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?

"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.

JohnnyBoyUpNorth wrote:
I had a pound of bacon draped over the muffler frying from exhaust heat and picked some fresh tomatoes from the garden. Toasted bacon and tomato sandwiches man!

Actually, I did some temperature readings with an infrared point and read thermometer. After half an hour of close to full load operation, the engine head was reading a mere 145 degrees F. The crank case was only 95 deg. F. The generator was 185 degrees on the internal rotating parts at business end near the engine where I pointed the laser into the ventilation holes at the air intake. It read 75 degrees at the opposite end where the generator's fan driven cooling air blows out the ventilated exterior cover. I suspect the thermometer was reading a small, fairly hot area inside the generator that wasn't making a lot of heat over all. The muffler was reading 475 deg. F. Ambient temperature was 41 deg. F. I'm certain the cool temps helped keep the power plant's temperatures down. Nonetheless, for half an hour of hard operation, it was running fairly cool. Warmer ambient temps and longer running time will surely bring the operating temps up considerable but by these initial readings, I suspect that it will run fine.

I have one of these its a 3000/3500 surge and it runs my AC on my camper with no problems paid 349.00 for it at lowes it is not as quiet as some of the inverter type hondas and such but so far it works well and I am impressed also for 350.00 bucks hey

Hard to go wrong at that price. I have a couple Honda EU2000's now. I needed something really quiet while camping with long running times. I've added the use of a 6 gallon marine tank with these and I can get multiple days running time out of them. At 1/4 load the EU2000 can run up to 15 hours on 1 gallon. There is a price to be paid though but engineering seems top notch. I like the little things like the ease of draining the carb for storage.

<BR> Santaclause wrote: &lt;BR&gt;

For their intended purpose (camping etc.) the inverter type generators are hard to beat. Honda, Yamaha, Kipor and Boily are top sellers with Honda and Yamaha being very pricey by comparison to the other two. In Canada, the EU2000 is $1600.00 and equivalent Yamaha is similarly priced. An equivalent Kipor or Boily is usually half of that. A friend of mine bought a 2300 watt Boily. Had it delivered to his door for $800.00 all in. I've seen and heard it run. With variable rpm/load it's very quiet and seems fairly well built. Certainly not on the same level as an equivalent Honda or Yamaha but, for half the price, it looks like a bargain. If it holds up only half as long as Honda, you're breaking even. If it lasts longer, that's bonus time.

The Champion is not an inverter type generator. It runs 3600 rpm no matter what the load. So it will be making more noise all the time it's running. For my needs, noise is irrelevant. It's for emergency use in case of an extended power outage. Extended is 24 hours or more which has never happened and likely will not being that we have huge hydro plants in and close to the city. So there's a good chance that I'll never need the generator at all. For the $400.00 that I paid for it, it's very inexpensive peace of mind. I also have a 6kw diesel gen set out at my camp that's been faithfully running for 26 years and has close to 6000 hours on it. That's relatively low hours considering the engine is designed to run at least 25,000 to 30,000 hours as a generator power supply. That liquid cooled 850cc, three cylinder Kubota has been a real gem. All I've done to it in 26 years is change oil every 150 hours, and coolant twice. It's kept in a clean environment and still looks virtually new. The valve lash hasn't even gone out of spec!

I've been toying with the idea of building a gen set myself. Not that I need another one. It's just that I've seen brand new 850cc liquid cooled three cylinder Yanmar diesels for $2400.00 and new 7kw generator ends for $1600.00. That's a lot of generator for the money!

Yikes...you guys really get the shaft on pricing up north. My EU2000's were about $915 (USD)/each with free delivery from Wise Sales.

borat wrote:

I like to think our power is fairly resilient where I live but a windstorm or large snow storm undoubtedly takes the power out where I live. At times it can take local power utilities several days to get power back to some. We are primarily Hydro as well in WA state and bleed off our extra power to the states to the south. There are some large wind farms now though.

I'd love to have a diesel type generator at my cabin like you mention below. That is some serious power.

I'm hoping I get some good years out of the Hondas.... I've seen a few people on other forums mention having 10-12K hours on their units. I guess they are living in some kind of "off-the-grid" arrangement.




borat wrote:

snowmachine wrote:
Very true. The list prices are ridiculous and the local dealers don't budge. That's why I buy much of my OPE and motorcycle related merchandise from the U.S. I've probably spent $20K in the U.S. in the last three years. I get the gears from local dealers for buying out of country and not supporting the local economy. I usually tell them that their pricing is waaaaay out of line and me supporting them is equivalent to providing a thief with a gun to rob me.

I can understand that there is some disadvantage for local manufacturers and dealers however, it's no where near the difference in price and they don't even try to give you a break on prices. A prime example is just before the economic melt down, a fellow I know bought an brand new GMC pick-up. After the economic crisis, that same truck was selling for close to $9000.00 less. How does a manufacturer/dealer sell the same product at such a reduced price and stay in business? You can rest assured that their profit margin in Canada is way over the top compared to the U.S. Canadian manufactures and dealers get no sympathy from me. We Canadians have been a cash cow for manufacturers/dealers for far too long. Now that the U.S. and Canadian dollars are reasonably close, there are many bargains to be had in the U.S. and local merchandisers had better take heed!

As a matter of fact, before I bought the Champion from Chinadian Tire, I had ordered a similar one from Cabellas in the U.S. They had an equivalent model on sale for $399.00 USD. When I looked on the CTC website, they had a similar model for $599.00 CDN. When I went to CTC for something else, I went down to their generator section and saw a similar machine on sale for $399.00 CDN so I canceled the Cabellas order and bought locally. I'll buy local if the price is reasonable. This is another prime example of profit gouging. If they can afford to knock off $200.00 from the price of a machine and still make money, the profit margin is excessive.

Independent dealers are even worse. I told the story before of the local Toro dealer selling a twenty cent bolt for $5.89! They should have a nylon stocking pulled down over their faces.

so, I'm resurrecting this thread from the dead... anyway, after the two power outages this year in Northern VA, I just purchased one of the champion generators from costco for $700. It's model 41537 (7500/9375 watts). It's got a 439cc Chonda engine. The generator is still in the box, unopened. However, I'm considering the Honda eu6500is, which is close to 5x the price of Champion generator. Obviously, there are bigger differences. The eu6500 is an inverter and I won't have to worry about the computers, tv, etc. I decided against a home standby generator as it's very expensive and we will not be staying at this house forever. So, I thought about getting the Honda. How has your experience with the Champion? still working after 3 years? thanks ray