Portable Generator Power Quality Questions

[SuperLid]

In the long run you will save money by buying the Honda. Those 'other brands' may be fine for a few years, but then they become unreliable and need to be fiddled with and parts replaced (which takes time, and time is money). Then after four or five years those 'other brands' generators die and you need to replace them with another new 'other brand' generator.

Honda's do cost more but they last a REALLY long time. I have several Honda's including a 2000 watt 'suitcase' one that I bought new in 1986. It still works perfectly and fires right up whenever I need it. That's 38 years and going strong. Pretty sure you won't find another brand with that kind of longevity.

I paid $1600, for a small commercial grade Honda, that uses what they call a cycloconverter. It isn't an inverter, but it is an electronic control, that eliminates the alternator completely. It utilizes the flywheel to generate. I bought it, because I had a huge Generac, that had more failures than I could deal with and needed a backup. The Honda saved me during Sandy. It made life much better here for that week.

I gave away that Generac that needed a stator and replaced it with other things. I still have the Honda and will never get rid of it, just for peace of mind. But, it only has 120V output and is small. So, I rely on my other stuff, until I can't.

 

[Fusionstate]

Thought and a question.

It occurred to me, THD is based on load. So, maybe that is why some low demand users experience little to no problem with their generator-electronics. In my application, presently, I only need about 1500 watts, with an occasional refrigerator surge, so the THD could be as low as, 5%.

A prior experience living off grid- I was charging a deep cycle battery bank with two Black and Decker SCR based chargers and jamming on the guitar using a Crate 50 watt ss amp. I don't know if it was the amp, or the generator, a Generac 5 kw, no AVR. Don't know which one but the amp suddenly popped and that was the end of that amp.

Question:

So if I'm only drawing 1500 watts with an occasional surge, and it could even be less than that if I'm only powering the house during an outage, and not pumping water from the creek, more likely 500 watts, from a 3500 watt generator, it seems to me, the THD is going to be pretty low.

Regards.

 

[SuperLid]

Thought and a question.

It occurred to me, THD is based on load. So, maybe that is why some low demand users experience little to no problem with their generator-electronics. In my application, presently, I only need about 1500 watts, with an occasional refrigerator surge, so the THD could be as low as, 5%.

A prior experience living off grid- I was charging a deep cycle battery bank with two Black and Decker SCR based chargers and jamming on the guitar using a Crate 50 watt ss amp. I don't know if it was the amp, or the generator, a Generac 5 kw, no AVR. Don't know which one but the amp suddenly popped and that was the end of that amp.

Question:

So if I'm only drawing 1500 watts with an occasional surge, and it could even be less than that if I'm only powering the house during an outage, and not pumping water from the creek, more likely 500 watts, from a 3500 watt generator, it seems to me, the THD is going to be pretty low.

Regards.

The reason for the amp failing, is anyone's guess. As far as running your stuff on that gen, ...just do it. A lot of electronics these days, are running on SMPS, which are conditioning the power they supply. A lot of them have a wide input voltage/freq range and still put out a regulated DC output. If this was a wide spread problem, you would be reading about it all over the place.

 

[Brother DXer]

Gas generator running half of the house, and charging a small battery bank for radio use.
Is this too simple?

 

[Fusionstate]

Gas generator running half of the house, and charging a small battery bank for radio use.
Is this too simple?

Gas generator running half of the house Cabin, and charging a small battery bank for radio guitar and Crate solid state guitar amp, and off grid power use.

Is this too simple? No.

Did I mention pumping water out of the creek to fill a cistern about once a month? Wife and five children moved here in 2009. Home Schooled. Four of the five have great jobs with the latest just got hired at 90 k/yr as Jr. Software Engineer.

Regards.

 

[Brother DXer]

Gas generator running half of the house Cabin, and charging a small battery bank for radio guitar and Crate solid state guitar amp, and off grid power use.

Is this too simple? No.

Did I mention pumping water out of the creek to fill a cistern about once a month? Wife and five children moved here in 2009. Home Schooled. Four of the five have great jobs with the latest just got hired at 90 k/yr as Jr. Software Engineer.

Regards.

Humm.. I thought the issue was a clean source to run a radio, or two, etc. Anything else, get a larger generator.?

It wasn't too long ago I ran most of my house and any appliances needed, including tv and computer for 4 days.
I still may buy a larger generator. But I'll always use a battery bank for radio.

This is what works best for me.

EDIT: I went back and read your original post and you specifically said this had nothing to do with radios. But it grew into using radios and this is what was on my mind when posting. My bad!
I only run a generator for emergency power and honestly, I don't give it a second thought whether it's clean or not. But this is me, not you. I hope you find the answers you're looking for. 73's

 

[Smokinone]

I have both the Robin 3200 inverter and a super loud 6500 watt from home depot. I think it has a Honda engine, but it is loud. I bought it when my house was being built to use to do some things while it was in the framing stage as there was no power to the home at that time. Plenty of power...but loud. Running power tools with it was fine, and I use it occasionally when the power goes out, or using around the yard I don't want to drag an extension cord to.
The Robin or Subaru is nice and quiet, has good power, doesn't create issues when using it in a camp setting in parks. Some parks only allow certain times to run generators, and it works well keeping the noise down and powering all in the 5th wheel. Noise restrictions are sometimes in place in a lot of national and state parks.
It all depends on what you use them for and is a personal choice for the operational environment you're using it for. You can always buy a filtered power strip for the noisy ones if need be.
They do have cheap inverter generators that will probably last for some time, and they are an option to the more expensive Honda, Yamaha, and Robin's.

 

[Wire Weasel]

I have both the Robin 3200 inverter and a super loud 6500 watt from home depot. I think it has a Honda engine, but it is loud. I bought it when my house was being built to use to do some things while it was in the framing stage as there was no power to the home at that time. Plenty of power...but loud. Running power tools with it was fine, and I use it occasionally when the power goes out, or using around the yard I don't want to drag an extension cord to.
The Robin or Subaru is nice and quiet, has good power, doesn't create issues when using it in a camp setting in parks. Some parks only allow certain times to run generators, and it works well keeping the noise down and powering all in the 5th wheel. Noise restrictions are sometimes in place in a lot of national and state parks.
It all depends on what you use them for and is a personal choice for the operational environment you're using it for. You can always buy a filtered power strip for the noisy ones if need be.
They do have cheap inverter generators that will probably last for some time, and they are an option to the more expensive Honda, Yamaha, and Robin's.

See if a larger muffler can be fitted to your loud boy.

 

[AudioShockwav]

We have Two Goal Zero 1500x rechargeable battery packs with built in 600 watt MPPT charge controllers.
1500ah capacity and 2000 watt continuous 3500 watt surge pure sine wave inverters.
200 watts of solar panels for each unit keeps them charged for use and I can add 400 more for a total of 600 watts input for each unit in the future.
Can be recharged on mains or in my truck if no solar input is available for some reason.

This works well for us because my wife has no need to mess with fuel, oil, starting, noise, fumes or any of the hassle of a gas generator.
As we get older I try to keep it as simple as I can.

73
Jeff

 

[Fusionstate]

So I went to Amazon in search of ferrite cores and got lost in the weeds pertaining to materials, and filter performance. Not to mention the reviews are getting to be totally worthless as there are numerous conflicting opinions, by people that don't know what the're talking about. Often times the specs don't even list the material the core is made of.

Does anyone have some suggestions as to what core, I do know it should be Iron, and from whom I should purchase? When I checked Mouser, I got something like: 17,000 products match your query.

I've purchased from them but don't know the specs for what I need. I will likely make one turn around the core, for each of the Hot, Ground, and Neutral wires coming out of the generator.

Thank you, all.

 

[nomadradio]

Kinda depends on what you're trying to filter.

The different core recipes will be restricted to a fixed range of frequencies where they are effective.

Just what are you trying to filter?

73

 

[Fusionstate]

Can't say for sure, but, I believe the exciter winding is the source of the noise component on the output. Somehow, noise is being injected upon the output of the generator. Perhaps, filtering on the exciter feed with an electrolytic cap, will lower the noise on the output of the generator. See attached: Part of the filtering scheme is based upon adding ferrites to the output of the genny.

Regards.

btw, how did that power amp work out? The Palomar?

 

[nomadradio]

btw, how did that power amp work out? The Palomar?

Umm, which Palomar?

73

 

[Fusionstate]

I shipped a Palomar a couple a months ago. Something like $100 or so, Postal money order? You payed. Thanks. I'm thinking you have a back room with a buncha radio stuffs like me- a small version of which. Perhaps you don't remember.