power factor. Wonder if something could be designed as as a generic add-on.

[Hybridhunter]

I should add I was wondering why the inverter in my Tacoma was getting all dysfunctional when I plugged in the converter, as it has in the past shown tremendous surge ability. Hence the generator purchase, as I previously would plug the converter in to the truck to charge the battery, (on our popup we had last year, worked like a charm, fuel usage <2 litres per hour, and our popup had a smaller converter).