expiredNavy-Wife | Staff posted Jul 10, 2024 07:04 AM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expiredNavy-Wife | Staff posted Jul 10, 2024 07:04 AM
Prime Members: Champion TRI Fuel Portable Natural Gas Generator: 5k/4k Generator
& More + Free Shipping$592
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Generator construction
Inverter- this type uses power electronics to produce a 60hz pure sinusoidal wave form at the cost of increased price. Pros: more fuel efficient and quieter since it can produce power at any RPM of engine speed. Slower engine speed is less power thus it can vary engine speed based on power needs. Price is increasingly prohibitive as you increase the generator size and so you typically use this for smaller power needs. Pure sin waves are best for sensitive electronics.
Traditional generator- this type relies on engine speed (typically 3600rpm) to produce a 60hz waveform. Furthermore, the physical design and construction varies with cheaper design/construction having higher THD total harmonic distortion. Better design and construction costing more money lowers THD with some advertising a THD of less than 5% which is best for sensitive electronics. This means the THD number can indirectly tell you the quality of the design and build. These Generators are used throughout the range of sizes with lower THD designs costing more money. Generally loud. My cost per performance sweet spot is 5 to 10% THD.
With this said, champion seems to be good quality among the cheaper gens. THD can be high so look for THD numbers in a Q&A section
Side note- unfortunately, you will need these more often going forward. There is absolutely no reason why black outs or energy emergencies should exist. This is purely political.
Another side note- do your break in oil changes on every generator and always use ethanol free gas with fuel stabilizer.
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To give you an idea of what a 20lb 4.4 gallon propane tank last, I ran refrigerator, a fan, and charge multiple devices for about 14 hours before needing to switch tanks.
It's hard to find information on how long things like this last cause everyone's experience is different based on wattage usage but this should give you a ball park. Follow the maintenance guide and these things will last and worth the price.
If you use gasoline or propane I could get even higher output, but connecting it into a natural gas connection is just far too convenient. So instead I just temporarily shut off the AC anytime I want to run something else for a bit.
If you use gasoline or propane I could get even higher output, but connecting it into a natural gas connection is just far too convenient. So instead I just temporarily shut off the AC anytime I want to run something else for a bit.
Generator construction
Inverter- this type uses power electronics to produce a 60hz pure sinusoidal wave form at the cost of increased price. Pros: more fuel efficient and quieter since it can produce power at any RPM of engine speed. Slower engine speed is less power thus it can vary engine speed based on power needs. Price is increasingly prohibitive as you increase the generator size and so you typically use this for smaller power needs. Pure sin waves are best for sensitive electronics.
Traditional generator- this type relies on engine speed (typically 3600rpm) to produce a 60hz waveform. Furthermore, the physical design and construction varies with cheaper design/construction having higher THD total harmonic distortion. Better design and construction costing more money lowers THD with some advertising a THD of less than 5% which is best for sensitive electronics. This means the THD number can indirectly tell you the quality of the design and build. These Generators are used throughout the range of sizes with lower THD designs costing more money. Generally loud. My cost per performance sweet spot is 5 to 10% THD.
With this said, champion seems to be good quality among the cheaper gens. THD can be high so look for THD numbers in a Q&A section
Side note- unfortunately, you will need these more often going forward. There is absolutely no reason why black outs or energy emergencies should exist. This is purely political.
Another side note- do your break in oil changes on every generator and always use ethanol free gas with fuel stabilizer.
Regarding THD, the advertised THD on all generators is only valid based on the load that was used to test. When you find the specs if at all advertised, you'll notice that it's at a very low constant load, so basically the advertised THD is the minimum you can expect, not the maximum. The THD will change as you vary the load and especially as it increases to anywhere near the advertised capacity. So those generators that are saying 5% THD will be much worse in real world use as you have power fluctuations with your loads.
An inverter generator however will never very from the THD that is listed, that is the point of the inverter. The motor generated the load, and the inverter does an ac-dc conversion balancing the output sine wave. It doesn't matter what you draw off the generator with an inverter, it'll always provide this output. The negative of the inverter is that it requires power, so if the onboard battery dies, you can't run the generator at all since it can't run without its inverter. This isn't an issue if it's sitting on a maintainer but something to be aware of. Next issue is that when the inverter breaks, the generator becomes scrap unless you can source that same inverter. Inverters are a manufacturers black box, they aren't universal and can't be repaired, only replaced.
Outside of those two items, inverter generators are superior in everyway to a standard one.
Next issue with your comment to use ethanol free gas and a fuel stabilizer. Don't do this, it is a waste of money if you understand how fuel stabilizer works. If you are already using rec fuel, theres no point in adding the stabilizer as the stabilizer is meant to prevent the issues caused by the ethanol in the fuel. So either use rec fuel, or use regular fuel with a stabilizer, not both.
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Regarding THD, the advertised THD on all generators is only valid based on the load that was used to test. When you find the specs if at all advertised, you'll notice that it's at a very low constant load, so basically the advertised THD is the minimum you can expect, not the maximum. The THD will change as you vary the load and especially as it increases to anywhere near the advertised capacity. So those generators that are saying 5% THD will be much worse in real world use as you have power fluctuations with your loads.
An inverter generator however will never very from the THD that is listed, that is the point of the inverter. The motor generated the load, and the inverter does an ac-dc conversion balancing the output sine wave. It doesn't matter what you draw off the generator with an inverter, it'll always provide this output. The negative of the inverter is that it requires power, so if the onboard battery dies, you can't run the generator at all since it can't run without its inverter. This isn't an issue if it's sitting on a maintainer but something to be aware of. Next issue is that when the inverter breaks, the generator becomes scrap unless you can source that same inverter. Inverters are a manufacturers black box, they aren't universal and can't be repaired, only replaced.
Outside of those two items, inverter generators are superior in everyway to a standard one.
Next issue with your comment to use ethanol free gas and a fuel stabilizer. Don't do this, it is a waste of money if you understand how fuel stabilizer works. If you are already using rec fuel, theres no point in adding the stabilizer as the stabilizer is meant to prevent the issues caused by the ethanol in the fuel. So either use rec fuel, or use regular fuel with a stabilizer, not both.
I find the THD discussion spurious. I can't find a single practical experiment that showed the harm with higher THD. That is, you can find some electrical engineering sites that will gloss over it, "high THD bad", then some more that basically say that higher THD's, over long periods of time, lead to component wear and possible failure, but I have yet to find a source that ran some sort of experiment where they ran some "sensitive electronic" under low and "high" THD for some period of time and the "high" THD device failed. Yes there are anecdotes, but anecdotes are anecdotes. What is likely the case is that the amount of time one would need to expose a "sensitive electronic" to "high" THD is so long that the vast vast majority of generator users would never approach that, so it's basically a moot point.
That said, the more practical issue with higher THD's is in UPS devices, but generally lower cost consumer ones. Higher-level UPS allow for customized setups dictating how high a THD is allowed.
I'm not saying that the THD discussion is entirely pointless or that you shouldn't seek a lower-THD generator, but usually the tradeoff is cost. Also, inverter generators at higher capacities tend to be prohibitively expensive, and since kw capacity generally goes hand in hand with 240V availability, and ease of connection to a panel, finding a low THD, 240v-capable generator is even more expensive.
Make sure you guys get the 240V model if you want to hook it up to your house. It seems like the 8000W version is similar to the Costco Firman model except it doesn't have the NEMA 14-50 outlet.
That said, the more practical issue with higher THD's is in UPS devices, but generally lower cost consumer ones. Higher-level UPS allow for customized setups dictating how high a THD is allowed.
I'm not saying that the THD discussion is entirely pointless or that you shouldn't seek a lower-THD generator, but usually the tradeoff is cost. Also, inverter generators at higher capacities tend to be prohibitively expensive, and since kw capacity generally goes hand in hand with 240V availability, and ease of connection to a panel, finding a low THD, 240v-capable generator is even more expensive.
Without the inverter to provide clean constant power, your variable gas valves will not ignite properly, the ECU will stop the unit from running completely and error out. The reasoning for this is that the ECU can't determine properly if the gas valve is open or closed, so for safety reasons the system won't run at all.
The discussion related to sensitive electronics and THD is mostly moot at this point as you noted, most modern electronics are able to handle significant variations in the load. For example look at the input voltage on the back of your laptop charger, modern electronics are much less sensitive than older models.
So yes, an inverter (or a massively oversized generator output, i.e. a generac) is needed to be able to run things like your fridge, furnace, and AC.
I personally have the champion inverter trifuel mentioned in the comments. I run it solely on NG, it is able to easily power everything in my house outside of the double oven, with many things running concurrently. If i ran it on gas itd probably power everything. This is accomplished by a generator disconnect in the main panel, and a 50amp hookup outside. Set up is extremely easy and it's almost silent in the house when set the correct 20ft away from the house.
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