Don W wrote in
m:

Yeah, but thats just it. Your Honda lawnmower runs about 1 hour per
week right? And thats if you mow every week all year long (doubtful).

So at the most, you run that mower 52 hours per year. In 12 years you
_may_ have run it 624 hours.

A genset that runs 10 hours per day will equal that in two months of
use.

Now back to Larry's bitch about having to clean the combustion
chamber. Most gasoline engines require some kind of major maintenance
(like an overhaul) at around the 2000 hour mark. With diesels, you
can sometimes get TBO's in the 5000 hour range. The problem with that
genset is just that you are putting a _lot_ of hours on it in a very
short time.

Does Honda mention the time before overhaul (TBO) on that engine?

No, not at all. I don't think they have "overhaul" in mind...(c;

Last night I downloaded about 20 new owner's manuals off Honda's website
for all kinds of power equipment. EVERY ONE of them now has this clean-
the-carbon-out-the-hard-way nonsense! This makes me suspicious that some
government bureaucrat hell bent on breathing the exhaust instead of the air
is behind this. Not all the Honda engines could have carboned up all at
once in 2002....(c;


Also, although it won't help with your warranty if it is still in
effect, you can probably keep from developing significant carbon
deposits by using a fuel additive which dissolves carbon. There are a
number of them on the market. You'd probably only have to run the
additive every 5th to 10th tank to be effective.

There's no hourmeter on any of it, and they tell the commercial users of it
to keep a logbook so they know how many hours it has run. Right next to
the 12V cigarette lighter jack I installed over the AGM starting battery so
I could monitor its state of charge and charging without complete
disassembly of the inverter end of the genset, I mounted a 115VAC, 60 Hz
old military hour meter that optimistically reads out to 99999.9
hours...(c; For $2 at a flea market, no hour log is necessary. I write the
hours on the meter in felt tip marker on the case above the meter to remind
me. I'm not very good at unnecessary paperwork, the reason I wasn't a very
good government bureaucrat. Next to the hourmeter is a new 60 Hz reed
frequency meter and RMS AC DVM so I can watch the output of the inverter,
mostly for fun. The reed at 60 Hz is the only one that moves no matter
what the load or motor speed! It's like crystal controlled! I also leave
a little goose neck 12V map light plugged into the cig lighter outlet so I
can click it on to see how we're doing in the dark. (Honda, feel free to
add the lighter jack and $2 light from Dollar General. I release the idea
to the public domain.)

I'd put a plexiglass window in the aluminum, fold down weather cover I made
for its permanent mounting, but that would invite the thieves too much.

Larry
I must admit it IS kinda fun being your own power company....(c;