What kind of generator?

[grafekie]

Sorry, big numbers being the size of the print, not the larger numarical number :P I keep making unclear statements... I meant to say originally that I've never seen a generator marketed SOLELY by its surge capacity.

[jroehl]

Originally Posted by 87mh

I just connected the AC outputs - joined the outputs together at the 30 amp plug.

The two ports on the Honda used for the Honda supplied co-generation circuit are safety devices - Lord love the US Lawyer inspired legal system.

The Honda connections (the "extra" ports) are fully encapsulated and shielded plug-ins designed such that should the "safety" connections fall out (they have a habit of doing that, according to posts on other Forums I visit) some idiot will not be able to come along and burn his tongue should he (or she) put the exposed live lead in his (or her) mouth. The Honda "safety" plugs are directly connected to the same circuit as the 110 house sockets on the front of the Hondas.



Now, having said what I did about idiots and lawyers above, the main safety drawback on this hookup is that it IS possible to have a "hot" 110 plug exposed should one fall out - or not be plugged in - a managable risk, in my opinion, if just a little bit of common sense is utilized. The "factory" pigtails (with a protected internal connection) are reported to be prone to falling out during operation - the standard 110 volt plug in connection I used does not seem to have that problem. Of course, there is always the possibility of pulling out a plug by tripping over the cord on a late night bathroom excursion - in which chase one would REALLY need to watch just what he is doing and where he is doing it. Anyone with any electrified fence or lawn mower sparkplug experience knows what I am talking about.



There is one other safety item that the factory unit has which mine does not, the factory unit also comes with an internal 30 amp breaker. I did not install this item, relying on the Airstream electric panels and the internal 20 amp protectors in the generators instead.

It is very simple to link the two together. Above are some pics of a pigtail I made - total cost about 50 bucks.

Remember, you HAVE to purchase similar generators which are designed to "synch-up" together....don't try this with a couple of Home Depot cheapies.

Oh, yeah, do ALL of us a favor and DO NOT run your "contractor series" generators in a campground - first off, most campgrounds have exhaust and noise level limits which the $600 cheapies simply cannot meet, and second, and most important, it is terribly rude to expose fellow campers to the unmuffeled exhaust and internal noise that such a generator produces.

Your setup is dangerous and stupid. Live male plugs are never acceptable. Period. Not to mention, breakers are intended to protect the wiring, not the electrical device or appliance.

Oh, yeah, do ALL of us a favor and DO NOT run this setup anywhere children might be around - first off, hot male plugs are a safety hazard that cannot be remediated, and second, and most important, it is terribly rude to expose fellow campers to the electrocution hazard that such a redneck device produces.

Jason

[benshere]

Talk about rude . Amazing how it always applies to someone else.

The poster noted the dangers. It is a valid point (in my opinion) to point those issues out, but continues to amaze me how some people are unable to do so without name calling. Righteous indignation aside, it would be more productive to point out some resolution to that problem of a "live" male plug swinging in the breeze. I read the original post and find it interesting when no room is available in a TT to put an Onan or etc. I spent last night dreaming about how to overcome the male plug issue and still maintain functionality. For example "build your own" jumpers with twist locks----who cares if they are 220ACV rated.

Contrary to popular belief, "Redneck" is not an ethnic group, or a particular group of people, it is a state of mind. Consider that the "Redneck" finger also points backward.

[jroehl]

I didn't call anyone names. I said the SETUP was "stupid and dangerous".

What would you say to someone who said, "I know jumping out of an airplane with no parachute might be a little risky, but I'm aware of the danger"?

You're right that redneck is a state of mind. One has to be in a redneck state of mind to fabricate a device that results in an electrically hot male plug.

I wasn't being rude, I was being blunt and to the point. Ever see how lifeguards rescue a drowning person? There's no time for niceties.

Jason

[Old93junk]

Any electrician will tell you, that set-up is very dangerous. Sure, you may know how to use it, but someone else might get hurt badly.............Find a safer way.

[benshere]

You are beating all around the point I made. The safety of that device is not at issue. No one has or probably ever will say that it is safe, even 87mh. Since it was a device made by him, your reference to "stupid" and "redneck device" does not refer to the safety or legality of the device, only to the maker of it. No Parachutes and drowning imply imminent death, this does not. While it is a possibility, it is not imminent with this, but then so is driving on the interstate life threatening. Seen a million (well maybe not quite a million!) people who claim to be "blunt" or "tell it like it is" it is generally an excuse to be rude without guilt. That is self-servng. I dont know 87mh, wouldnt know him from Adams housecat, my point is not about him--or even the device. My point is that some people could leave out the rudeness and still make their point to the issue. There is a great possibility that 87mh knows more about electricity and devices than you do. I also know a lot about electricity, and you should see some of the "S***" I build-----.

[Old Rusty Wrench]

The two or more units have to be in phase or the power factor (current and voltage in phase) is off and the full wattage at the end user at some lower level. It would have to be setup in a lab with the different phase shifts cranked in. It would be fun to do but one could buy a bigger unit and save the lab money. Honda must have electronic control in their two unit device that reacts or controls the electronics in the units. A power cord that is laying in coil will the voltage shift in the voltage due to the inductence of the coil. The problem has been seen on the automatic cord winders under heavy loads.

[grafekie]

The ONLY way that we can figure out that the Honda works (electrical engineers) is by porting DC power... not AC. So doing what you did could be explosive. The inverter generator works by producing DC power, then using an inverter to transform it to AC. The Honda i series generators have built in inverters that are in excess of their DC power. For example, the 1kw generators have 3kw inverters, the 2kw and 3kw generators have 6kw inverters. The transfer cable goes from one generator to the other, with DC energy. The "slave" generator's inverter is not used, and it does not produce any AC current. The master generator takes their 12v output plus the slave's output and runs it in parallel to its inverter, producing one output. Running two out of phase generators together, as you are, is potentially explosive, and very dangerous.

[jroehl]

Yeah, but don't call it stupid, because that might be rude.

Jason

[benshere]

Now you are catching on jroehl----maybe. I realize you are just being your usual SA, but this is my case in point. It is possible to point out the flaws in someones procedure without resorting to 5th grade name calling. Not only that, but grafekie added a reason why generators shouldnt be linked without even going into the male plug issue. Think we can put this part of this thing to rest and move on with generators?

87mh--I answered my own question about the weights of the airstreams. A 31' weighs in the range of 5500# mfg wt.

[alchymist]

Originally Posted by grafekie

The ONLY way that we can figure out that the Honda works (electrical engineers) is by porting DC power... not AC. So doing what you did could be explosive. The inverter generator works by producing DC power, then using an inverter to transform it to AC. The Honda i series generators have built in inverters that are in excess of their DC power. For example, the 1kw generators have 3kw inverters, the 2kw and 3kw generators have 6kw inverters. The transfer cable goes from one generator to the other, with DC energy. The "slave" generator's inverter is not used, and it does not produce any AC current. The master generator takes their 12v output plus the slave's output and runs it in parallel to its inverter, producing one output. Running two out of phase generators together, as you are, is potentially explosive, and very dangerous.

Going to have to butt heads (gently) with you on this one. The Hondas do use a DC generator with an inverter on the output, but the interconnection is AC. The Honda kits get away from the hot plug issue by using shrouded banana plugs to interconnect. If you look at the interconnect wires on the kit, no way are they heavy enough to handle the DC necessary to add 2000 watts to the other generator. The inverters will sync together when hooked in parallel.


James Madison: “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.” (Federalist Paper #46)

[grafekie]

2000W is not that much power... have you put a meter on the output to see? AC CAN NOT be synced... not without a data connection. It eliminates all those issues to use DC. Maybe its not 12v... but I'm willing to put money on it its DC.

[alchymist]

Originally Posted by grafekie

2000W is not that much power... have you put a meter on the output to see? AC CAN NOT be synced... not without a data connection. It eliminates all those issues to use DC. Maybe its not 12v... but I'm willing to put money on it its DC.

Hope you didn't put much money on it.....you lose.

You made me get the ohmmeter out and go out to the camper- the banana plugs are connected to the AC outlet. .08 ohms to be exact. As to DC, I don't know what max dc voltage out would be, but if it's on the order of 15 -20 volts, you're looking at 100 + amps. Even if it's running 48 volts, still over 40 amps. Not gonna happen on those #10 wires. Just saying....

“...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ...Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.” Thomas Paine

[97squarebody]

Hello all;
Have not posted much lately but this one kinda drew me in. I am not an electrical engineer, but I do know a little about electricity. If the sine waves of the two generators are not sinced correctly, you are asking for trouble. One of the key differences between the inverter generators and the "construction" generators is the overall quality of power. This is usually not too big of a deal if the equipment being ran is all basic analog, as soon as you throw a digital piece of equipment into the mix, things can get interesting very fast. Think about letting the magic smoke out of the boxes. My parents were out of power for several days this winter and ran off a construction style generator (actually a fairly new expensive Echo machine). It did not produce clean power as it turns out and they burnt out the microwave, the Fridge, and several other devices. Fortunately they did not turn on the computer or the TV.

There is more going on inside the box on the front of linked generators than just a couple of wires coming together. Somehow, somewhere they MUST sync. As to how they do it, I don't know. If they use DC power, they may be running fairly high voltage to do it with a small wire. As long as you keep it semi reasonable you could run into the hundreds of volts without too much worry. The insulation on most standard wire in a house or car is technically rated to something like 600 volts (again not an electrical engineer, I could be wrong). When you are limited by wire size and need a certain total wattage, its easy to just run the voltage up to reduce the amps to a sustainable level.

[alchymist]

Actually, with the Honda Eu series, that's about all there is to it - a couple interconnect wires. From the looks of things, when the second generator is started it automatically senses the first generator and syncs accordingly. As to clean power, most true alternators put out pretty clean power, I'm guessing if some items lost the magic smoke, the generator was probably running too slow, and the 60 Hz output was not actually 60 Hz. Running 60 Hz equipment (mostly transformer powered stuff) on 50 Hz power will smoke it. And, some generators do put out spiky noisy AC, which is hard on electronic equipment. As to inverters, the "psuedo sine wave" ones are the ones to keep away from sensitive equipment. Inverters with a pure sine wave output are OK, but more expensive. When I have critical electronics that run from any AC source, I use a power converter in between it and the power source. This unit takes the incoming power and converts it to high voltage filtered DC (which doesn't care about frequency or waveshape) then inverts it back to either 50 or 60 Hz sine wave output.This is then fed to a battery backup unit which feeds the electronics. "Ya gets what ya pays for"


If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.—Candidus (in the Boston Gazette, 20 January 1772)