wrote in :

On 28 Feb 2006, Larry wrote:

. . . . I have both the EU1000i . . . . much larger and
heavier [than the 2000i] . . . .

How much larger and heavier?

Here's a good page with picture and specifications:
http://www.hayesequipment.com/eu3000is.htm
At 134 pounds, without the 3.4 gallons of gasoline in its STEEL fuel tank
with proper metal cap, notice it has TWO carrying handle for TWO people.
The cabinet is also steel with plastic end caps, very heavily
constructed. A lot of the weight is the large AGM starting battery and
the electric starter, in addition to the pull starter.

It's not a lightweight, this 6.5HP OHV engine. It wasn't intended to be
backpacked....(c;


The 3000i is hardly breathing at 1200 RPM until you hit
about 1800W on econo mode.

O.K. - but assuming that the generator would not be used to charge two
4D batteries batteries in an inverter-based system that includes air
conditioners and, instead, just, if you will, "normal" use (e.g.,
reading lights, listening to the radio, maybe occasional microwave
oven use to boil a cup of water or warm up pre-cooked/dehydrated
meals, etc.), is the 2000i still likely to be inadequate?

It will run AC units up to 16,000 BTU. I'm running two 8000 Btu
Goldstars I paid $89 each for from Lowe's, mounted in the starboard
bulkhead. They don't stick out beyond the truck mirrors. This allows me
to lighten the load to one AC except on the hottest days, reducing fuel
usage a lot. She'll run 18 hours straight on one AC plus 10-12A from the
Amel charger to the house batteries and 12V loads in the shop....on one
tank of fuel. I no longer have to carry "gas cans". The tank on it has
a LARGE fuel inlet with built-in filter to trap particles and keep the
tank clean. It fills very easily from any fuel hose at gas stations
without spilling. The tank also has a mechanical fuel guage that's
fairly accurate. You have 7.2 hours at 2800 watts under maximum loading.
The voltage difference from no load to 2800 watts at the generator's AC
outlet is less than 1 volt. It drops from 124 to 123 on my DVM. Large
capacitors in the inverter absorb load shifts until the engine recovers,
all electronic...even in econo mode.

The 2000i uses the same technology. Its little engine, like my 1000i,
just isn't as powerful and must turn lots more RPM to produce it. Up to
the overload point, and beyond, voltage and frequency are very stable.
Slight overloads, where the status LED turns yellow, warns you of
impending automatic shutdown. Overload simply trips out the inverter,
without a brownout, I might add. To reset, you MUST shut down the engine
on all three of these units, then restart to get the inverter to switch
back on, once again. I don't think you can destroy them unless you were
to do something really stupid like plug them into the power
company....but, as the inverters are self-synchronizing so you can
parallel two gensets to double the output power available, I'm not sure
the set wouldn't lock onto the power company, either. I'm not willing to
try it. I HAVE paralleled my EU3000i with another one owned by someone
else to see what happens with the paralleling kit. I found the beat
notes caused by the engines both running different speeds unnerving like
"Washing Machine Charlie"'s twin engine plane in WW2 purposely set at
different RPM to keep our troops awake all night. The engines don't
sync....the inverters do. We loaded the pair up to 5200 watts, SUDDENLY,
to see what happens. It was a non-event. The hotplates just got red and
the light plugged in to see the surge was near steady. The two gensets
simply throttled up to full speed...but not the same speed...and down
again when the load was removed.


My biggest regret about it is . . . . [t]he 3000i's exhaust
pipe breathes into the cooling air supply inside the
damned case and is very hard to get to [to weld on a
nipple that would enable exhaust outlet elsewhere].

So where do you keep it (or did you install it permanently) and what
did you do to solve this problem?

A friend of mine, who has since died of a massive heart attack, built a
custom aluminum cover with a steel frame for it. The genset is mounted
on the portside rear door with a couple of 1000# angle brackets that came
with welded supports from Home Depot. I simply bolted the "legs" the
genset normally sits on to the angle brackets with some stout bolts that
would take a thief a couple of hours to dismantle. The brackets bolt
through the big steel door and through a matching channel bracket to
stiffen the door on the inside of the van. It's rock solid. The box is
completely open on the bottom and hinged at the aft end so it swings down
out of the way for fueling and maintenance. Two Stanley locking gate
latches lock the box into the operating position. A slot to match the
genset's hot air outlet in the port side of the box allows the heat to
escape and even causes a draft throughout the box when its running. The
cabinet hardly gets warm. The installation is fairly permanent. I can't
get to the manual starter handle as it's against the door. Maintenance
is all from the aft end of it, in the maintenance door. Oil drains from
the end where the hot air outlet is. I would need to remove it to
overhaul it, I suppose. Even in the offseason when I don't need to run
the AC units, it follows me around. If the power fails at home, I simply
plug the house into the truck's 30A electrical outlet with a special "Man
Killer". This cable parallels the two "hot" sides of the 230-0-230 house
power so all 115 VAC circuits in the house are hot to neutral with the
truck plugged into the dryer outlet near the back door. Just pull the
main breaker and crank her up, to the dismay of the neighbors sitting in
the dark with their candles. I swore after being in the dark for MONTHS
after Hurricane Hugo tore Charleston apart, I'd never be in the dark
again.

I'd think the 2000i would suit your purpose just fine, up to the 1800
watt limit. The 1000i runs great and has, probably, 1800 hours on it,
here, with little trouble. It did have a starting issue that was cured
with a new ignition module at about 1100 hours. It ran crappy and
hesitated when the load was added. I can't stand an engine that doesn't
run right...drives me crazy.