Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

We had a power outage here a few days ago. It was out for several hours which is unusual. During the outage, it was raining pretty hard and that had me concerned about the sump in our basement. I'm certain that it would take a couple of days of heavy rain for the sump to flood but not having an operative pump caused me concern. Accordingly, I bought an inexpensive Chinese Champion CSA40032 generator. It has 3000W continuous and 4000W surge power. I tested it out today with a 1500 watt continuous load then plugged in and actuated the sump pump. The generator worked just fine. Overall, I'm impressed with the machine. The engine is a Honda GX200 clone. From what I've read, this 196cc engine is produced for Honda in China and, Champion Power Equipment supposedly have a license to manufacture the same engines under their name. According to their advertising, they claim that their engines are built to the same quality and specifications as the Honda GX200, cast iron cylinder, ball bearings and all. After adding fuel and oil, it started on the first pull. A bit of white smoke originally puffed from the exhaust then absolutely clear exhaust after two or three seconds. The engine is very quiet and smooth. I ran it under 50 percent load for an hour and a half on a liter of fuel. I hate to say it but this little generator has impressed me. I think I'll have to take back some of the bad mouthing I've done in the past about Chinese engines. In addition to my initial impressions, my research has revealed that owners of these generators have put many hours on them with very few mechanical issues. One person reported that he has been using one for up to seven hours a day for almost a year with no problems at all. That's encouraging.

Oh, and did I mention the price? I paid $450.00 taxes included, out the door at Chinadian Tire. I checked out a comparable Honda EG3500XK1A (not exactly the same specs but close enough) and it's priced at $1789.95 plus taxes, which comes to 2022.64. Now, I'm not so gullible as to believe that these machines are on the same level. However, I'm also realistic enough to know that the machine I bought will only be used in emergency situations for brief periods of time. Considering that I could buy 4.5 of these machines for the price of one Honda, it truly does make one wonder why a person would shell out that kind of bucks for an iconic brand name and a bit more quality.

Does anyone out there have any comments on these machines?

I ran the little generator for a few hours under various loads. Fuel consumption is impressive. At half load it will burn between .5 to .75 liter per hour. I just finished doing an oil change. With three to four hours on the oil, it had some discolouration but still clear. While hot, I ran it through a coffee filter in a funnel and was surprised to see that there was no glitter left behind. If there was, it was beyond my vision to see it out in the sunshine. That's pretty clean manufacturing. I'll still have to do some long term testing but so far, I'm very much impressed.

I say give it a real workout Borat.Get it up to 90% of its max and see how stable it is.I watched some guy on youtube put his generator under heavy load and insert a V.O.M. in the other 120v outlet to see if it would remain at 120v and it stayed was pretty stable.

mikiewest wrote:

I ran a 1500 watt constant load then plugged in a 1/2 h.p. sump pump. The generator barked a bit initially then settled down nicely powering both loads with no problem. Hard to say how long it could keep it up. Only time will tell. So far, I'm impressed.

l know this is off topic a little but thought l would mention it... on my sump pump l have a back up battery system that in the case of a power outage it would still turn the pump on, u can get them for about $100 and up plus a deep cycle battery which is about $100 give or take. its good insurance if your basement is finished... like even if u go away for a weekend good piece of mind.

One nice way to check a unit under load is to see if it puts out about 60 hertz at full load, put a good meter on the unit and see if the voltage and hertz are within opertating limits for the unit, (bad hertz+ noisy power).... you can adjust the top end throttle stop or gov. to meet the Hertz range.

I always had few of those little shop heaters 1500/2500 watts to plug-in for full load.( yah- know the ones that go on sale in summer)


Also, check the GFI on the unit while you are at it, the little plug in tester at Lowes and HomeDepot works good for that, Better safe than sorry.


Good Luck,

Friiy

Got this 1300 watts for 199.00 3 day special, normaly 299.00, works like a charm and powerfull too.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/6/Tools/ShopEquipment/Generators/PRD~0550308P/United%2BPower%2B1300W%2BGas%2BGenerator.jsp

United Power link  http://www.unitedpower.cn/

I ran a test on the Champion today. It's rated at 4000 surge watts and 3000 continuous. I put the generator under load with a 1500 watt hair dryer, an 850 watt clothes iron and an 1100 watt toaster. It ran the appliances but when I put the hair dry to full power, it tripped the breaker. That makes sense because the total load was 3450 which is 450 over the continuous load rating. I adjusted the hair dry to 2/3rd power and the generator kept everything running nicely for half an hour. During the test, the iron was loading and unloading due to being thermostatically controlled. As well, when the toaster popped, I'd turn it back on. The load fluctuation had no effect on the stability of the generator. I measured the voltage with a digital multi meter and it maintained a steady 125 volts. Can't ask for much more than that!

Do you think it can start up your snowblower?I wonder if anyone has tried....I have a coleman with a 10hp b&S ohv engine.Went online and couldnt find anything about oil type for mine.What do you think would be a safe bet 10w30?Or are all generators different?

"As well, when the toaster popped, I'd turn it back on."

Mind my asking what you did with all that toast?

yuk yuk

mikiewest wrote:
I think it would start a snow thrower engine with no problem.

You're pretty much right on with your oil selection. Almost all modern small engines run 10W30 as a mid range temperature oil. I'd go with a 5W30 in cold conditions and 15W40 Rotella T in hot conditions. The oil change interval recommendation on this engine is every 100 hours in normal conditions and every 50 hours in dirty conditions. That sounds reasonable. No mention in the manual regarding synthetic oil. I'm running a good quality dino oil in it right now. Oil changes are a piece of cake and at .63 liter of oil, I'd rather be changing oil regularly rather than running synthetic for extended periods. If I were running it in winter, I'd probably go to a 0W30 Mobile 1 or Rotella 5W30 synthetic depending on which was least expensive. I run synthetic in my snow thrower because it's easier to start.

I've built a small cabinet on casters that houses the generator and it stores neatly under the steps/landing from the garage to the house. I've run a thirty five foot 12 gauge wire cable with a couple big (and expensive) 20 amp twist lock connectors on each end. The cable is that long so that I can roll the weather resistant cabinet/power plant outside to run it. The cable goes from the garage through the wall into the basement and twist locks into a distribution cable with four AC outlets on the other end. It's a four wire cable so each pair of outlets has 20 amps available to them. That should be more than enough to run the sump pump, fridges and freezer. It could also probably run the high efficiency furnace but I wouldn't really have to. I've got a couple high efficiency wood burning fire places in the house that will heat the place with no problem at 40 below F. Got a woodshed full of dry wood and could likely heat the place for two or three months if I had to. We use natural gas to heat the house, hot water, cook, and dry clothes. So, there would be no real big demand on the generator if it was called upon.

Chances are we'll never need it. However, for the money, it provides peace of mind.