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The next hair brained idea, rear generator box


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Close the door and see if the generator will handle the A/C cycling.

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my cousins absolutely would not even start the 13.5k (that did have the hard start capacitor) unless it was not in econ mode. econ mode would just go into overload.

This was in Bedford PA in the mountains and we also tried running it on a hot day it was in july and I want to say was 88 and sweaty... It ran 15 mins then went into overload on a cycling of the compressor.

On the mach1 PS edition i think he will be ok unless very high and hot.

 

Edited by Totem
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Well, as is normal with my luck, odd things going on. I fired up one gen and started up the ac. It was showin 103 out on the side of the camper in direct sun, 97 inside. all was great, about 20 minutes later I heard the gen bog and went to check. The ac was just barely blowing air, i switched to fan and everything worked great, back to ac and it bogged and very little air. So I figured with my 5600 feet of elevation and a hot day it was too much for one gen. I fired up the second one. same dam thing happened! I was surprised by this.It  even blew my main breaker a couple of times. I decided to run it off my extension cord so i could put the amp meter on the white wire.  

nothing on in the coach it ran about 0.36 amps. if I am doing it right, the start up on the ac is about 9.4 amps, then it settles down at 2.2 amps or so. It blew the breaker in the coach, and on my surge protector in the garage, so I had to turn everything off, reset the breakers, start with the fan and work to the ac. it seems to run with no issues plugged into the wall. 

really disappointed here.

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 3.5% for each 1,000 feet

Figuring a ball park actual amps of these gens at 13 amps? I have 2 so 26 amps. the loss of efficiency 3.5% for each 1000 ft of elevation above 500, so I'm at 5600 so round down and subtract the 500 ft, and call it 5000. 3.5 x 5 + 17.5% reduction. call it 20% for the hell of it. so subtract 5.2 amps still give me 19.8 amps....

why can it not run a 9.5 amp draw?

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Hmmmm.  Running a roof AC off 1 Honda is a crapshoot, will work on Monday but not on Wednesday.  But 2??   Something is wrong.  A 2.8 genset is recommended for AC's and you are sitting with 4000 ok ok 3200 watts.  The onan 2.8 puts out 2800 watts and 23.3 amps and is rated for a 13.5K roof AC. 

It is not the 9.5 the compressor is cycling and briefly drawing a much higher amp. 

With the AC working off shore power I would suspect that the Honda's are not putting out to full potential.   This is all above my paygrade, I have heard of mixed results running a roof air on 1 genset but never heard of anyone having issues with 2!  Until now that is. 

Thanks for the update, always appreciated.              Jim

 

toy.PNG

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2nd after thought.  You made your own parallel setup. If you used ready made test leads the wire may be too small?  Easy to check cut the plugs off a couple wires   twist  together  and  plug in recepticals,   there is nothing special about the outlets for the parallel kit. Well there did not used to be anything special, I have not had this one apart:D

Any chance the electric hot water tank is on?    

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Back to step 1. Run the A/C on 110v and see if it will run full time, not just a few minutes. Possibilities include bad CB (weak), bad ac connections (wires).

Any bad connections will get hot after awhile and reduce power. 

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think I may have figured out the issue. I had forgotten that I have not connected the rv power cable that I have run back to the box to the inverter. So the cable is plugged into the standard cable. so I have a double length of cable. That should have some amp drop. hope that is the issue... I rewired it so my much shorter cable that runs to the box is wired into the breakers. Seems to work fine now, though I think I have an issue with my older generator. newer one ran everything fine, older one had a few hiccups. I will look into that later. The temp outside is in the 90s now. I will go do a test see what happens. 

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my newer gen ran the ac on high for over an hour. the old one about 20 mins then tripped. not sure why yet. 

I need a switch that I can use both forms of ac power, i am sure they make automatic ones for boats and rvs. Once that is in place I think I will have a good set up. I will still carry both gens for now. perhaps in the future a honda 3000 would be the way to go. 

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On 6/17/2016 at 8:02 PM, mtdave2 said:

 3.5% for each 1,000 feet

Figuring a ball park actual amps of these gens at 13 amps? I have 2 so 26 amps. the loss of efficiency 3.5% for each 1000 ft of elevation above 500, so I'm at 5600 so round down and subtract the 500 ft, and call it 5000. 3.5 x 5 + 17.5% reduction. call it 20% for the hell of it. so subtract 5.2 amps still give me 19.8 amps....

why can it not run a 9.5 amp draw?

because its a unicorn. get a predator, sell the corns, take all that cash and you will have enough for 4 predators, and one of those should be enough the other 3 can sit just "in case" ...   :)

just curious. did you check the starting cap? make sure its the big one if not add a hard start cap. in my case the new Mach 1 ps came with a larger cap than my hardstart one, but i piggy backed it anyway. It ran all weekend in 90 degrees here in michigan as I used the camper for a guest on the lake, and tested for an upcoming trip and I would say only at half throttle..

Edited by Totem
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tools needed:

phillips head screw driver

you will need to remove the cowl off the top of the AC unit.

Next find the side that has the service plate made of sheet metal and remove 2-3 sheet metal screws to gain access to the starting and run caps. on mine the starting cap was large about the size of a bottle of hairspray; on my old mach 3 regular edition it was the size of a film can. the capacitor will have dog ear connections on it available to add another capacitor as a daisy chain. I simply added the supco spp6 there and piggy backed it off the main start cap. This is what allows your hondacorn to start the compressor even at locked rotor status provided the cap has had time to energize (by just turning on the fan but not the cool) for a few seconds. also make sure you are not in eco mode.

beware the caps can maim or kill if energized and you short them with yourself or anything else.

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/29/2016 at 0:59 PM, mtdave2 said:

Baffle. how about just a plate of metal at an angle like this. weld in sides, maybe line it with some sort of foam? 

 

20160529_104943.jpg

After my recent experimenting I see one thing that is likely an issue, the set on the right is blowing its heated cooling air directly into the cool air intake of the one on the left. The case on the Honda is not only a case but designed to route fresh air where it is needed to cool the generator. The intake is above the control panel.

Another odd situation I had, I started with trying to direct the engine exhaust out and away, makes sense to get the really hot engine exhaust out of there.   But in my design it made the genset run hotter!  That one has me baffled. I noticed in most commercially available (not in US) Honda box's that the engine exhaust and cooling air exhaust are not separated?

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  • 2 weeks later...

just came upon this post - my friend has an 85 granville - he wanted to mount his honda 2000i on the back as well - concern for weight being first and foremost - extended the rear 18 inches - used 1/8'' polished aluminum treadplate for platform - took two square plastic milk crates - cut the sides (one each) joined each crate with aluminum extruded "u" channel with pop rivits then mounted to tread plate with stainless self tappers and stainless washers - plastic, aluminum and stainless equals no rust and light weight. the milk crates are pretty much standard in height, width, and length, and it just worked out that the honda fit like a glove after the two crates were cut and rejoined. another project done at the same time was welding a post to the bumper and fabricating it so as to hold the front and rear spare tires .the rear spare, ( 6 lug dually) is positioned between the bumper and rear of body, the front spare ( 5 lug) is mounted directly in front of dually, on outside of bumper. fabricated and welded brackets to post for each wheel, bought wheel studs at auto parts store and welded to bracket to mount each wheel. had to adjust each bracket and studs so both would line up in front/back of each other due to different bolt patterns. works really well. studs for each wheel are facing out, so you can remove one spare without removing the other. allowed enough spacing that each spare can be covered with it's own cover. my friends rig has a ladder on rear to roof, so had to place spare tire post a bit off center, to avoid obstructing access to ladder, tail lights and license plate. was just enough area to mount the generator crate that it fit nicely with out overhanging the rig.

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