Generator day

Rather nice day out there today. Good day to crack open the Hardigg case where I store the EU2000 and make today into Generator Day.

I’ve had the Eu2000 for about five or so years now and I have been quite pleased with it. There have been a fw short-term outages where I’ve had to run it for a few hours and I’ve been very pleased with it. I have no real need to run the entire house, rather my needs are extremely simple..keep the freezers freezing, and the router routing. Thats pretty much it. Heating is taken care of with the kerosene heaters, lighting is taken care of with the Goal0 lights and some AGM batteries, and everything else is mostly a non-critical system.

Although the EU2000 has been a reliable piece of gear, I will probably at some point get a second one. There’s a lot of piece of mind to not having all my eggs in one basket and the two generators can be daisychained to provide higher output should the need arise.

When I got mine, I think they were on sale for about a grand. They’re a bit more nowdays but still, in my opinion, a very good purchase. If you decide to get one, don’t forget all the ancillary gear that goes with them..air filters, oil, gas can, fuel funnel, heavy-duty extension cords, cable lock, etc, etc.

20 thoughts on “Generator day

  1. Incredibly reliable, ridiculously quite. My only complaint (and reason for not owning one) is that they only produce 120VAC and a major reason for owning a generator for me is running the well, which requires 240VAC. If anyone ever builds an inverter generator that does produce 240VAC….

      • Online price for the EU7000is seems to be right around $4,500. A little too spendy for what I need. The only added benefit I can see is potentially cleaner electricity for sensitive electronics and it’s much quieter. I don’t know that I run a generator long enough to begin to consider fuel consumption though I’m sure I’d change my tune if the power didn’t come back on and I was down to my last can of fuel. I certainly see where this fits very well with CZs situation.

        If I ever win the lottery maybe, but $4,500 can go a long way towards other stuff right now. That’s cool that they’ve made one though, I didn’t realize they had anything bigger than CZs EU2000. Can’t say I’ve been looking though. I’ll cross my fingers that the prices fall and/or competitors enter the field.

        In the mean time, I’ll continue to rely on my reliable old generator and keep my eyes open for a PTO driven unit to run off the tractor. I’d much rather listen to an old diesel chug along at ~1,800 RPM than that gas engine screaming at 3,600.

  2. A few years ago I did a little searching for a generator and found that Honda is very high quality. In the end I didn’t get one simply because of the price point. What I settled on was a Yamaha EF2600 generator. As luck would have it, when I made the buy there was a sale on, so I saved a bucket of cash. At the time a Honda Eu2000 was over a grans and my EF2600 was less than half that. My only regret is that I didn’t buy 2 and have 1 as a backup. Just the other day I flashed it up after it had been sitting since last September. I put fresh fuel in it, checked the oil, put on the choke and gave the starter cord a pull and it started on the first try.

    • One thing I like about many of the Yamaha’s is that they are trifuel and can use LPG or LNG as well as gasoline.
      For occasional use and long term storage, some people only run them on LPG to avoid the cleaning and wear from gasoline use. (and the smell also)

    • Not really, Best way to charge a battery bank from a gennie is to just plug a quality 12v charger into the ac recepticle on a generator and charge away. What i did while living off grid and works great. Much more efficient than those tiny 12 v outputs on most units.

  3. “…If anyone ever builds an inverter generator that does produce 240VAC….” “…Two of them linked together, I believe, perform that task.”

    Uh, no. Coupling a pair of EU2000s (or EU2200s, or EU3000s) will double the wattage not the voltage. You’ll have 2X the amperes but not 2X the volts. (voltsXamps=watts; watts/volts=amps; watts/amps=volts).

    Three ways to couple a pair of same-model Honda gennies – 1) buy the Honda kit, IIRC, ~$240; 2) Make your own with a ~$45 coupling cable, cut the cable in half and run the halves into a 4X4 box equipped with a NEMA 5-30 (straight blade) or NEMA L5-30 (twist lock) receptacle (there’s no penalty for going to 5-50 or L5-50, and for coupling a pair of EU3000s – providing 6000 watts surge, 5600 watts run – which is 50 amps surge, 46.6 run – you’ll need to go to 50 amp receptacles and 6 gauge stranded cable; 3) hack a couple 12 gauge extension cords (which will have NEMA 5-20 plugs) to get the male ends +X feet, and run them into the 4X4 box (or use 10-3 SO cable). FYI, 12 gauge stranded copper cable is rated at 20 amps maximum, 10 gauge at 30, 8 gauge at 40 and 6 gauge at 55, so use cable AND plugs/receptacles rated for the amperage you’ll get. And FYI, NEC (National Electrical Code) specs stipulate that circuits – and your coupling gizmo constitutes a circuit – should not be loaded above 80% of rated capacity.

    One of the more useful things I’ve built is a 5-gang receptacle box with 4X std 20 amp duplex receptacles and 1X 20 amp GFCI receptacles, plus an LED pilot light to show the box is powered. 3X of the std 20A receptacles are GFCI-protected by the 1X GFCI receptacle but 1X of the std 20A receptacles is NOT a GFCI-protected receptacle and labeled as such (receptacles are available in colors, so the non-GFCI is red plus the stick-on label). It connects with a 30 ft 8-3 SO cable with an L5-50P (in NEMA the “P” designates plug and “R” designates receptacle) and all receptacle-to-receptacle wiring inside the box is 10ga solid (not stranded) copper. Mounted to a piece of 3/4 plywood, the plywood has an oval handle hole in one end, strategically-located holes for hanging the box in various positions and a home center bicycle hanging hook in each corner for coiling the 8-3 cable around. The plywood also keeps it flat in a receptacles-up position and the box off the ground. For extra points paint the plywood orange and put some reflective tape on both sides and wrap reflective tape around the cable every 5-6 feet.

    With the Hondas, using Honda’s coupling cables gets you more available wattage because the connections bypass the circuit breakers that control the receptacles. Using method #3 above – 2X 12 ga cords with L5-20 straight plug ends – works fine but it limits you to the maximum output of the receptacles on the EU2000 (or EU3000). Which isn’t all bad – if your applied electrical load exceeds what the generator can produce it just trips the circuit breaker(s).

    Honda makes the 2000s / 2200s in 2 flavors – “normal” and “Companion.” The Companions are designed to be the “designated power supplier” for a coupled pair using the Honda cabling setup, and IIRC there’s a 30 amp L5-30 receptacle on the Companion model just for that.

    Since 2X EU2000s (2000 watts surge, 1600 run) produce a maximum of 4K watts – 33 amps surge, 26 amps run – using at least 10 gauge SO cable is required and 8 ga is better Tying 2X EU3000s together (50 amps surge, 46 amps run) does move you into the 6 gauge wire category. Other than dollars, there’s no penalty for using a larger cable than absolutely necessary, but using smaller does have a penalty – voltage drop over distance, possible cable failure (too many amps through a cable heats the wire and efficiency really starts dropping off as the wire heats >120F (SO cable is rated at a maximum of 90C/194F, and there are charts for wiring resistance increases, usually in 10C/18F steps (1 degree Celsius = 1.8 degrees Farenheit).

    Beware – when buying cable make sure it’s actual copper, NOT “copper coated.” The “copper coated” stuff is Chinesium aluminum wire coated with copper; it’ll probably work, but…..Copper cable is expensive, but trying to save a few bucks on Chinesium crap is false economy.

  4. yeah, don’t forget cords, good ones, NEW one. few people realize the cheap cords can/do break inside, under the intact outer insulation and it’ll sometimes continue to make contact or jump the gap and cause a fire or just quit working when you need it most. ask me how I know…..anyway, buy new cords, 14 to 12 gauge quality u.s. I just went threw mine again and realized I had 15-20 year old cords still in use. they went out the door. when you need one so will everybody else.

  5. I have 2 Honda’s. The eu3000 is my primary on my travel trailer. The 1000 is a backup. NEVER failed to start after sitting for 7-9 months per year.

    • Runtime meter. Tracks hours of usage. Check previous generator posts for a link to Amazon

  6. Reminder for your Texas reader that this weekend is a tax free emergency preparedness weekend. Buy your generator and don’t pay sales tax.

  7. Hey boys, might want to check eBay for air filter,
    Takes a bit longer but can obtain the air filter for less than 2 bucks delivered.
    Enjoy the summer….

  8. Problems with aluminum wire:
    Bending it is more prone to failure than copper. It should never be used loose, it must be a mounted run, like house wiring.
    Requires larger wire diameter than copper.
    Expands more than copper. This is what makes connections become loose, due to heat cycling, and causes fires.
    Requires special connectors for aluminum.

    The Chinese are infamous for faking things like the aforementioned copper coated/colored aluminium. If they can figure out a way to make a product cheaper by cheating, they will. Chinese culture has no obvious ethics, except for family matters, perhaps. This extends to employees pulling scams on the company products to put a few bucks in their pocket. You must have a personal relationship to have any expectation of honesty.

  9. We live off grid so not much of a need for a little genny. That being said we have the harbor freight version. It’s got a better warranty, cost 1/2 as much and is said to preform better in several fields (fuel capacity, db levels ect). They can also be linked together. If money is no option get the Honda. If it is get a predator or 2 for the cost of one honda.

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