Hey, Skip,

I bought our 2000 from Mayberry's, and we live way the hell out here on the
West Coast. Best price anywhere on the 'Net, and as I recall they paid for
the shipping. Might be mistaken about that, but whatever the matrix of
reasons, I felt Mayberry's was the way to go.

You won't be disappointed with the genset. But read carefully about
charging batteries on your boat. You can do it directly, by hooking the
Honda 12v. output straight to the batteries, but you'll be FAR better off
running 120v. from the Honda to your boat's shore power input, and thence to
the battery charger instead. Much faster charging that way.

Cheers,

Dick Behan
M/V "Annie"
LNVT 37


"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach at gmail dotcom wrote in message
...
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2870 is a great (ham radio enthusiast)
site with reviews by many owners of the Honda line.

For myself, while I don't much like the thought of spending 20-30% more
for what may be the same genset, and that difference could buy a lot of
dining out or other enjoyments, the dollar difference is nearly trivial in
boat costs.

Previously mentioned warranty potentials may have no weight here, as
nobody has any warranty issues, it seems, and nobody I've found has a
Kipor, so there's no means of testing their reliability.

So, it's a Honda for me, and now isn't too soon to figure out who's going
to sell it to me. Who's got the current best internet pricing? Mayberry
in NJ? Someone else? There's been some scuttlebutt to the effect that
they're hard to find these days due to hurricane disruptions, but I'd
think that would have settled down by now...

Thanks for any inputs...

L8R

Skip

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
http://tinyurl.com/384p2 The vessel as Tehamana, as we bought her

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

R.W. Behan wrote:
Hey, Skip,

I bought our 2000 from Mayberry's, and we live way the hell out here on the
West Coast. Best price anywhere on the 'Net, and as I recall they paid for
the shipping. Might be mistaken about that, but whatever the matrix of
reasons, I felt Mayberry's was the way to go.

You won't be disappointed with the genset. But read carefully about
charging batteries on your boat. You can do it directly, by hooking the
Honda 12v. output straight to the batteries, but you'll be FAR better off
running 120v. from the Honda to your boat's shore power input, and thence to
the battery charger instead. Much faster charging that way.


So, I have to ask, what charge rate do you see? My charger (and
alternator) can push about 100 Amps into my 4 golf cart batteries.
Could this be supplied with the 2000? Could I come close with the 1000?

The last time this came up it was claimed that small gensets will not
necessarily live up to their ratings with this type of load.

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
R.W. Behan wrote:
Hey, Skip,

I bought our 2000 from Mayberry's, and we live way the hell out here on
the West Coast. Best price anywhere on the 'Net, and as I recall they
paid for the shipping. Might be mistaken about that, but whatever the
matrix of reasons, I felt Mayberry's was the way to go.

You won't be disappointed with the genset. But read carefully about
charging batteries on your boat. You can do it directly, by hooking the
Honda 12v. output straight to the batteries, but you'll be FAR better off
running 120v. from the Honda to your boat's shore power input, and thence
to the battery charger instead. Much faster charging that way.


So, I have to ask, what charge rate do you see? My charger (and
alternator) can push about 100 Amps into my 4 golf cart batteries. Could
this be supplied with the 2000? Could I come close with the 1000?

The last time this came up it was claimed that small gensets will not
necessarily live up to their ratings with this type of load.

No, you will not be able to run a 100 amp battery charger with a EU2000i.
The EU2000 is really a 1600 watt unit. Now 100 amps at 12 volts may look
like 1200 watts but the chargers are not 100% efficient. I think they draw
something like 30 or 40% more power than you would think. I've looked into
this a bit and it seems a 50 amp charger is about the biggest you could
comfortably run from an EU 2000. For example, an Iota 55 amp charger is
said to draw 13 amps at 108 volts and maximum charge rate. That's 1,404
watts. Now its only putting out 12 x 55 = 660 watts (they say 740 watts
maximum). I don't know why they say the "typical efficiency is 80%". It
sure doesn't look like it.

On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:00:47 GMT, "Gordon Wedman"
wrote:

Now 100 amps at 12 volts may look
like 1200 watts but the chargers are not 100% efficient. I think they draw
something like 30 or 40% more power than you would think.

It depends on the power factor of the charger which is a measure of
how much of an inductive load it presents to the generator. An
inductive load causes a phase shift between volts and amps which has
the effect of increasing power demand as measured in KVA.

In addition, the wattage at 100 amps is actually 100 x 14 volts, not
100 x 12. So you are starting out with a requirement for 1400 watts
further incerased by a power factor of 50 to 90% depending on the
charger. Using a PF of 75% as average, your wattage requirement
becomes 1400 / .75 equaling about 1900 watts.

Jeff,

I have a Freedom 15 inverter/charger on the boat, which is rated at 75 amp
max charging capacity. I guess the highest charge rate I've seen (using the
boat's alternator as a source) is around 50 amps or so, but we rarely draw
down the battery bank far enought to call for really heavy duty charging.
I've used the Honda to run the Freedom 15 only once or twice, and don't
recall the max charge rate. But if you run from the Honda directly to the
batteries, the maximum, as I recall, is 8 amps. Clearly you'll do better
running 120 v. to the boat's charger.

On another topic raised in a later post: Mayberry's couldn't list their
price on the Internet, but they were happy to talk turkey on the phone, and
their price was big time attractive. Maybe Honda has tightened up some more
since then.

Skip, it's still your call, but if I had it to do again, I'd still go with
the Honda. (Call it brand loyalty, maybe. I rode Honda motorcycles for a
good many years.)

Best to all,

Dick

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
R.W. Behan wrote:
Hey, Skip,

I bought our 2000 from Mayberry's, and we live way the hell out here on
the West Coast. Best price anywhere on the 'Net, and as I recall they
paid for the shipping. Might be mistaken about that, but whatever the
matrix of reasons, I felt Mayberry's was the way to go.

You won't be disappointed with the genset. But read carefully about
charging batteries on your boat. You can do it directly, by hooking the
Honda 12v. output straight to the batteries, but you'll be FAR better off
running 120v. from the Honda to your boat's shore power input, and thence
to the battery charger instead. Much faster charging that way.


So, I have to ask, what charge rate do you see? My charger (and
alternator) can push about 100 Amps into my 4 golf cart batteries. Could
this be supplied with the 2000? Could I come close with the 1000?

The last time this came up it was claimed that small gensets will not
necessarily live up to their ratings with this type of load.