Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Suggestions needed: Small Home Generator ???

Great example of what you should never do.


This is why appliances burn up and homes burn down.
Sure the generator kept running and the breaker never blew, but what kinda voltage were you delivering to your appliances at the end of those extension cords?
As the amp load slowly climbs the voltage drops, this can and will happen just with the use of one extension cord running a frig or freezer let alone over loaded extension cords running multiple appliances.

What"s the results of low voltage running electric motors? Heat, lots and lots of heat, the motor winding's are super heated cooking the insulating varnish off, it's just a matter of time until the motor burns. If you're lucky the extension cords burn before the motors do. At a minimum you shortened the life of all the appliances involved doing this just one time.

Do as you may, I could care less. I'm just posting this rant to warn others that this is a very stupid thing to do.
You can't just keep plugging crap in because the generator keeps running. Operate within it's limits and you'll be safe and can sleep well.

If you don't understand why the breaker never blew and what the associated hazards are, read up on the subject and educate yourself. The internet can be used for much more than making random posts on public forums.

Thanks, we saved a lot of deer meat and fish those few days. And I seriously doubt we were over 2200 watts.

Hondas will shut themselves off if overloaded.

Damn, that's smart!

Going to tell my friend's father about that possibility -- hope I can reach him before he places his order!

Thanks for the info, Killerv!

John

That's not a feature unique only to Honda portable inverter generators, either. Several other brands, including some lesser known brands also offer the parallel connection feature, as well.

Joken2

Didn't know that either.

I'm often impressed at what I learn on the 'Fire!

John

I'm going to have to sort out a standby generator, but with a twist.

Bought a house and gradually moving in this fall. House is already wired for a standby generator, manually switched generator connection near garage door, manual switches at elec panel clearly ID'd to isolate house from grid. That part is straight forward. Just need to select a generator. Well pump, frig, freezer, lp gas furnace, so something in 6000-8000 watt range should be fine.

BUT. ..house also has a solar array feeding power into electric panel, and a reversible electric meter so any excess power feeds back into the grid. What I have no idea about is what happens with the solar setup if I'm on generator and off grid. Can I continue to feed solar and generator into system or do I have to shut off solar power feed??? I think a visit and discussion with electrician is in my future. The company that installed solar system is about 60 miles down the road, so will be giving them a call.

Why doesn't anyone make a 3 to 4kw with 240v? I don't need a whole house gen but I want one to run my pump in an outage. It's a 1.5hp

I think he was more referring to the low voltage issue than over load...

Going back and reading up on generators. Was thinking about a larger unit until I saw this.....interesting option!

Tag

Newer more efficient appliances make a difference. 20+ year old freezers and fridges use much more juice than the newer stuff.
I still have all my line monitors and meters, its a good idea to test run whatever portable set up before you need it and know you're not overtaxing whatever generator you have.

Bought this Yamaha 15 years ago......

Never an issue....first pull start

Recently had a X/fer switch installed on the house

Plug it in & run nearly the whole house

https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/generator/models/ef2800i

You can get a fairly inexpensive Amp meter from Harbor Freight. Make a short jumper maybe 4 feet long so you can get the amp meter tongs around the black ( hot) leg of the3 wire cable( Strip out insulation)

Then attach each of your major appliances, connected to the jumper and then to AC to get the actual reading of the current each one is drawing. If it is 240 V, double that reading or measure both legs.. Then calculate the wattage from that. Some meters won't give you start up currnent.

This is the situation we had a couple of houses ago. I set things up to run my 8000 watt welder as a back up generator. There's a whole sequence of switching you have to do to ensure you don't back feed into the grid during a power outage. (The linemen can get real funny about that.) I can't tell you, offhand, what that sequence was, and I wouldn't try anyway, not knowing just how you're set up. I will say, contact the outfit that installed your solar array, get somebody there to walk you through the whole thing, and write down the steps. You might even want to take your phone and photograph the whole procedure. I don't know about others, but for me to try to remember something I only use every several months or every couple of years is a losing battle.

The small Honda generators are great, but at $1000+ each buying 2 of them just isn't practical for me. I paid under $300 for one of these at least 10 years ago. It still starts on the 1st pull on the rope and has been used a lot. It is a little bigger than I'd like, but we've used it camping on several occasions and for power outages.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...ble-generator-not-for-sale-in-california

We enclosed our garage and made it into a man cave years ago and can use it to live in during power outages. I cut a hole in the wall and used these to run power through the wall. The generator is barely audible inside.

https://www.amazon.com/JR-Products-...;hvtargid=pla-4583726541067878&psc=1

I rigged up an extension cord made from romex cable to power the TV, lights and a refrigerator. We also have a chest freezer in there and I alternate powering them up. The other refrigerator is in the kitchen and the romex cable is long enough to reach it as well. But I don't try to operate more than one of them at a time. They don't run all the time anyway so alternating between them every hour or so keeps the food cold and or frozen.

I have a small AC unit that will keep that room cool and the generator has enough power to run it as well. Never had to use it in hot weather though. Only during winter snow storms so far. I put in a gas heater that doesn't require electricity for heat so we live pretty comfortably in about 600 sq ft if the power goes out. And I don't have a ton of money invested in it.

there is no reason to run a generator non stop for a freezer. they will keep contents frozen for days. only need to let the generator run for an hour every 6-7 hours

what I dont like about that generator is the RV plug. without the 120/240 twist lock plug it cant run my well pump

I would go with the Honda 3000is. It has the eco throttle so it matches engine speed to power needs making it very fuel efficient.