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Honda generators

Z

zxcvbob

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
(The Yamaha 2400 is an honest 2000W inverter and
it's rated 6000W for 3 seconds. I like that. It also weighs a lot
more; not sure if it can be shipped UPS Ground.)

I may have the Yamaha 2400i and 2800i models mixed up re: that 6000W thing.

I've done some searching and there are places that will ship them for
reasonable shipping costs (like free), and they are both convertible to
NG/LPG. They cost about the same, weigh about the same, but the 2800 is
about 10 dB louder (that's a big difference.)

I wonder if I could run it *inside* my detached garage to keep it out of
the weather and keep it from "walking off", and use some kind of powered
exhaust vent...

Bob
 
B

Boden

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
I may have the Yamaha 2400i and 2800i models mixed up re: that 6000W thing.

I've done some searching and there are places that will ship them for
reasonable shipping costs (like free), and they are both convertible to
NG/LPG. They cost about the same, weigh about the same, but the 2800 is
about 10 dB louder (that's a big difference.)

I wonder if I could run it *inside* my detached garage to keep it out of
the weather and keep it from "walking off", and use some kind of powered
exhaust vent...

Bob
No!
 
P

(PeteCresswell)

Jan 1, 1970
0
Per zxcvbob:
I wonder if I could run it *inside* my detached garage to keep it out of
the weather and keep it from "walking off", and use some kind of powered
exhaust vent...

How detached is "detached".

I'd be worried to the fringes of paranoia about carbon monoxide.

As far as the gennie goes, I've run mine in my garden shed (about
75' from the house) with no problems. OTOH, a garage is a lot
nicer/cleaner environment to begin with and smell/exhaust fumes
settling on things might be an issue. But as far as the
generator being able to breathe goes, the garden shed seems tb
ok. Roof line vent, couple jalousie windows, about 6 x 10 feet
floor space.
 
Z

zxcvbob

Jan 1, 1970
0
(PeteCresswell) said:
Per zxcvbob:

How detached is "detached".

I'd be worried to the fringes of paranoia about carbon monoxide.

As far as the gennie goes, I've run mine in my garden shed (about
75' from the house) with no problems. OTOH, a garage is a lot
nicer/cleaner environment to begin with and smell/exhaust fumes
settling on things might be an issue. But as far as the
generator being able to breathe goes, the garden shed seems tb
ok. Roof line vent, couple jalousie windows, about 6 x 10 feet
floor space.


IIRC it's about 20 x 25 feet, with a high "ceiling" and open rafters.
Couple of small windows in the back, and a double garage door that could
be left cracked open an inch. It's about 20' from the house.

I use an unvented forced-air [kerosene] heater in there sometimes with
no problems. I would probably add a 1600 cfm electric gable vent at the
back, but that would be really handy anyway in the summer.

Bob
 
B

bw

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
IIRC it's about 20 x 25 feet, with a high "ceiling" and open rafters.
Couple of small windows in the back, and a double garage door that could
be left cracked open an inch. It's about 20' from the house.

I use an unvented forced-air [kerosene] heater in there sometimes with no
problems. I would probably add a 1600 cfm electric gable vent at the
back, but that would be really handy anyway in the summer.

Bob

Don't do it. The old Maytag washing machine engines had a metal hose to
direct the exhaust outside. Similar to how dryers exhaust through a duct. In
winter auto garages would test engines with a hose over the exhast pipe and
directed outside through a port.
 
E

Erma1ina

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
I almost bought a Honda EU2000i generator at the state fair 2 years ago
(best price I'd seen) but I passed on it, mostly because I'd taken the
bus to the fair and didn't want to wag the thing home on a bus.

Anyway, I'm getting interested in them again, and might buy one after
hurricane season is over and before winter (ice storm season) sets in.
But nobody lists their prices online. Is that a Honda thing? What is
the street price of a EU2000i -- ignoring the current Hurricane Ike
situation. Know any good dealers?

I also can't find any specs on expected engine life of the little
Hondas. I know some of the really cheap 5000W generators are only rated
about 500 hours, and you could burn that up in a month during an
extended power outage.

I also can't find any small 1800 rpm diesel generators that might be a
contender. There /are/ small diesels (Yanmar and Chinese knockoffs) but
they all operate at 3600 rpm, which should have most of the durability
problems of 3600 rpm gasoline engines.

Thanks,
Bob

Hi, Bob. I'm a real fan of the Honda EU2000i. In a couple of earlier
threads I posted stuff about my experiences with it. Rather than repeat,
here are the links to three of those posts:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.home.repair/msg/89eaab218c37adac

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.home.repair/msg/112fb99d397f47b3

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.home.repair/msg/b61e11de67a6b740

As far as pricing goes, I found a good price at a local Honda dealer. If
you go to the Honda website, you can find what dealers sell/service
generators. Here's the link to that

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/dealerlocator/

Good luck.
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
I almost bought a Honda EU2000i generator at the state fair 2 years ago
(best price I'd seen) but I passed on it, mostly because I'd taken the
bus to the fair and didn't want to wag the thing home on a bus.

Anyway, I'm getting interested in them again, and might buy one after
hurricane season is over and before winter (ice storm season) sets in.
But nobody lists their prices online. Is that a Honda thing? What is
the street price of a EU2000i -- ignoring the current Hurricane Ike
situation. Know any good dealers?

Honda will supposedly yank their distributorship if they list prices lower
than retail. Last time I looked they were going for about $900.
I also can't find any specs on expected engine life of the little
Hondas. I know some of the really cheap 5000W generators are only rated
about 500 hours, and you could burn that up in a month during an
extended power outage.

I had one eu2000 last about 12,000 hours and the second one lasted about
7500 hours. They both were running about 1/3 throttle most of the time.
Instead of buying another one (got kinda pissed off at Honda) I bit my
tongue and bought a cheap Chinese 2000 watt genny from Pep Boys for less
than $200. It's not as quiet and portable as the eu2000 but it has over
2700 hours on it and still runs great and has more power than the eu2000.
Not so good for microwaves and such but works fine for most things.

I also have a 5000 watt genny powered by a Honda GX engine and at around 600
hours the ignition coil went out ($45 generic) and at about 2000 hours the
exhaust valve broke and punched the piston. That cost about $65 for parts.
Also, the muffler holes stripped out and I had to re-tap them and use bigger
screws. Oh yea, right after I replaced the piston and valve the governor
gear wore out and that required splitting the case again. That part was
only about $15. Given all that the engine is fine now and I use it
reguarly.
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
The refrigerator doesn't run all the time, it cycles on/off. And I
/might/ not have to run the A/C. Even running a few hundred fewer RPM's
for half the runtime has got to be easier on the engine. I expect it
will be running less than 1000W most of the time, but I wonder if it has
enough surge capacity (The Yamaha 2400 is an honest 2000W inverter and
it's rated 6000W for 3 seconds. I like that. It also weighs a lot
more; not sure if it can be shipped UPS Ground.)

I once ran a 24 cu/ft side-by-side refrigerator for about 13 hours with one
tank (one gallon) of gas with an eu2000.

If you need something just a little bigger Yamaha has (or had) an inverter
generator around 2700 or 2800 watts which might deserve a close look.
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
zxcvbob said:
I may have the Yamaha 2400i and 2800i models mixed up re: that 6000W thing.

I've done some searching and there are places that will ship them for
reasonable shipping costs (like free), and they are both convertible to
NG/LPG. They cost about the same, weigh about the same, but the 2800 is
about 10 dB louder (that's a big difference.)

I wonder if I could run it *inside* my detached garage to keep it out of
the weather and keep it from "walking off", and use some kind of powered
exhaust vent...

I have a rather roomy 3-car detached garage and I regularly run a 5000 watt
genny in there with no additional ventilation other than opening the two big
doors a foot or so, opening the small door and the window opposite the door.
If I have any brain damage from exhaust fumes I can't tell.
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
Neon John said:
IIRC it's about 20 x 25 feet, with a high "ceiling" and open rafters.
Couple of small windows in the back, and a double garage door that could
be left cracked open an inch. It's about 20' from the house.

I use an unvented forced-air [kerosene] heater in there sometimes with
no problems. I would probably add a 1600 cfm electric gable vent at the
back, but that would be really handy anyway in the summer.

Bob

Power failures up here in the mountains are practically a weekly affair so my
generators get quite a workout. I roll my big one (either 5.5 kW Generac
Quiet Pack or 10kW homemade diesel, depending on which fuel is the least cost
at the moment) out 50 ft away from my cabin and I STILL get CO build-up in the
cabin when the outside air is still.

I use a NightHawk CO detector, the rectangular one with the digital readout.
It only takes a couple of hours sometimes to register >50 ppm in the cabin. I
have a whole-house fan that I can run periodically to clear the air (windows
on the other end of the cabin open) but that's a pain, especially in hot
weather.

I'm going to have to do something to address this problem, as I can't go to
sleep with the generator running for fear the house will load up with CO and I
won't wake up. I'll probably make a vertical stack taller than my cabin that
connects to the generator's exhaust.

I'd be VERY wary of running a generator inside any type of closed building
absent the exhaust being plumbed outside and verified air-tight. I'd much
rather roll the genny away from the house and sling a chain around it and a
tree if you're afraid of it growing legs.

I never run my generator inside my garage when I'm asleep. But I'm
completely off-grid so I only use my generator to charge my batteries and
run everything from inverters. One OutBack 3600 watt inverter will run a
lot of stuff and doesn't cost all THAT much $$$. Add their X240
autotransformer and you can run a well pump or other 240 volt loads. They
have all kinds of settings and controls so you can autostart a genny when
the batteries are low and set it to not come on during the "quiet time."
 
V

Vaughn Simon

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ulysses said:
I had one eu2000 last about 12,000 hours and the second one lasted about
7500 hours. They both were running about 1/3 throttle most of the time.
Instead of buying another one (got kinda pissed off at Honda) I bit my
tongue and bought a cheap Chinese 2000 watt genny from Pep Boys for less
than $200.

I wonder how long that Chinese generator would run that same side-by-side
refrigerator on a gallon of gas? I am guessing it would only be a fraction of
the 13 hours you got from the EU2000? When you are talking thousands of hours
on $4.00 gas, I wonder if you still wouldn't be better off with an inverter
generator in the long run.

On the other hand, if you are now normally using your generator at 80%
capacity to charge your batteries, that is a whole different deal.

Vaughn
 
S

Stormin Mormon

Jan 1, 1970
0
I agree. However, if you want to provide 1,000 watts for a couple hours, it
is good to know about the cheaper ETQ.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..



Stormin Mormon said:
I can get several ETQ brand generators for that money.

Apples and oranges. I could have bought several tents for the price of
my
home.

Vaughn
 
S

Stormin Mormon

Jan 1, 1970
0
and junkers like ETQ maybe 200 hours. But, for me, that's plenty. More than
I'm likely to need.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..



That 15000 hours is more likely with a slow diesel or a water cooled gas
engine. I'd venture to say the Honda is more realistically rated at 2 to
3 thousand hours maximum, as compared to Briggs and Stratton's 500 hundred.




mike
 
S

Stormin Mormon

Jan 1, 1970
0
Two thousand, seven hundred hours off a Chinky generator? What kind of motor
oil do you use? And how often you do oil changes?

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..



I bit my
tongue and bought a cheap Chinese 2000 watt genny from Pep Boys for less
than $200. It's not as quiet and portable as the eu2000 but it has over
2700 hours on it and still runs great and has more power than the eu2000.
Not so good for microwaves and such but works fine for most things.

I also have a 5000 watt genny powered by a Honda GX engine and at around 600
hours the ignition coil went out ($45 generic) and at about 2000 hours the
exhaust valve broke and punched the piston. That cost about $65 for parts.
Also, the muffler holes stripped out and I had to re-tap them and use bigger
screws. Oh yea, right after I replaced the piston and valve the governor
gear wore out and that required splitting the case again. That part was
only about $15. Given all that the engine is fine now and I use it
reguarly.
 
M

m II

Jan 1, 1970
0
ransley said:
Ive had B&S worthless at 400, he meant 500 hours.


Yes..I did. What's depressing is that I had plenty of practice using
single digits when posting the 2 or 3 thousand hour figures. Not only am
I getting senile, but blind too. I see no sig separator markings
anywhere in my response.



Sig separator follows:

--
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
/ /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /
/ /\ \/ /\ \/This space for rent/\ \/ /\ \/ /
/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/

Densa International©
For the OTHER two percent.

'Think tanks cleaned cheap'


Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage,
I block all postings with a Gmail, Google Mail,
Google Groups or HOTMAIL address.
I also filter everything from a .cn server.


For solutions which may work for you, please check:
http://improve-usenet.org/
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
Stormin Mormon said:
Two thousand, seven hundred hours off a Chinky generator? What kind of motor
oil do you use? And how often you do oil changes?

Well, I *was* using Valvoline 10W30 exclusively until oil got up to about
$36 a case and now I use whatever is on sale and comes with a rebate as long
as it has the name of a major oil company on the label (or Valvoline when I
can get a good deal). The manual recommends oil changes every 50 hours but
I stretch it to about 70.
 
U

Ulysses

Jan 1, 1970
0
Vaughn Simon said:
I wonder how long that Chinese generator would run that same side-by-side
refrigerator on a gallon of gas? I am guessing it would only be a fraction of
the 13 hours you got from the EU2000? When you are talking thousands of hours
on $4.00 gas, I wonder if you still wouldn't be better off with an inverter
generator in the long run.

If you are only running the refrigerator then the inverter genny would
certainly use a lot less gas. I'm guessing the Cheap Chinese 2000 watt unit
would only run a few hours on one gallon. Six of one and a half dozen of
the other. Personally I use the genny mainly for battery charging via an
OutBack inverter so it would be running full speed most of the time. I
figured at around 2500 hours (or something like that) the Chinese beat the
Japanese as far as value per dollar spent to buy the thing goes. Once the
cylinider and rings are worn out I suspect the Chinese engine can be rebuilt
IF I can find the parts. It has an OHV engine that looks exactly like the
Honda GX engine as far as the diagrams are concerned and I would not be
surprised if Honda parts didn't fit right in there. I have not taken apart
any of my Chinese engines yet so I don't know if the quality is there and I
will say that the insides of Honda GX engines look like they were built to
last.

I have an electric chain saw so I need to haul a small generator to my
wood-cutting site and an eu2000 is a lot more portable than my UST GG2300
but it's not all that much trouble to put it in the back of a pickup. At
least it's not worth the other $700 to me for what I'm doing. I have a
worn-out eu2000 and if they ever make a replacement engine available for a
reasonable amount I'll consider fixing it as they are very good generators
and extremely quiet. But then the GG2300 is not particularly loud.
 
S

Stormin Mormon

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thanks for the field report. My last truck had a piston rod knock. Castrol
was the only brand that quieted the knock for more than two days. So, now, I
favor Castrol.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..



Stormin Mormon said:
Two thousand, seven hundred hours off a Chinky generator? What kind of motor
oil do you use? And how often you do oil changes?

Well, I *was* using Valvoline 10W30 exclusively until oil got up to about
$36 a case and now I use whatever is on sale and comes with a rebate as long
as it has the name of a major oil company on the label (or Valvoline when I
can get a good deal). The manual recommends oil changes every 50 hours but
I stretch it to about 70.
 
Z

zxcvbob

Jan 1, 1970
0
Stormin said:
I agree. However, if you want to provide 1,000 watts for a couple hours, it
is good to know about the cheaper ETQ.


I'm leaning towards the Yamaha 2400i. 25% more capacity than the Honda,
and a lot quieter than the Yamaha 2800i (the 2800i seems like the best
deal if you don't mind the extra 10dB noise, which is still relatively
quiet for a small genset.) I like that the Yamahas have a petcock on
the fuel line, and they are convertible to NP, and while they are a lot
heavier than the Honda they are still luggable by one person (the extra
weight might be a *good* thing -- means a preteen girl is not likely to
steal it ;-) )

I'm the original titewad, but this should be one of those lifetime
purchases.

I can't find a dealer locally (maybe Cabela's, 40 miles away, I haven't
called them) so I guess I'll have to order one online.


Thanks guys,
Bob
 
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