My Generator Study

Good study and comparison. But, you guys are all underestimating the hassles owning one of these things!

No detail on the inverters what sort are they? Pure sine wave?
MUST factor in a UPS if the intention is to drive electronic equipment. Unless of course you are happy with any damage that can occur?
And don't ignore those maintenance instructions! These devices are NOT intended for use everyday day in day out! Duty cycle information?
But then why should we be worried about your money?
Go ahead.

Read the fine print about the 17-20% penalty for using them at altitude! The figures are all rated values at sea level!
And then just as important, if you don't load them sufficiently, the maintenance problems increase.

RTFM RTFM over and over again until you know what you are letting yourself in for.

Everyone now thinks they are power generations experts.
Fuel usage is not linearly proportional to load. You will be very lucky if fuel usage drops very much because the units are not heavily loaded. I see a figure of 70% in another post. --- ONLY realisable IF the units are well maintained.
 
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Geoff.D said:
Good study and comparison. But, you guys are all underestimating the hassles owning one of these things!

No deatail on the invertors what sort are thye? Pure sine wave?
MUSYT factor in a UPS if the intention is to drive electronic equipment. Unless of course you are happy with any damage thta can occur?
And dont ignore those mainteance instructions! These devicea are NOT intended for use everyday day in day out!
But then why shoul we be worried about your money?
Go ahead.

Read the fine print about the 17-20% penalty for using the at altitude! The fihure are all rated values at sea level!
And then just as important, if you dont load them suffciently, the maintenance problems increase.

RTFM RTFM over and over gain until you know hat you are letting yourself in for.
Click to expand...
Mine is going for 5 years use it every second day, its been fine. I do change its oil and spark plugs and keep it cleat
 
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Trust|Nobody said:
Your make and model?
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I've got a Grip 1kVA and a Rolux 5.5kVA.

I've been using the 1kVA mostly, but tomorrow I'll be switching to the Rolux once I've replaced the starter battery.
 
Trust|Nobody said:
What make is this?
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PowerMaster 7Kw module its loud and heavy but it has given me 0 problems. It get used almost every day on the farm pulling low to heavy loads also use it to pull a welder and sometimes house stuff.
 
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I found this review of the RG-2250i:

"Earlier in the year I bought a Ryobi RG-2250i (4 stroke, 2.2kW Inverter Generator) during an outage that lasted a week due to our substation being horribly "vandalised" (more like sabotaged!).

This little generator is perfect for electronic equipment (designed for it), and it nicely powers what I need it to power, including the UPSes. Seems a lot quieter than the usual small gensets too, and is pretty frugal on fuel.

After standing for a while (but would test it occasionally), just one soft pull (after at last remembering to set choke on
icon_rolleyes.gif
icon_lol.gif
) it just purrs into action."

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=213441&start=45#p1998809
 
Some sound advice from Geoff.

My dad was a Karoo farmer for three decades and spent nearly a decade in states, gave me lots of real-world advice. I also ask around and listen to everybody.


I will just tell you to f off if you tell me to plug the generator into the wall sockets.
 
DTBA said:
PowerMaster 7Kw module its loud and heavy but it has given me 0 problems. It get used almost every day on the farm pulling low to heavy loads also use it to pull a welder and sometimes house stuff.
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Farm use -- Used to macinery and how to maintain --- probably give it a good go when using it. Different story to a town dweller who now gets one of these.
7 KW model as well, built to handle loads.
 
Trust|Nobody said:
I found this review of the RG-2250i:

"Earlier in the year I bought a Ryobi RG-2250i (4 stroke, 2.2kW Inverter Generator) during an outage that lasted a week due to our substation being horribly "vandalised" (more like sabotaged!).

This little generator is perfect for electronic equipment (designed for it), and it nicely powers what I need it to power, including the UPSes. Seems a lot quieter than the usual small gensets too, and is pretty frugal on fuel.

After standing for a while (but would test it occasionally), just one soft pull (after at last remembering to set choke on
icon_rolleyes.gif
icon_lol.gif
) it just purrs into action."

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=213441&start=45#p1998809
Click to expand...
 
I have a Ryobi generator (5.5). They do not produce anywhere close to the rated power output( I have had this discussion with other Ryobi owners at the repair depo). Don't buy a unit bigger than you need. Running too low a load will also reduce reliability. An inverter generator cannot be fixed (cost effectively in this country).

You need to service the dang generator often due to the amount of load shedding. Get one with a AVR. The battery is approx R 1200 (self start models).

You also need to run the gennie once a month (that won't be a problem now)
 
silver6933 said:
I have a Ryobi generator (5.5). They do not produce anywhere close to the rated power output( I have had this discussion with other Ryobi owners at the repair depo). Don't buy a unit bigger than you need. Running too low a load will also reduce reliability. An inverter generator cannot be fixed (cost effectively in this country).

You need to service the dang generator often due to the amount of load shedding. Get one with a AVR. The battery is approx R 1200 (self start models).
Click to expand...

At least one word of reason about the Ryobis!
No one should go out and buy a geni without knowing exactly what they plan to do with the power generated, and how they are going to ensure it is run between the effective limits, not too low and within its rated capacity with an allownce for surges.
 
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If you have a business then you should have some sort of backup. This was something we planned two years back and the last week got me to jump.

Even without load shedding, it's important for a business to have a backup.
 
silver6933 said:
They do not produce anywhere close to the rated power output( I have had this discussion with other Ryobi owners at the repair depo).
Click to expand...

Geoff.D said:
At least one word of reason about the Ryobis!
No one should go out and buy a gni without knowing exactly waht they plan to do with the power generated, and how they are going to ensure it is run between the effctive limits, not too low and within its rated capcity with an allownce for surges.
Click to expand...


Read this guy's post:

ScrnScrm said:
I have the RG-2000i. I can comfortably power my 51in Samsung Plasma TV, a Yamaha Amp, DSTV Explora, all the lights in and out the house (all Ellies Auroa LED), two Macbook Airs, a Samsung double door fridge, a LG single door fridge, the alarm, the electric fence, and 8 HD CCTV cameras with the DVR and 22in Monitor attached. Admittedly the fridges are both A+++ power rated. I use an Ellies Efergy monitor to track power consumption. All running, it averages between 800w and 900w, and you have to stage the turn on to avoid rush in current.

The reason I chose to go the route of the Ryobi RG-2000i is because I tested the output exhaustively, and it really is great at maintaining spec. It was right up there with the Honda Eu20i. It was better than the Kipor unit. As a pure sinewave inverter its also unlikely to screw anything up and I dont need to run the gennie through an inverter onto the DB board (which is the problem with normal generators, even with AVR, you really should run them through a good quality inverter if you want to match the quality of eskom power, and that just pushes the costs through the roof).

Some side notes - remember to factor in about 3.5% loss per 1000ft for altitude. This applies to all non-turbo generators. So for the RG-2000i which has a continous rating of 1600w at sea level, you are going to get (1600w - (5.5x3.5)%) 1292W continuous output in Johannesburg. This is completely consistent with what my testing showed. Run this unit over 1300W continously and it struggles. Also remember that most of these gennies are configured for sea level so will run a bit rich at altitude - make sure you make the relevant carb jet change at the dealer when you buy it to ensure its optimised for Jozi altitudes. keep the old jet so that if you take it to the coast you dont burn the gennie out because its running too lean!!!

About the noise - for the Honda EU20i and the Ryobi RG-2000i, forget about any claims that these things are quiet. Sure, they are slightly better than normal gennies, but they are nowhere near silent. The Honda is slightly, slightly better than the Ryobi, but not enough to really notice. You cant realistically leave these things outside your front door. I got the electrician around to move my gennie access point into a storeroom I have at the back of my property. I had him change the wiring run from the storeroom to the DB board to the best quality cabling possible - hopefully this will minimize voltage loss. Now I will be able to close the door and it will be barely audible.

Finally - fuel consumption - 3.7l tank lasts between 4 and 5 hours depending on the load.
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ScrnScrm said:
Also remember that most of these gennies are configured for sea level so will run a bit rich at altitude - make sure you make the relevant carb jet change at the dealer when you buy it to ensure its optimised for Jozi altitudes. keep the old jet so that if you take it to the coast you dont burn the gennie out because its running too lean!!!
Click to expand...

What is a carb jet?
 
It's quite interesting to read all the replies in this thread.

How do you guys feed your appliances from your Jenny?
 
A carburetter jet. Of course all the millenials don't know what a carburetter is because no one has carburetter cars anymore.
And then we talk of progress!

Thanks BTW for finding a really useful reference that deals with the imprtant aspects.

The only issue not covered is the minimum load that a geni should be subjected to.
A petrol engine that runs too rich carbons up very quickly and then requires some serious servicing. The fuel to air ratio of a carburettor engine is determined by the jet or jets. The correct jet for the altitude prevents excessive carbon which is formed when the fuel does not get burned properly when the engine runs. If a geni is lightly loaded, the exact same thing happens, hence why there is a minimum load required.
The added cost is as in the reference post you found --- you need to know what the load is and keep it below the rated value adjusted for altitude and above the minimum load figure (Typically one can work on a figure of 20% of rated power after being adjusted for altitude if no info is available from the manufacturers.

If like us old timers you know a thing or two about carburetter engines you can fine tune the mixture without changing jets and adjusting the timing to ensure a perfect mixture and the least carbon build up.
You check this by looking at the exhaust of the engine. It should be running a grey colour not black (leaded petrol). If the exhaust is running black (leaded petrol), the mixture is too rich and or the load on the geni is not enough.

Edit/ As rightly pointed out in post #56 by @Düber, the exhasut colour is no longer an easy check for mixture as you don't get that nice grey colour with unleaded petrol. Now the check is to see if the spark plug is burning a nice brownish colour.
 
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