Honda and Brigs and Stratton generators?

[batema]

I went to the Camping and Caravan Show in Brisbane yesterday and spoke to dealers of these petrol operated generators. They told me that the sine ccurve produced by these generators in probably better than the one coming out of my power points at home and that I can operate things like laptops and electronic devices no problems. I have always wanted a source of power so I could run my imaging gear (laptop, EQ6 Pro mount, QHY-9 camera) if I ended up at a super dark site. Is what they say true and could I use these quiet generators without damaging my equipment.

Mark

[DavidTrap]

I've heard that claim made many times by people about the Honda INVERTER generators. I think someone on IIS posted that they had put an oscilloscope on one and confirmed the claim.

DT

[Waxing_Gibbous]

We have a 4.5kilo-something Honda inverter generator as a back-up power source. I've never stuck an osicilliwhatsits on it but the power delivery IS much better than our two-phase from the mains.
With the genny running the lights don't dim when you turn on the kettle and the clothes dryer has a lovely constant motion.

[Barrykgerdes]

The Honda generators are very quiet. and produce clean regulated 230/40 v A/C. Check the published noise levels under 55db is quiet enough for most operators and if you put it 20 metres away behind a sound deadner shield you probably won't hear it above normal talking level. The smaller 1KVA will run all night on 3 or 4 litres of fuel.

I use a 2.5KVA Chinese generator (60db) in a sound deadner enclosure. I personally can't hear it past 15 metres. (I need to go to it to make sure it is still running). It cost about 1/3 of the Honda gens. Has an electric start and remote control. It runs 3 or more laptops, G11, QHY10 CCD and cooler, Dewshield, TV, caravan etc and even the toaster when I want a snack. It runs all night on about 8 litres of fuel on full load. I would never go back to batteries!

Barry

[BPO]

What Barry said.

There is a mix of Honda and inexpensive Chinese-made gensets in use at my site. So far (knock on rock...) the Chinese models have yet to miss a beat.* But the thing with the Honda gensets is that there's no hope involved: you know they'll do the job.

The Honda's weigh around 1/3-1/2 as much again as the equivalent capacity Chinese models, which is a testament to the quality of construction of the Hondas and the amount of materials (steel and copper) used, compared to the cheaper Chinese jobs.

But both are very quiet. (I couldn't say if the Hondas are quieter than the Chinese ones...I've never really paid that much attention.)

If you want to run hefty loads 24/7, then I would certainly recommend the Hondas, if only for the peace of mind that goes with having them. But for average usage, chances are good you'll be just as well off with the Chinese models (which are cloned Hondas, truth be told) and saving a lot of cash into the bargain.

Still, for whatever purpose, if you can afford the Honda, buy the Honda.

Oh, and I saw an American engineering report or survey a couple of years ago that rated Tecumseh, B&S and Honda motors against each other. The Hondas won hands-down, by miles. The B&S never even came close, and the Tecumseh were even further back still. Both the Tecumseh and B&S motors copped a lot of criticism from every American engineer in the report, who all unanimously recommended the Hondas.

*Edit: We did have to replace a dead Chinese-made sparkplug and a crumbling fuel hose on one Chinese-made genset. That was five or more years ago and no problems since.

[marki]

Hi Mark

I use one of the little red honda gensets (Eu10i 1Kva) and its a ripper. No problems with laptops, cameras, FW or any other sensitive equipment that I have hooked up to it. I run everything through a science lab power supply and only the laptop charger and power supply are plugged directly in the 240V output. Its very small (450mm x 240mm x 380mm) and very light (13kg) so no problems there either. They have an outlet to charge 12V batteries (12V @ 8A) and can be linked to other honda generators to double output if needed. The best thing is they have an eco mode which controls the revs to suit the load. With my laptop, mount, camera, FW, and heaters drawing power the motor never gets much above idle so it will run for 8 hours on a tank of juice (2L). It is very very quiet (52db). To test this I put it in my enclosed carport (with the roller door open) hooked everything up then stood right next to the exhaust and had a conversation with a mate. We never had to raise our voices. They are expensive but well worth it.

Mark

[batema]

Thank you all.

[Hagar]

I have no doubts the new honda or even the chineese copies will do the job quite adequately.

Claims that they produce better quality power than the mains, though, has to be a questionable claim. It is all dependant on the rating of the generator, its loading against maximum load and the rotating mass of the generator.

When the loading of a small generator nears the full rated load of the generator it can not possibly handle even a small surge or load increase as well as the mains system which has thousands of kilometers of overhead head cable and thousands of tons of rotating mass designed around supplying energy at a frequency that is very very stable and held within very tight tollerances.

If your home is at the end of a single conductor supply then some load fluctuations and deviation from stated levels is to be expected but your average domestic supply in a metro area will always be quite stable.

Believe it or not.

[Barrykgerdes]

The cleanslines of the AC waveform from the mains or an inverter type generator has more to do with the local environment than the actual supply.

A rotating alternator will produce a pure sine wave AC voltage. If it it drives a purely resistive load there should be no harmonics generated.

The mains is supplied through long cables (inductance and capacitance) so switching transients can be produced depending on load changing and are largely unpredictable.

The inverter type generator rectifies the AC to drive a switching type power converter (inverter) with feed back (to control the output voltage). This generates a wide spectrum of interference at harmonics of the switching frequency. However the output is passed through a narrow band filter that removes most of the interference.

This output will normally look quite "clean" on an oscilloscope but will probably still have a fair amount of harmonic content if examined on more sensitive equipment.

The final transient content of these generators will however also be mostly dependant on the type of load.

Barry

[Hagar]

With todays power supply systems switching and harmonic transients are taken care of very easily. Capacitive and inductive transients and associated harmonics are regulated in an almost instantanious manner by high speed inductive and capacitive switched regulators spread accross the country and controlled by high speed high volume SCR's, other solid state devices and high speed mechanical switches such as Joslyne switches and by rotating synchronous condensors which add to the stability of the power system by adding further to the rotating mass adding a softening effect to any such load changes.

With the requirement of the system to hold rotating mass in reserve at all times allows for short term overload to be carried without the system shutting down. In this situation frequency may fall slightly until the reserve mass can be deployed but even in this situation reductions in frequency below the rated 50 cycles is regulated heavily to maintain frequency stability above 49.7 hz.
Not to many portables can maintain a 25% overload and maintain stability for 5 minutes or more.

We are very fortunate in Australia to have the electricity system we have which can handle a system disturbance which would shut down many such systems around the world.

[gregbradley]

Ahh generators. I have used a few.

My dark site has a weekender and an observatory which I built on it but no power connected. To connect power would cost $40,000 to add a few poles and a transformer.

I researched and then bought a Honda eu20I generator for power to run the home and the observatory.

It is light - 20kg. It runs for about 9-10 hours on a full tank (Honda website says 13 or 15 which is a lie unless the latest model has better fuel efficiency or a large tank which I doubt).

Power is very clean. It ran very well for 2 years. I was a bit slow in changing the oil but I did change it occassionally. I ran the house and my observatory on it including SBIG/FLI/Apogee cameras, Tak mount, laptops, desktops. No problems.

The only problem I ever saw was battery chargers seemed to blow their fuse often and I put it down to the generator revving up when the fridge motor kicked in causing a slight power spike. I never saw any bad effect on my observatory gear though.

One night it suddenly started blowing a lot of smoke. It had been run probably only 900 hours total time (not a lot really).

The smoke oil burning got worse. I got it checked out and it would require an engine rebuild virtually to fix.

The Honda dealer claimed it was because I did not change the oil enough. This is false. I did change the oil like 120 hours instead of 90.
Another dealer told me recently he'd seen that a few times with them and it was caused by cylinder glazing from too much time spent at idle (they tend to idle most of the time unless the fridge kicks in or you use some heavy power drain item like a power tool or a microwave).

So I can't recommend the Honda. It is clean, it is quiet (it has a cheery sounding idling motor) easy to start, easy to change the oil, compact, light, power chord broke once but then burned oil and failed after only 2 years of use 3-4 days parttime per month. Not good enough for $2200.

I switched to oil additives to reduce it and it worked a bit better. I then switched to Castrol magnatec and initially it greatly reduced the oil burning.

I recently retired it to backup only as it got worse and spark plugs were now oiling up routinely as I would tend to overfill it with oil to counter the oil burnup and it would shut itself down if oil gets too low.

I bought a Genquip 3.3 kva generator for $1995. I thought - great 3300 watts of power to run anything including an air conditioner. Its a hunk of junk and has broken down about 5 times now. Usually the pull chord snaps because the metal guide has jagged edges. Also the power is not as smooth as I would get poor TV reception on some channels only when using that generator and not from the Honda.

I recently bought a Yamaha 2.8kva generator. Its a Rolls Royce. A bit heavy at 70kgs but its electric start, very very conservatively rated at 2.8kva (the Genquip is "3.3kva" yet the Yamaha can outperform it effortlessly so the Genquip is extremely unlikely to put that much out).

The Yamaha is quiet, starts very easily, clean power, full tank lasts 20 hours. Awesome machine.

New Honda eu20is are now $1995 or less.

I would stay clear of the cheap Chinese units and not the cheaper larger rough Hondas etc meant for construction sites.

I love the Yamaha so I'd recommend the small Yamaha. To just power your astro gear you'd only need the 1.0kva models. 2kva doesn't even blink from the tiny drain from the astro gear.

To get it in perspective a 2kva generator will run a fridge, several lights, a TV, DVD, all your astro gear all at one time without breaking a sweat. Even an electric blanket.

What drains the power is anything that heats - like a microwave or an electric kettle or electric heaters. They would be too much for it.

A little Yamaha or Honda 1.0kva inverter generator would be quiet and light. You would need to refill to go all night though. And change the oil regularly and give it a break after say 10 hours of running to cool.

Greg.

[DavidTrap]

Nice overview Greg from someone who has used several different makes - although I think you might be a bit harsh on the Honda cylinder glazing over. I understand that it a problem common to all generators that run at idle for long periods.

DT

[Barrykgerdes]

As a matter of interest I bought a locally made Brayburn (I think ) generator in 1970 when we were threatened with blackouts. It is just a 1.5 KVA alternator fitted to a 5HP Briggs and Stratten engine. It used to stall if the fridge and freezer started together but I richened the mixture slightly and fixed that problem. It has been used 2 or three times a year since and I have changed the oil twice. One time it went continuoisly for 4 days following damage to overhead lines. I have a special cable that plugs all phases together after I cut the council supply and forget it till it needs petrol again.

If it does not start I clean the points (magneto) and away it goes. It still works after 40 years.

Barry

[coldspace]

I have the honda 1KVA, for 4 years great genny, light and good for things upto say .9 kw. Probally got over 300hrs on it.
Use it for camping trips and easily ran my LX200,dew heaters, 2 X laptops on eco mode.
I also have a honda 2kva, good for things upto 1.8kw but can easily run my microwave or AC unit in our caravan. It gets the most use as it is used on construction sites at work to run drills etc if no power is around. Probally got over 1000 hrs on it now.

I change the oil every 50 hrs as they only need very little oil and clean oil goes along way in keeping any engine good.

My mate has lived on his sailing boat for about 9 years, he had solar but used a 1 kva honda for fast charging batteries during the day for night time use as the solar was only good enough to do so much.
This genny was run for say 5 hrs every day approx 1 tank of fuel (2ltrs approx) or maybe 6 out of 7 days that he was on the boat. It was estimated to do 1800hrs year and it was on his boat till late last year. So it did over 14000 hrs :eyepop: in the 8 years.
He changed the oil every 50 -75 hrs or every 2 weeks and ran it on regular unleaded not premium.
It finally failed last year, well the motor still ran OK but the output dropped down till less than 300 watts at full throttle as it would struggle to run one of his 400 watt chargers.
The local genny shop said it was the longest one they had seen, the rep even rang him up and said regular oil changes and running standard unleaded is the best thing for these. He has since thrown it out and has bought a new 2kva honda and has already put over 1000 hrs on it no issues. When he runs it he alway makes sure he has the 2 X chargers and 1X engle fridge pluged into it to keep at least 30% load on it if he's not using the TV etc.

They are not tuned for high Octane fuel so its best to run them on regular unleaded with no ethanol, 95 would be OK as well but 98 will burn too slow in the compression stroke so will leed to premature wear and less power as the fuel burns slower than 91 octane this will cause the motor to slave for power when peak demand occurs. This will not happen when the lower faster burning octane is used.
All generators should be run on 91 and not higher octane as what most people believe is better. If you don't beleive me fill up you genny with 98 then plug a drill into it and stop start the drill, watch the genny rev up and down, then fill it up wih 91 do the same thing it will respond much faster and perform better.

So as you can tell we like our hondas but another tradie mate loves his Yamaha 2.8KVA and reports no issues either after many years and high hrs. Stay away from the cheapies unless you are only using them occasionaly.

[batema]

Again thank you for the informative discussion.

Mark

[marki]

Gee Greg 120 hours between oil changes ..... thats almost 2.5 X the recommended hours no wonder it broke. My Eu10i only holds 250ml of oil(the Eu20i has 400mL) and that would go through the motor quite a few times in 50 hours to become very dirty and well used. Also the 50 hours only really counts if you are using the motor frequently (e.g. daily) as oil will hydrate easily if left standing for long periods and the service interval should be even shorter then 50 hours. Hydrated oil causes all sorts of grief (gumming and glazing being a real problem). The yamaha's are also a good reliable unit just make sure you service it on time or it will meet the same end as the honda.


Mark

[dugnsuz]

This is an interesting and timely discussion (for me at least) as I'm thinking about venturing out from the safety of my backyard for imaging.

A question for those above... I would be looking to run my HEQ5 Pro mount, Cooled DSLR, dew heater and Laptop out in the field. What size generator would deal with those requirements comfortably?

??? Something like this ???
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MTM-Inverter-Generator-Silent-1-5kVA-PRO-SINEWAVE-POWER-/140520877298?pt=AU_Generators_Pumps&hash=item20b7b26cf2

Also, do these things get really hot in operation? Do you need to let them cool significantly before sticking them in the car boot?

Cheers all
Doug

[Barrykgerdes]

That will supply enough power for what you want. However it is a Chinese Honda clone and all the previous info on these items is relevant. Particularly maintenance.

Barry

[gregbradley]

You may be right David. The Hondas generally have a good reputation although this Honda rep was honest and told me about the oil burning issue that sometimes comes up.



I certainly learnt my lesson and change the oil frequently with my gear now. Changing the oil on the Honda was particularly easy. The Chinese one is very hard.

I got an oil removal pump for the Yamaha to make it easy as well.

I am not sure about the oil changing interval in the manual for the Honda but I am pretty sure it was longer than 50 hours. It was either 90 or 60 hours - I think 90. For the Yamaha is it is 100. It was also very windy that year and perhaps a bit of dust got in it? Perhaps some dud petrol from the local supplier (one lot just before the problem did seem a different colour to usual).

I just really doubt that 30 extra hours on the oil was the cause. It was some other failure. Hondas are not that precious usually. It was well looked after overall.

At $399 you can get 5 for the same price as one Honda eu20i.
Its kind of seductive but you most likely will find you get what you pay for. Try googling for reviews of that particular gennie?

Greg.

[dugnsuz]

Thanks all

[beren]

Good thread :) been tempted for a while to buy a portable genie.......noticed Honda have a $300 cashback on the EU20i until August making it around $1799 {some places like Generator place are offering extras as well} and the Yamaha 2.4kv down to $2100.

[gregbradley]

$1799 for an EU20i would be tempting. When I got mine it was $2400 with a factory cashback (they make you jump though hoops to get it and it takes 3-4 months). Also I think there is an error on the Honda website. It says the 20i will do something like 13 hours on a full tank.
This is false. Unless they have enlarged the fuel tank which I doubt as its the same body which is jam packed it runs for about 8 hours or less once run in fully on a full tank of regular unleaded. So that means usually you have to top it up to have it last through the night if you start it up at dusk or just before for astrophotography.

I am finding the 2.8kva rating on my Yamaha to be very very conservative as a 3.3 kva Chinese generator would be revving hard to handle a little 1000W A/C unit whereas the Yamaha virtually idles under the same load.

Greg.