RE: P3 reports "Overload", Primus works perfectly.
I don't have an answer to your question but the search function is working fine, and has been for a long time. Perhaps you are not using it correctly? If you need some help, send me a PM.
Barney
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7351/8770392514_2ec8938be4_b.jpg
Seems broken to me when it can't find anything matching a 2 word search.
Searches for "P3" or "overload" independently show lots of hits, but searching the two terms together is imperative to receive relevant results.
P3 reports "Overload", Primus works perfectly.
I'd search for an answer however I see the search function is still hopelessly broken. :R
My Tekonsha P3 started reporting "Overload - No brakes" this past weekend. I initially figured I had a legit issue somewhere (shorted wire or a bad magnet or something), but I took a shot in the dark and swapped in my old Tekonsha Primus and it worked flawlessly all weekend. NO issues, no loss of brakes, no overload, no blown fuses - nothing.
Plug the P3 back in and it once again reports "Overload" after one or two brake applications.
A legit issue I could understand, but I'm left wondering why the P3 has problems but the Primus seems happy as could be. Thoughts?
RE: Quick question, Honda eu1000i voltage sag w/eco switch?
The seller emailed me back last night indicating that the problem turned out to be a loose bulb in the worklight that we were using for testing purposes. I'm not entirely sure about that, as the dimming seemed very in sync to the switch between Eco and Non-Eco mode, and not once did the bulb dim at any other point in time when it was running at either high rpm in non-eco mode, or low RPM in eco mode - only at the transition between the two did it occur.
When the generator was running at high rpm and the eco-switch was turned back on, it did ramp back down to low RPM properly without any voltage drops.
I ended up looking at an EU2000i a few hours later from a different seller and ended up buying it for only $100 more. Noise was my biggest concern between the two, but when I actually sat down and looked at the figures and realized that the 2000 was no noisier than the 1000 at lower RPMs it made the purchase a little easier to swallow. The only unfortunate downside is the larger size of the 2000 – I really did have my heart set on the tiny size of the 1000, but c'est la vie.
I may keep my eyes open for another eu1000i through the winter – if one pops up for a good deal I might grab it so that I can run the 1000 and 2000 in parallel for the rare occasion when I need that little bit of extra oomph.
I think that I am going to take a pass on the 1000 that I looked at from this specific seller though, it just seems really weird what was going on and I didn't get a good feel about it.
Quick question, Honda eu1000i voltage sag w/eco switch?
I came across an eu1000i for sale at at a decent price recently. Went to look at it today and asked to plug something into it while it was running to check output. Load was a shop worklight, perhaps 60-100 watt bulb. Nothing special.
No problem when plugged in while in eco mode, generator barely came above idle. All well...until I switched Eco mode off while the generator was running and the light still plugged in - A momentary significant voltage drop seemed to occur - the bulb dimmed considerably for a split second.
Sometimes it did it, other times it didn't. I flipped it back and forth across eco on/off perhaps 10 times and it did it about half the time.
It this normal behaviour for an eu1000, or an indicator of something more serious happening, or about to happen?
Thanks in advance. I liked the unit but am reluctant to buy something that is about to fail.
RE: can I actuate the electric brakes with the drum off
Are you SURE there is power immediately at the magnet on the right hand side? With someone holding the brake controller fully on on can you probe at least +12V at the backing plate?
With the left working the right not my guess would be the crossover wire in the axle - they are a common point of failure and most trailers have the main harness on the drivers side of the trailer, with the crossover wire feeding the right hand side which is why often the right hand side is the one that fails.
The blown tire may have disturbed the wiring and broke one or both of your crossover wires.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I agree. This thread is getting to the point of being useless if you are looking for CPE 2000 advise. I think we need a new one based on actual reviews of the unit itself and keep this for all the 'Techies'
The same thing will happen to any new threads started. That's the way forums (and conversation) works - it sometimes drifts off topic. The advantage here is that the data is still here, you simply need to search for it, or ask.
Yes, a lot of topics have been covered countless times in this thread (and surely will be again), but that's the way it goes. Starting a new thread and fruitlessly trying to keep it laser-focused on a single issue is going to be hopeless, and all that's going to happen is the information will end up split between two threads, making it even more difficult for others in the future.
A FAQ post might be useful though, with links/pointers to specific areas of THIS thread, but it would take someone a lot of effort to put together, and then it's really only useful if a staff member locks the thread (so that it doesn't just turn into another duplicate of this thread) and then stickies it here in the Tech forum so that it's there for easy and frequent reference by those looking.
Not sure if that'd happen or not.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I thought this was a CPE 2000 thread but I seem to be mistaken.
Yep, but over the period of 125+ pages of thread it has taken the occasional fork off into related topics. I've been guilty for steering it off tangent a few times myself, and also the person who has steered it back on course a few times.
Your turn. ;)
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I heard back from the guy selling the chargers on eBay. The exchange was drawn out over the entire day, number emails, and got a little frustrating at times. I came to the conclusion that I'm not totally sure he knows exactly what he's selling, or what some of us are potentially trying to do with them.
He repeated over and over again that they would be "no good" for anything other than a single battery, such as a bank of golf cart batteries like many of us use. When I asked WHY he just kept repeating the line that the amp output wasn't high enough or specs on the duty cycle. I explained that amps are irrelevant..that many of us are looking specifically for a charger in this amp range regardless if it takes 1 hour, or 5 hours to charge - we are limited by the available power of the Champ while trying to avoid having them run wide-open..so the 50'ish amp range was ideal.
The duty cycle issue appears irrelevant to me as well - the specs indicate that they will run a period of time at 100% at which point it derates its amps (by about 5, IIRC) to cool down, and then ramps up again to full amp output. Repeat until battery fully charged.
I'm 95% sure that these would be well suited to our needs for high-amp battery charging while running on a single Champ 2000, but his repeated claims that "it won't work" are not reassuring even though I'm pretty sure he just doesn't understand the situation.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I use this one from CanadianTire.
2A and 10A slow charge, 20A 30A and 40A rapid charge.
They go on sale for 1/2 price fairly often.
There are some poor reviews on the site but I've never had a problem.
I had one of those a few years ago and returned it for reasons which I can't remember now.
I got a response from the eBay guy on that charger listed earlier - they sell direct on their website here.
It seems a lot of HAM radio users buy these and the reviews are positive. It's still not clear to me if these are well suited to battery charging duties (as opposed to power supply only) but I'm going to email and and ask for clarification.
This is a little off topic, but the "tie in" to being Champion related is that I'm trying to find a suitable charger that will couple nicely with a single Champ i2000 while still charging quickly.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
It seems someone at Champion is misinformed. I'm pretty confident that they still read this thread (even though they are banned from posting here) so hopefully the employee in question will be brought up to speed.
Why banned?
Even though they were just trying to offer customer support, apparently the staff/owners of RV.net felt that they were actually trying to sell product, so their accounts were removed since they are not official vendors here.
It's unfortunate because they were really trying to genuinely help customers with issues, something that Champion is well known for doing, but as staff myself on another large forum where companies pay for the privilege of selling their products, I do understand that there is a very fine line between just offering support, and effectively advertising yourself.
Unfortunately a compromise was apparently unable to be reached, which is sad since they were very helpful here.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
As for heating the house in an emergency, we have a natural gas furnace, so what I did was simply rewired the furnace so that it's power source has a standard set of plugs, vs hardwired to the fuse panel. If the power goes out, I simply "unplug" the furnace from the house and plug it into an extension cord leading to my Champ on the back deck...and away goes the furnace again just like the power was on.
It's much more efficient vs electric heaters. Heck, an small space heater in our house would be like farting in the wind for heat generation. ;)
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I just ran across this one on eBay. Looks like a possibility.
Looks good - I'll buy once once the seller clarifies international shipping - the auction description says yes, but the auction itself is configured for no.
Only thing I don't like about this unit is it's lack of displays...kind of impossible tell the SOC, voltages it's outputting, etc etc. I'd like to entertain trying to piggyback this with my other smaller smart charger, but if hooking them up together causes this one to derate it's charging because of the sensed increase in battery voltage it could be rather counterproductive, with no real way to tell that it's doing so.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
I just found this one online since I'm looking for a bigger (>25 amp) charger now.
Northern Tool smart charger
It does 75 amp, but if it's anything like my experience with other "boost to start" chargers it won't actually maintain 75 amps for very long....but hard to say - it might..
We don't have Norther Tool up here and the cost of the charger and shipping is a little too high for me to be a guinea pig unfortunately.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
It seems someone at Champion is misinformed. I'm pretty confident that they still read this thread (even though they are banned from posting here) so hopefully the employee in question will be brought up to speed.
have the battery tender plus. It says 1.25 amps. Website says it charges as fast if not faster than any 3 amp charger. Have no idea what that means.
That's way too low. Even the typical generic RV deep cycle/starting combo style battery tends to be around 85 AH. At a 1.25 amp charge rate you're looking at between 75 to 95 hours to charge it depending on the effeciency of the charger. Clearly running a generator for 3+ days straight to charge a severely depleted battery is not realistic.
At 1.25 amps, realistically, you're probably barely keeping up with the parasitic draw of just having the trailer plugged into the battery with the fridge on, CO2/Propane detectors, radios on standby, etc etc.
Most people purchase a standalone charger capable of at least 25 amps. Reportedly a single Champ 2000i will handle standalone chargers in the 50 amp range as well. It was great though when I only had a single standard battery, charging it from 50% in a matter of an hour or three.
I bought one of these at Costco:
http://econosuperstore.com/image/cache/data/auto/$(KGrHqV,!i0E4r-grh7tBOSZu56)1g~~_12-500x500.JPG
At the full 25 Amp charge rate it only idles a single champ up to perhaps 40% throttle, so it's still relatively quiet. Even at 25 amps though it takes a good 6-8 hours of run time to fully charge my dual 6v golf cart batteries, so I'm looking for a 50 Amp model.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
Would a battery tender suffice for charging?
Only if you want to run the generator for a month and a half to charge a depleted battery bank. ;)
Most battery tenders are only designed to maintain and already fully charged battery, very few put out more than maybe 1 AMP tops, meaning that to charge a large deep cycle battery, nonetheless a bank of deep cycle batteries, would take ages.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
My CPE 2000 has battery charging capabilities with a set of plug in cables.
Useless. Low amps and dirty power on most gens that have this.
Along with others, I have a 5/20/25 amp standalone smart charger that handles charging duties while running on the generator. Far superior to using any built in charger or the RV converter.
RE: The Official unofficial CPE 2000i Generator Thread
It's a twist lock style plug. The bare plugs can be found at most electrical supply stores if you want to use it, or make an adapter.
I sort of wish that they had used a regular electrical plug that was just able to supply more than 15 A instead of using that funny plug though, as there's lots of times that I've needed more amps than what one generator will supply (air Compressor for example) but I'm not actually able to plug the draw into the parallel kit due to the lack of a standard receptacle.
One of these days I'm just going to go buy a twist lock adapter, a small length of heavy cord, and a regular 15 amp female plug and make an adapter.
Then again on second thought one of the RV 30>15 amp adapter plugs would probably be cheaper.
