Glad to hear that you were prepared, and made it through without any damages.
Master thread for disasters and generators.
- Thread starter cue003
- Start date
Help Support Candle Power Flashlight Forum
Hooked on Fenix
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
- Messages
- 3,158
A U.S. oil pipeline company just got shut down from a cyberattack. The pipeline shut down brings oil to 50 million people on the east coast. Make sure you guys have fuel for those generators. If some of those east coast power plants use the same fuel piped in, we may eventually have blackouts if supply runs low and they don't stop the cyberattack. Take this as a warning to be prepared. Cyberattacks are going after critical infrastructure now. It's a good time to update your preps and make sure you're good in all areas. We never know what will happen next.
coffeecup66
Enlightened
Hi,
How about a link to a reliable/reputable source for this type of "holy sh*t !" info please ?
Thanks.
Cheers.
Hooked on Fenix
Flashlight Enthusiast
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
- Messages
- 3,158
coffeecup66
Enlightened
turbodog
Flashaholic
I'm gonna make a suggestion that this be a separate thread if it continues. My opinion is that mentioning it is appropriate in this one insofar as it pertains to keeping fuel on hand to last X days.
Thanks.
Thanks.
turbodog
Flashaholic
And back on topic... I've got a honda EB2800i coming in. It's for a family member, but I am running it in, changing initial oil, and doing some load tests. Due to backorders it should arrive around the 17th at the orange toy store.
scout24
Flashaholic
Turbodog- Agreed on the pipeline topic, and great choice on the EB2800i. I'd love to hear your thoughts after running it through it's paces. 👍🏻
turbodog
Flashaholic
It arrived early. I've put about 90 mins on it so far.
Short version: Nice unit, especially considering the $1150 price from home depot. If you own just one portable, 110v, inverter, luggable unit then this (or yamaha ef2800) would be it. Now, inverter-based units aren't rocket science so a no-name would probably work fine _today_. If you want service parts (and a certified svc tech) in 10 years then stay with name brands.
Pretty quiet on low/med loads. No noise reduction at high loads. Noise reduction is from inverter's low rpm. Like any open frame unit, there's no noise shielding.
The throttle response to new loads is LIGHTNING quick. Fastest I've ever seen on ANY genset.
Tank could use a fuel gauge like yamaha's unit has. Also, fuel tank has emission vent so do NOT overfill or it will run into vent canister.
4 rubber feet come standard which the Yamaha unit does NOT have. Yamaha will walk all over the place at certain rpms.
Fuel valve is nice. Only has one position for off/on. Yamaha valve has 3 positions... so you sort of have to guess which ones are which.
Has 2 duplex plugs for total of 4 cords usable. Both are GFCI and come with a fitted rubber cover... a nice touch.
It does NOT have 12v battery charging NOR parallel ability. Sort of a moot point on a 2800w unit.
I noticed the engine's cylinder cooling fins were quite short, disturbingly short I thought. Then I began to notice the rest of the engine's case. It's a masterpiece of fins/cooling. There are fins all over the place, and the entire BOTTOM of the crankcase is covered in them, and forced air is directed across them. It seems clear they are cooling the oil and letting the oil do the bulk of the cooling. The cylinder fins are cooler than the crankcase 60 seconds after engine shutdown.
For full load test I ran a space heater and hair dryer on high for about 30 mins. It was pretty much wide open, but did not complain.
I tried to start a large 16 amp quincy air compressor... the kind that throws 20a breakers on dedicated circuits... would not start it. It tried, but no luck.
Honda's claim to fame is their inclined cylinder (60 degrees maybe). I was surprised to see a 90 degree straight up cylinder. Design looks excellent though.
Last edited:
scout24
Flashaholic
Turbodog- Nice overview! The GCV engine (horizontal crank) used in the 2800's is in the same family as used on Honda's mowers, pumps, pressurewashers, etc. (Vertical crank) It's a workhorse and there's millions out there so as you said parts and service won't be an issue.
A big advantage over the clamshell or suitcase inverter gensets is accessability to work on things if you need to: I replaced the pull cord on my eu2000i this spring, and boy was it a deep dive. They're so tightly packaged! I figured I'd rather R&R the recoil starter on a sunny day at my leisure rather than have the fraying cord let go in the dark while it was snowing or raining.
Four outlets are nice to have, keep us posted on how it does!
*Side note*- Finally made a cord to go from my 2000i to the side of my house yesterday... (L14 30 amp twistlock) No more extention cords off the "little" generator, it now can backfeed my panel to code like the big generator when needed.
A big advantage over the clamshell or suitcase inverter gensets is accessability to work on things if you need to: I replaced the pull cord on my eu2000i this spring, and boy was it a deep dive. They're so tightly packaged! I figured I'd rather R&R the recoil starter on a sunny day at my leisure rather than have the fraying cord let go in the dark while it was snowing or raining.
Four outlets are nice to have, keep us posted on how it does!
*Side note*- Finally made a cord to go from my 2000i to the side of my house yesterday... (L14 30 amp twistlock) No more extention cords off the "little" generator, it now can backfeed my panel to code like the big generator when needed.
Last edited:
Nice review turbodog 
Recently I saw that Harbor Freight has introduced a 9500 surge Watt 120/240 V super quiet inverter generator for $1800.
Time will tell, how dependable they are. I am delighted to see that more 240V inverters are being offered, and with more competition, the prices will continue to fall. I hope.
Personally, I don't need 240V except for central AC during the summer. Due to the fact that we rarely have a black out, and even more rarely - one that lasts more than a few hours, $1800 is difficult to justify. Especially, when one can typically get a used, standard open frame 240V gen-set in good shape for about $400.
Recently I saw that Harbor Freight has introduced a 9500 surge Watt 120/240 V super quiet inverter generator for $1800.
Time will tell, how dependable they are. I am delighted to see that more 240V inverters are being offered, and with more competition, the prices will continue to fall. I hope.
Personally, I don't need 240V except for central AC during the summer. Due to the fact that we rarely have a black out, and even more rarely - one that lasts more than a few hours, $1800 is difficult to justify. Especially, when one can typically get a used, standard open frame 240V gen-set in good shape for about $400.
turbodog
Flashaholic
Nice review turbodog
Recently I saw that Harbor Freight has introduced a 9500 surge Watt 120/240 V super quiet inverter generator for $1800.
Time will tell, how dependable they are. I am delighted to see that more 240V inverters are being offered, and with more competition, the prices will continue to fall. I hope.
Personally, I don't need 240V except for central AC during the summer. Due to the fact that we rarely have a black out, and even more rarely - one that lasts more than a few hours, $1800 is difficult to justify. Especially, when one can typically get a used, standard open frame 240V gen-set in good shape for about $400.
Main benefits of a 240v unit are 1) easier feeding of your house... you can heat up both legs/phases and 2) deep well pumps for people NOT on public water.
turbodog
Flashaholic
This is basically an exact copy of the yamaha ef(?)2800 unit. I reviewed one of those in this thread a few years back, comparing it to the eu2000.
At the end of the day... if you want something as quiet as an eu2000... then buy an eu2000.
The honda/yamaha 2800 are nice units. They are easier to work on. The hot air is not as focused as eu2000. I often lay wet clothes/shoes/etc behind the eu2k for drying.
Bottom of engine crankcase. Oil sensor under shield.
Last edited:
How does one wire a cord like that to feed a 220V panel gen input box, with a 110V outlet?
turbodog
Flashaholic
Jumper across the 2 hots in the plug.
idleprocess
Flashaholic
Alternatively, use a 4-conductor cord and terminate both hots to the single hot on the male plug.
The one pitfall to doing this is if your panel features multiwire branch circuits. With 240V split-phase these are not an issue since the two phases are neatly 180° out of phase and I gather that the voltage on neutral just looks like full-wave rectified AC. But if you're feeding both 120V legs with the same phase and run both circuits at full load, that's potentially double the current on the neutral which your breakers cannot do anything about. Mercifully, these are generally easy to identify - the breaker pairs are often mechanically bound and one of the pair will generally have a red wire as opposed to the usual black for the hot.
Last edited:
Thank you gentlemen :thumbsup:
turbodog
Flashaholic
I looked at the pic, focusing on the hots. Looked again at neutral. I get it, but is crap like this normal, and if so, where? Have not seen this in practice anywhere.
Did some quick reading... this shared neutral is a whole 'accident waiting to happen' thing more or less.
https://www.twielectric.com/safety-and-energy-saving-tips/national-electrical-code-multiwire-branch-circuit/
https://inspectapedia.com/electric/Multi-Wire-Electrical-Circuits.php
Conditions exist for 1) an overloaded neutral and 2) an ENERGIZED neutral. Neither is appealing.
Additionally, according to my quick reading... the black & red hots are supposed to be zip tied together to designate this in the breaker panel in _most_ circumstances and should be inserted into a common trip breaker.
Last edited:
turbodog
Flashaholic
As a 120v generator won't properly energize a 240v panel... just throw all the double pole breakers. _should_ solve the problems.
Having looked at this for a couple specific (non-generator) applications, none of the approaches that tie multiple hot legs that are normally on different phases (or opposite sides of a center-tap) meet Code. The potential for an overloaded neutral is real, but can be mitigated by ensuring that the rating of the source (in this case, the generator) does not exceed the rating of any individual downstream branch circuit. So an EU2000 feeding a 20A multiwire branch circuit would be fine, since the maximum current that the generator can source is less than the 20A that the neutral for that circuit is rated for. But the L5-30 output from an EU3000 feeding a panel with a 15A multiwire branch circuit would present a dangerous scenario, since there is the possibility for overloading the neutral on that 15A circuit (the generator can source more than 15A, each side of the circuit is protected at 15A, but the neutral could be carrying the full current rating of the generator, ~24A).
