Bunnings $400 'sine wave' generator

[Analog6 (Odille)]

I too have had excellent service at Bunnings and always found the staff very helpful. Courtesy (as a customer) costs nothing and i would rather smile and get one back than kick someone.

On the Aldi front, I've had exceptionally good stuff from Aldi and they are advertising this generator in their camping specials - clearly it is designed for camping use, ie, intermittent usage for short periods of time. If you wanted a full time gennie I imagine you'd have to pay much bigger $$$

[Brundah1 (David)]

G'day Odille,

Yes Aldian's Cave has some fantastic specials at times - you have to make a personal assessment of the individual item build & functional quality.

I'm just a bit circumspect about spares support after the 12 month warranty on these Chinese generators - wherever you buy them.

These inverter generators all have very small 4 stroke engines and running them for hours at even 75% rated load will have the engine components at very high temps beyond the oil specs. This will result in premature internal engine wear = very short life in hours of operation.

Use premium oils and change oil every year, don't just top it up!

So the answer is firstly choose a generator with a normal load rating (not maximum) in Kilowatts well above your expected maximum load.
Dew heaters, Camera TECs and Laptops account for the majority of our imaging peak loads.

Secondly ensure the fuel tank holds enough fuel for the maximum endurance you will need - say 5 -6 hours imaging. These little units get very hot, so should be cooled for 20 mins before refuelling.

Another backup / protection option would be to include a small UPS in the power circuit for the mount & camera power supply/s. A laptop battery provides its own backup. here is a suitable example:
http://www.cyberpower-eu.com/product...500eavrlcd.htm

BTW I do prefer to use 13.8VDC power supplies for mounts and cameras. Another reason for choosing a quiet inverter portable generator over 12V batteries of all types.

David

[multiweb (Marc)]

$340.00 sounds too good to be true. Do they really work as advertised? I mean the cheapest Honda is in the $1k ball park right?

[Terry B]

I'm not usually one for posting warnings about potential scams but I had a
close call on Sunday. I walked into Bunning's at lunchtime and some old
guy dressed in a red shirt with a green apron on asked me if I wanted
decking.

Fortunately, I got the first punch in and sorted him out. Those less
suspecting might not be so lucky.........
Letting you know because I care!!



PS: I shop at Bunning regularly and find them very helpful.

[Brundah1 (David)]

G'day Marc,

Yes reason for my post, let the buyer beware!

These are Asian knock-offs based on H$$da technology!

The Aldian Cave one has a 50cc four stroke engine. This is enclosed with supposedly forced air cooling. The price is good, so I went surfing and found one that I consider more likely to endure our typical imaging loads without clapping out prematurely.

The one I mentioned would be of similar design and quality, but IMHO if you only apply light loads and change the oil reqularly it should give a reasonable service life - not Japanese service life though.

There are many outlets selling these 1.5KA and larger inverter generators. However GO bigger and the weight piles on like a Sumo.

Hopefully a parts source will find its way onto fleabay soon as every bush camper will have one.

So a 1.5KVA 18Kgs for $390 delivered you get one for our typical load that should not have to rev its guts out and will run for at least 5 hours on a tank of fuel.

I intend to put money on one.

David

[marki]

I guess these cheap gensets might be okay to drive your mount and cameras if you used a lab power supply between them to take up the slack if the circuitry failed but I would not be plugging my laptop into one. My 1kva honda runs at idle in eco mode whilst driving mount, cooled cameras, FW, dew heaters, laptop etc etc so the draw for AP is quite low and I imagine the cheapies would be well capable of delivering the required output. I do not trust the electronics to keep the power clean enough not to damage sensitive equipment. The price difference cannot be based on greed alone.

Mark

[DavidTrap (David)]

My hunch is it comes down to design life.

I heard a tale about whipper snippers. Their "design life" is 30hrs. Your average Joe with a few edges to tidy up probably uses their whipper snipper 2 out of 3 weekends over summer and hardly at all during winter, for 10-15 mins at a stretch - ie 20 times x 10-15mins ~ 3-4hrs use per year. At that rate, it can be reasonably expected to last 7-10yrs. When it finally dies, you think - brand "X" lasted me that long, I'll buy another.

These "clone" generator are probably the same as that. They'll cope with intermittent use, but if you want something for frequent use you buy the Honda - just like you'd buy a commercial whipper snipper if you were a mower man.

I also agree that I'd feel better about using the Honda with electronics. I haven't any science to back that up, but would be interested to see an oscilloscope assessment of Hondas vs the clones if anyone is so inclined.

DT

[gregbradley]

1 kva would be heaps for astro work.

These cheap Chinese gennies work for astro stuff. They are not as clean power as a Honda nor as reliable.

I have had 3 gennies - a Honda 20iu, a Chinese Genquip 3300 and a Yamaha 2.8kva.

The Chinese gennie is supposed to be 3.3kva yet the Yamaha appears to generate almost twice as much power.

The Genquip breaks down on a regular basis - usually the pull chord snaps and you can't start it.

When running the TV on the Genquip I can't get one TV station due to interference from the Gennie. I found that out by accident after getting the TV station when using the Yamaha or Honda.

My Honda 20iu starting buring oil and blowing smoke way to early in its life. A Honda dealer told me sometimes if they are just idling all the time (which it does even under moderate loads) the cylinder becomes glazed.

Anyway, either the Honda was faulty, I got some bad fuel, or I got some dusty windy weather which worked its way in. Not sure.

The Honda 20iu is quiet, light, easy to start, reliable and clean power. A full tank runs about 8 hours so you can image all night. The 10iu runs for less so you'd need to refuel sometime during the night. Same with this Chinese one linked. It appears to have a 4 hour or so run time on a full tank. So keep that in mind. Filling a gennie up with petrol at 3am may not be your personal idea of fun!

The Yamaha is the Rolls Royce here. Its heavy, but it has wheels, electric start (starts first go) runs 22 hours on a full tank, has oodles of clean power (I run a house on it plus my observatory at my dark site).
But it has a high price tag. Its really easy to change the oil on the Honda.

I'd go the Honda 10iu if I were wanting to travel for imaging and camping but my guess is the little Chinese unit would work fine but it may break on your occassionally. I would check the pull chord metal guide for sharp
unmachined edges. I'd also get a couple of spare pull chords and keep a little tool kit with it in case you had to do a field repair.

I agree about frequent oil changes (that's true for any brand though) and I would pull the chord very carefully, not too hard and try to pull it straight and not an angle where it will rub on the guide. Treat it very gently.
But for $349 that is how much a decent 300amp hour deep cycle battery costs so that is a really low price and it could be a good unit.

One last thing, my Genquip made it hard to change the oil. You probably need an oil remover suction pump. And you may end up spilling oil in it which then leaks out. So if you are putting it in the back of your car it may end up being quite dirty so it would pay to see how hard it would be to change the oil and getting one of those manual oil suction pumps to take oil out of the engine. They are about $30 or less.

The Honda has a little drain channel so you take off the oil lid and lean the generator over and the oil spills out onto this little channel and its not hard to put a tray under that to catch the dirty oil. Very clever.

Greg.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

My hunch is it comes down to design life.

I heard a tale about whipper snippers. Their "design life" is 30hrs. Your average Joe with a few edges to tidy up probably uses their whipper snipper 2 out of 3 weekends over summer and hardly at all during winter, for 10-15 mins at a stretch - ie 20 times x 10-15mins ~ 3-4hrs use per year. At that rate, it can be reasonably expected to last 7-10yrs. When it finally dies, you think - brand "X" lasted me that long, I'll buy another.

These "clone" generator are probably the same as that. They'll cope with intermittent use, but if you want something for frequent use you buy the Honda - just like you'd buy a commercial whipper snipper if you were a mower man.

I also agree that I'd feel better about using the Honda with electronics. I haven't any science to back that up, but would be interested to see an oscilloscope assessment of Hondas vs the clones if anyone is so inclined.

DT

The degree of life is directly proportential to your oil change interval with these chinese generatorator, somewhere around 40hrs usage between changes.

We have one running up at Wiruna and goes for about 15-20hrs each new moon weekend, each month, 6-8hrs a day straight. We use it to top up the house batteries and provide setup load at night. It has been doing this for 18months. The first one we had lasted 8 months as we didnt take care with oil. Still though $1200 for over two years work (2 units $600 each) is going well.

Time for another oil change!

[DavidTrap (David)]

It's also things like bushes vs bearings.

DT

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

It's also things like bushes vs bearings.

DT

The other one as well is physical environment.

Run them on a flat clean surface. Dont run them directly on soft dirt or grass.

I made a small plate out of wood, that raises it about 4cm above the ground so it gets cleaner air.

[Brundah1 (David)]

Trevor & Greg,

All good experienced based advice, good quality oil (but don't rely on price to determine quality - check the spec - most of these small four strokes require SAE 30, or non-friction modified multi-grade - ask you local mower repairer).

Its true long periods at idle can lead to glazed bores, friction modified oils for these small engines just accelerate the glazing process.

I made the original post to warn the unsuspecting, the Aldi small 1KVA type may work for astro, but most people will also use it for camping and that's when overheating and overloading will occur.

I strongly favor having a unit that will deliver 100% more KWs (ignore the KVAs rating), than the specified constant load KW rating you estimate you require. I consider the 1.5KVA units (1KW) for an extra $50 a better investment for astro & camping. (Beware some manufacturers overstate their ratings - no that wouldn't happen !)

Just like David Trap said, the small engine equipment usually fails early due poor maintenance, overloading, excess idling, or dust ingestion. If you have hard work spend the money on Stihl or Honda.

That being said I understand in recent years Honda has moved its small engine production to China (?).

Not quite on subject - during my 40 years in engineering my employer had many 90KVA Detriot diesel generators most purchased between 1959 and early 1960s, 50 years on, good maintenance practices sees many of these still in use on a daily basis - of course they have been overhaulled! Every 10 -15 years!!

David