Honda 2000

[camaraderie]

Vitesse...plug your Honda into your shorepower receptacle and use the 100amp charger you have already...much more efficient this way and only a bit of running time. As I recall...you can run the Honda for about 3 hours on a tank of gas so bring some extra if you go that route. You need one of these adapters to connect to your shorepower unless you do it yourself like the Beezer.

[Vitesse473]

ChucklesR - I thought long and hard about solar, but opted out because I don't have an arch or stern pole. I have a sun cover (shown in the avatar), but it isn't strong enough to properly hold panels. If I do the 2010 Pac Cup to Hawaii, I'll go that route.
Cam/ChucklesR - Thanks for the feedback, that sounds like a really good option for my needs. One question though. The Magnum MS2000 model data sheet states the "Input current at rated output (AC Amps) is 15amps. Will the Honda 2000 simply put out slightly less amps (13), thus lowering the efficiency of the 100amp charger?

Really appreciate the info/advice.

http://www.magnumenergy.com/Literatu...20Rev%20E).pdf

[camaraderie]

Vitesse...exactly right. You'll probably get around 85 amps DC.

[Vitesse473]

Craigm - Sorry if I hijacked your thread. Hopefully the info was also helpful to your case. I'll be picking up a Honda EU2000i next week, and will use it for our Oct 2-5 trip to San Diego. I'll post the details of how it performed when I return, so you may want to wait until then to purchase yours.

[VK6YOT]

Guys,

I went down the route of a 100 amp charger powered by the Honda 2000i. I did all the calcs and sought advice from the charger supplier. I theory it should work.

In practice I've found that the 2000i is a wisker underpowered to drive the 100 amp charger when its feeding batteris at full wack and cuts out on the overpower trip. As soon as the current draw drops to about 96 amps the Honda can just about handle it.

My "work around" is to start up the Honda and switch on the charger for periods of about 10 seconds only. This period is short enough to avoid the Honda sensing an overpower situation cutting out. In my system the current draw seems to drop quite quickly to about 95 amps allowing me to leave the charger switched on.

I suspect there must be away of adjusting the Honda's overpower cutout slighlty but havn't spent to much time on this.

The other solution for me is to have the charger down rated to 95 amps, something the supplier has offer to do.

Hope this helps


Leighton.

[lynn1120]

Originally Posted by dsarin

We bought our Honda eu2000i two and a half years ago at haysequipment.com for $850 shipped, the best deal we could find at the time. We hook it up to our 30 amp shore power receptical with a short extension cord and a 30amp to 110v pigtail, about 18" in length purchased from West Marine.

Our set up is a bit different--we have no shore power, so we have a 15watt solar panel mounted on the stern rail to top off the batteries monday to friday, when we are at work. on weekends we have 2 honda 2000 linked together and then plugged into shore power recepticle via a short plug as mentioned above--that way we get enough service to charge up and heat water or run AC should we require it and having just come off a 1980 catalina we are not energy pigs, yet.....

Season one just ended and it seemed to work fine--used the generators singly or together just a few times. Total cost of setup 2x 850, plug and special rated cord 150, connector was about 150 so for 2k got what we needed-- much cheaper than a genset.

[davidpm]

Originally Posted by Vitesse473

Craigm - Sorry if I hijacked your thread. Hopefully the info was also helpful to your case. I'll be picking up a Honda EU2000i next week, and will use it for our Oct 2-5 trip to San Diego. I'll post the details of how it performed when I return, so you may want to wait until then to purchase yours.

Do you have those performance numbers yet?

[thekeip]

One of the things you can do if you really must get every last amp out of your charger / Honda combo is to look into your power factor. Most small generators have a problem working into large reactive loads such as certain chargers, like the older ferro-resonant varieties. You can correct the PF nicely by buying a 'motor run' capacitor...(maybe it's the 'motor start' cap) anyway, a 50 mfd 200v or so, and plug it into the unused part of the 120v receptacle. Xantrex suggests this.
Howard Keiper
Berkeley

[k1vsk]

Originally Posted by Dunlookn

I was at my local Camping World a few days ago. They are selling the 2000 with a $ 100.00 gas gift card. That is the best deal I have ever seen on this product.

Don't own stock...but this is the best deal I've seen.

According to my economics theory, it kind of depends on one significant missing number here - what did you pay for the generator? They currently go for between $850 - $875 when I last looked