Chris Bryant wrote: Specs are at 95degrees, rule of thumb is 1 amp per 10 degrees, so at 75 you are drawing 2 amps less than the specs say.
I have to admit I was an air conditioner abuser- quite frankly I would run it in all conditions, if I was hot. Only time it would not run was a place with 100 volts. Did I shorten the life? Almost certainly. Do I care? No- so I got 7 years instead of 15- so what. I kept cool, and did not complain when it died (well- I did complain a bit, as I was hot ).
that 1A/10F goes a long way towards explaining why the little honda goes from "barely adequate" to "almost adequate" at the most inopportune times!! and makes one realize that "barely adequate" and "almost adequate" are NOT the same!!
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TomG2 wrote: The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Running a generator within its rated capacity is not abusing it.
X2.
The chicken littles sure come out of the woodworks when equipment is being pushed. If I were the OP, I would keep an eye on the output voltage, and if it runs, run it. Maybe put a good synthetic oil in the Honda, and that's it. As long as voltage stays above 110, you are good to go.
Why do the chicken littles not take into account that shore power is often not 120V? Because don;t let the fact get int the way of a good panic. And they know everything.
I grew up thinking (and still believe) that running an engine full speed at startup or shutdown is abusing it. Imagine my horror a few years ago upon finding out that our new lawnmower has two speeds: full speed and off. No throttle! And it requires being shut down to empty the grass catcher. So by my standards, every time I cut the grass I abuse the mower about two dozen times. And every time a typical synchronous generator is started or stopped, that's abuse. Most inverter generators allow you to avoid this type of abuse if you wish to. Is running a generator for a long time at its continuous load abusive? Running it always under half load is abuse, too, according to Onan. I often abuse both the Honda and Onan, running one too hard, and the other too lightly. And I sometimes knowingly abuse the battery in the RV just for my own convenience.
The computer in car engines these days will prevent many forms of abuse, even if the operator tries intentional abuse. Same thing with the eu2000i, and overload is one of the things it monitors for. I like to note that almost all the warnings about damaging an eu2000i come from people who don't have one. Failure reports on this forum for other than gummed up carbs and broken starter ropes, from actual owners, I believe can be counted on one hand, and I've never seen one implicate an overload condition. Compare that with maybe a hundred posts from experts saying in no uncertain terms that any small generator will be destroyed if connected in parallel with another one. I'll stick with the warnings from actual owners, which are far and few between.
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"Did not check the voltage...I'm thinking that since the Honda is an inverter generator it would hold the voltage, unlike a traditional generator where load would affect engine speed and allow voltage to drop if the engine was bogging down. If the load was too great for the inverter to hold the voltage it would kick into overload. Am I wrong in this approach?"
I have posted this before.
At 7000' running my microwave with one Honda 2000 generator the voltage is about 98V! Running the same generator at sea level produced about 110V with the same microwave.
The generator did not drop off line. It continued to produce low voltage. I have another Honda 2000 generator and it does about the same. So from my experience the Honda can stay on line and provide low voltage. I would monitor the output voltage if running the A/C, it maybe low and damaging your A/C
I have asked but never received an answer as to what voltage the Honda 2000 will really trip off.
"Did not check the voltage...I'm thinking that since the Honda is an inverter generator it would hold the voltage, unlike a traditional generator where load would affect engine speed and allow voltage to drop if the engine was bogging down. If the load was too great for the inverter to hold the voltage it would kick into overload. Am I wrong in this approach?"
I have posted this before.
At 7000' running my microwave with one Honda 2000 generator the voltage is about 98V! Running the same generator at sea level produced about 110V with the same microwave.
The generator did not drop off line. It continued to produce low voltage. I have another Honda 2000 generator and it does about the same. So from my experience the Honda can stay on line and provide low voltage. I would monitor the output voltage if running the A/C, it maybe low and damaging your A/C
I have asked but never received an answer as to what voltage the Honda 2000 will really trip off.
I have a tow honda 2000's. One about 8 years old, one about 1 year old. I have a voltmeter plugged into one of the outlets. Both honda's will consistently drop out just below 110V and always will drop out before it gets to 105V.
Now the caviat. The voltmeter I used was a true RMS voltmeter so the measurement is the RMS voltage with an accuracy of about 2%.
Now, make the same measurement with an el cheapo plug in the outlet voltmeter you pick up and the measurement could be in error. They are almost all a typical "60 Hz. peak responding RMS reading voltmeter". in other words, it's only accurate for a true non distorted 60 Hz. sine wave measurement. And the honda when it drives a reactive load does not deliver a perfect sine wave, the peaks are "squashed" and has harmonic distortion. The result is that the inexpensive meterss will often read lower than the true RMS voltage. so the voltage reading is subject to error and it could be significant.
And then there is the whole issue of how the load responds to non sinusoidal input.
Bottom line, I still believe the honda is less likely to provide a low voltage than will some of the RV electric. And I seriously doubt that most of us would ever run RV appliances enough with a low voltage to ever have any noticeable negative effect on appliance life or generator life.
As long as the honda starts my stuff and doesn't kick off I'm satisfied and don't worry about it.
At 7000' running my microwave with one Honda 2000 generator the voltage is about 98V! Running the same generator at sea level produced about 110V with the same microwave.
The generator did not drop off line. It continued to produce low voltage.
Good info which I didn't catch previously. I've run mine only up to 3500' and know from experience that it will maintain >110 volts a bit past 1600 VA. Maybe it's monitoring current and appears to cut out at a certain voltage because the voltage is dependent on the current, and maybe above a certain altitude voltage protection can't be counted on. I think there's good news here that there's usually not a need for the air conditioner at high altitudes. I totally agree with monitoring the voltage when running a heavy load.
Wayne, good info and thanks for posting. You shouldn't feel guilty about your lawnmower though....you're not running it at "full throttle", just the speed setting set my the mfr to optimize grass cutting. I'll bet if you took control of the throttle cable you could get that motor to run a whole lot faster! That's one of the reasons the mfr regulates the speed, so you can't run it at full throttle and shorten its life.
Same with the Honda...just because it's running at the max speed allowed doesn't mean it's running at the absolute max speed that it's capable of. Engineers, especially the Honda guys, take care to set the specs so that the motor can run at the max allowable throttle without damaging the engine. And thanks for confirming that the Honda will cut out if it can't maintain 105v. For the guy that's seeing 98v from his Honda, it sounds like you have a problem in the inverter circuitry.
Again, just to keep this perspective, I have never even tried to run my a/c from the genny, based on posts here I just assumed it wouldn't. All in all I have never had a need to do so...This weekend is an exception for us, we are camping in a place where we are likely to want a/c and there are no hookups.
If we find ourselves doing more of this kind of camping, I will look to buy a second 2000 and a parallel kit. Geez, some of you guys responded like I was down in Miami running the a/c 24/7 from my little genny.
Just to clarify and provide info for what it is worth.
I have two Honda 2000 generators, they both respond about the same. At 7000 feet that I live running one Honda to power my microwave the voltage can drop to 98 volts on one of the generators and 101 volts on the other. They will continue to provide that voltage without dropping out. With both running in parallel the voltage is about 120 volts with the same load.
The voltage was measured using a Fluke 8060 true RMS meter and was nearly the same as my Kill A Watt meter.
Maybe the generators monitor output VA to decide to shut down. At 7000 feet maybe they cannot provide the VA to shut down and continue to run at reduced voltage. I don't know.
This is just my experience and I imply that just because the generator did not kick off does not indicate that the voltage is OK, measure it to be safe.
BurbMan wrote: I'll bet if you took control of the throttle cable you could get that motor to run a whole lot faster! That's one of the reasons the mfr regulates the speed, so you can't run it at full throttle and shorten its life.
Honda (and most other mower manufacturers) adhere to ANSI standards regarding blade tip speed. For a 21" mower (the most common) the speed of the blade tip is not to exceed 19,000 feet per minute. This translates to about 3,400 rpm on a standard 21" walk-behind mower where the blade is bolted directly to the crankshaft. So, the engines are designed and tuned to make the best horsepower and torque at or near that engine RPM. The engineers know a faster blade cuts better, so all the owner's manuals say to mower with the throttle in FAST. Less expensive models have fixed-throttles (no control or cable).
Tinkering with the throttle, governor, etc. can run into three problems areas:
(1) To fast a tip speed can be dangerous. The blade has design limits, and could break apart if spun too quickly. Likewise the engine; it's designed to run at 3,400 RPM max, and more than that could cause valve float or damage.
(2) There's another rule from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding blade stop. All mowers must stop the blades from spinning in <= 3 seconds when the operator moves out from behind the control/operator area (a.k.a., "let's go of the handle"). If the mower were spinning too fast, the brake system (or clutch on some models) might not stop the blades in the prescribed time.
(3) Finally, the EPA would like you to know modifying any part of the emission system (including the throttle) is considered tampering and subject to a fine.
-Robert@Honda
Caveat: I work for Honda, but the preceding was my opinion alone.
* This post was
edited 06/18/12 02:09pm by robert@honda *
Caveat: I work for Honda, but the preceding was my opinion alone.
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