Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Chilliwack Murray]

I wrote off a brand new Ford Escape rental a couple years ago on generator service trip. I sat out the storm in it and that was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard… even put a 16V71 at full load to shame.

Insurance claim said it was $28k damage, only had 178km on it.

 

[3930dave]

Baseball sized piece of ice.... (Earth) terminal-velocity @ time of impact.... lots of ergs there......

Can't really imagine how loud that would have been... just thinking about how loud that would be even inside a steel-roofed pole barn is almost painful.

Once a vehicle roof has to go, likely doesn't take much else for a write-off....

Rgds, D

 

[nikdfish]

Added another gen to the stable. Picked up a Westinghouse igen2500 on sale ($399), 2500/2200 inverter, gas only. Just finishing the break in process with a 3 hour half load, no load run, following a couple hours of quarter load, no load & two oil changes to flush manufacturing debris.

It only holds 0.37 quarts of oil. I marked the fill point on the included oil bottle to use it as a pre measured oil change source. The tank holds 1 gallon, which provides 10 hours run time at a quarter load. < 50 lb. fueled up.

 

[90cummins]

Can’t beat the utility & efficiency of the small inverter generators. I can run the essentials during the winter with my EU 2000i.
90cummins

 

[3930dave]

Added another gen to the stable. Picked up a Westinghouse igen2500 on sale ($399), 2500/2200 inverter, gas only. Just finishing the break in process with a 3 hour half load, no load run, following a couple hours of quarter load, no load & two oil changes to flush manufacturing debris.

It only holds 0.37 quarts of oil. I marked the fill point on the included oil bottle to use it as a pre measured oil change source. The tank holds 1 gallon, which provides 10 hours run time at a quarter load. < 50 lb. fueled up.

That'll be nice for portable use, or to give your whole-house a break.....

How loud do you find it, at half-load ?

Rgds, D.

 

[daugen]

do the inverter gens have inherently lower THD?

Is there a spec we should all seek out? I remember when it was a big deal for stereo amps to say yes
we make 35 watts rms 20-20,000 hz with less than .01 THD
a good usable spec
that same amp was probably advertised at 100 watts peak power.
what should we use for residential generators?
Short of an expensive UPS, is there any means to improve rated THD?

 

[nikdfish]

Re noise: Not bad, not much increase from no-load (w/ eco mode turned off). I believe the literature puts it 'low as" 52 db. You can carry on a conversation at normal voice level while standing right beside it.

Re THD: Look for < 5% THD. At that point, you should be able to run anything without issues. The igen2500 claims < 3% THD. I don't think there are any reasonably available methods to improve THD external to the generator or through generator modification.

 

[3930dave]

Not bad, not much increase from now load (w/ eco mode turned off). I believe the literature puts it 'low as" 52 db. You can carry on a conversation at normal voice level while standing right beside it.

Back When, Honda pretty much had that market to themselves...... nice to have options @ other price points today.

Rgds, D.

 

[Patrick Herd]

Re: THD from inverter generators. They SHOULD be universally better but it depends on how well the output filtering is built.

Re: Removing THD. We can go on a rabbithole of filtering, ferro resonant transformers and other voodoo if it's not too much of a thread hijack

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Can’t beat the utility & efficiency of the small inverter generators. I can run the essentials during the winter with my EU 2000i.
90cummins

I use an EU2000i also