Off Topic - Inverter Generators

[Travelover]

What a mess the link is. Talk about moving pictures. ...........

:laughing: I agree the guy is no cinematographer, but I found it interesting to see the components as he is explaining how different devices work.

I've seen some DIY inverter generators on YouTube with a lawnmower engine, car alternator, battery and an inverter. It seems to me that if you could pair a small Honda inverter generator with a good sized deep cycle battery, you could provide good start up (surge) performance with awesome fuel economy for long term emergency power. I noticed that one of the Yamaha inverter generators takes advantage of its small starter battery to head in this direction.

 

[speedbump]

heck a car bat and a plain inverter has made it thru a few hurricanes for me, when power was out a day or less..

soundguy

Me too here in the Tampa area. 2400 watts will run two refrigerators, TV and a few lights. Then the Honda AC generator runs the pump when the tank gets low.

I'm no electronical genius, but I do know that a motor I tried to run with that DC/AC inverter did absolutely nothing when hooked up. Probably because it was a square wave inverter.

 

[Soundguy]

and / or the motor load can actually be 3x the rated run watts, thus there may have been insuficient power to start it.

soundguy

 

[thatguy]

Yup I just got a quick lesson myself on how inverters work, picked up what I thought was a good deal on a Chinese 2 kw Kipor inverter, which is a Honda clone.

Ran perfectly but would not put out 120VAC. I found a site that explained how to test them. I found it was putting high voltage out from the alternator to the inverter (300VAC as specified), but no AC out of the inverter, only low voltage DC, from the DC terminals. The test showed it was the inverter that was bad and the cost to replace the inverter is not worth it.

I sold it to a guy for parts, I only lost $25. on the deal.

JB

A few years ago when Kipor first started hitting the USA consumer market, the RV ppl had high hopes for them in replacing the costlier Honda EU series.. BUT flash forward a few years and the long term reviews for the Kipor (and other similar ones) are pretty negative - while the Honda/Yamaha units are still putting out..

Brian

 

[speedbump]

and / or the motor load can actually be 3x the rated run watts, thus there may have been insuficient power to start it.

soundguy

I'm with ya there. Pump motors sometimes as much as 5 times. The reason it ran my two fridges was that they never tried to start at the same time. To run it, I let the tractor idle in front of the house clamped to the inverter with cords running into the house.

 

[Skyco]

I have one of the Kipor 2kw invertor gens....so far so good, I got a great deal on it at Pep Boys on a closeout with a rebate, IIRC I only have around $200 in it, they were sold under the AllPower name, but has Kipor markings on it.
If it ever dies it will probably get replaced with the Honda EU2000 though...I have an EU3000 also, great unit but heavy.
BTW I also have a 600 watt Honda I bought probably 30 years ago...all metal and very heavy though small. It has a reed meter on the front to set the frequency, either 50 or 60 Hz, via knob attached to the carb.