(Very) Cheap Generator

Goldie

Goldie

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The pros and cons of cheap generators have been discussed endlessly and I'm not aiming to start the discussion all over again BUT, if anyone wants a really cheap genny and accepts the cons, then B&Q have a 780W 2 stroke @£32.98.
 
[ QUOTE ]
B&Q have a 780W 2 stroke @£32.98.

[/ QUOTE ]And they are welcome to keep it (them) AFAIAC. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
bit harsh.......if all that stood between a rock or a hard place was a £32.98 B&Q genny then one would sell their soul for it ....and then pay homage to B&Q.
I started a thread about these last week, I got the bigger 4 stroke for £78.00 and it works well, it's never going to be a threat to the national grid..... but put things into perspective......... it my powers my small hand tools and lets face it you can spend more then that on a night out ...... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Not harsh at all. I am not prepared to risk £3K+ of electrinoc equipment on a £30 genny of dubious quality output. If all one wants a genny for is to run a simple drill or the like - fine, otherwise........
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
I paid slightly more - as B&Q where I was kept selling out literally as they were stacking on the shelf ... Tried to have one put by - answer - sorry sir .... have to buy as others do ... next week next delivery.

So with aid of another bought a Wolf 800 ... excellent bit of kit ... only about a tenner more ...
 
Bought a cheap B&Q genny to do some work around the boatyard, it was fine for the electric drill and saw but would not power the battery charger. Will fit an inboard diesel water cooled lump this spring 3kva with hot water connection to warm up the old girl via a rad or two. Cant remember what size the B&Q joby or the price, but it will come in handy for powering up the BBQ lights and the geto blaster. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
Re: (Very) Cheap Generator ... battery charger ...

If its a later charger with float and other electronic tricks ie Gel / LA switch etc. - it will be like my auto halfords job - doesn't like the supply ... another thing it won't do (the fancy float chargers) is charge via a splitter to two batterys ... float sensor wont work.
Get an old Gunson or bog standard non-fancy charger and it will work. My 10 yr old 4A non float charger works of anything that feeds 240V .. and will split across to 2 batterys etc.
 
You have concerned me cliff.
I bought a cheap 50:1 genny (Black Spur) as it used the same fuel as the outboard.
I only want it to recharge the batteries if we are storm bound too long without 240v.

The output was questionable initially so I left it under load for 20 hours at home to run it in.

Once run in it seamed to give a consistent output ??????????

Could it wreck the bat charger on the boat /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
Re: (Very) Cheap Generator .... I think Cliffs post was unfair

Sorry but I do .... it blankets the cheap genny as rubbish ....

Sorry but many people out there use cheap gennys for all sorts of jobs and work. They do it without worrying and AFAIK not many have problems. So OK longevity of the genny before it throws it's hand in may not be so great as more expenisve Honda's etc.
In fact most problems I've heard about with cheapos is the fittings not engine or genny part. Sockets falling apart, fuel valve breaking etc., cable or pipe cracking. Silly things that often are easily replaced or mended.

I do agree - if you can afford it - get the best you can. But some just want an occasional like me to power the BoomBox or charge a few batterys. I know of 2 people that use cheapies to charge batterys in addition to myself. I know another who decided to spend a little more and buy Kipor ... very nice too.

My 45 quid Wolf is well appreciated in my household ... for small jobs ... For serious work I have the Briggs & Stratton job ... but that's near £500 quids worth .. and 3KW
 
I bought one of the cheapo B&Q jobbies a few years ago, read the manual and noted the warning "Do not connect any electronic equipment to this generator" so phoned the tech services help line and the techie confirmed the output was not clean and I ran the risk of damagine any electronic equipment. I queried "electrinoc" and the techie quite simply said "anything with an IC (chip) or circuit baord" - that was enough for me - back the genny went for a refund.

I have checked the output from a couple of other cheapo gennys using an oscilliscope and was shocked at the spikes and/or distorted wave form not to mention variable frequency.

As for your blackspur settling down after running in - maybe the alternator brushes bedded in giving a cleaner output but have you checked for spikes? - I would be curious to know how you checked the output.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
[ QUOTE ]
Cant remember what size the B&Q joby or the price, but it will come in handy for powering up the BBQ lights and the geto blaster. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]And that is about all they are fit for IMHO - and even powering the ghetto blaster would be a bit dubious - still if it is cheap enough, why worry -chuck it out and buy another when you fry something on the circuit board.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
Re: (Very) Cheap Generator .. spikes and freq.

Surely this brings onto another question ....

240 is only a nominal figure and voltage even on mains is variable over quite a range ... its being AC surely allows the "apparent" smoothness .... in street parly ?

Freq of the supply must vary as when loads go on off the genny engine loads up / unloads and the fuel governor / aperture cuts in to try ands stabilise engine speed. The Freq. of the supply is dependent on the engine speed and in so doing the rotation of the genny ?

IC Chip / Circuit Boards ... most are running at low voltages ... often 5V etc. So surely when dropped down from 240 ... lets use 5V for a chip as example.

240/5 = 1/48th .... therefore the transfomer is bring that voltage down for the board by a factor of 48. Lets say the spike hits 300V ..... effective output after 48 is now 6.25V momentarily ....

MMmmmm starting to think Techi support and Manual are just covering their posteriors ......

My B&S expensive jobbie is designed to supply house etc. for black-outs etc. But I would be suprised if supply was ultra smooth or stable - the nature of the beast - Generators portable surely ?

I'm not an electrician ..... just a user who hasn't had problem.... yet !!!! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: (Very) Cheap Generator .... I think Cliffs post was unfair

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry but I do .... it blankets the cheap genny as rubbish ....

[/ QUOTE ]Which they are IMHO and as you have already said you have had problems powering a "smart" battery charger from one as have others.

I have a 4Kva diesel back up genny for the house which runs everything except the "instant" showers but one is talking a serious number of beer tokens even for that one.

For the boat I use a Kipor which has not given any problems and happly powers the charger (65A) and TV, fridge/freezer, microwave, toaster, laptop, immersion heater, etc. The output from the Kipor is exceptionally clean and stable so I have no worries about "frying sensitive electronics".
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
As I say again ... I don\'t disagree ...

But also do not agree to blanket condemn them.

Yes my Halfords Smart Charger doesn't like it ... but then again - I didn't investigate why ... having spoken to others and also one guy I employ is a Diploma'd Electrician ... the explanation I was given was as above post. But it doesn't mean that spending more money solves the problem ... it may have been my set-up.

When we were at the Horse Show back last summer in Ventspils ... two gennys were in use .... a B&S like mine - that did all the PA / music for the main ring ... and another small cheapo job - must have come in with one of the foreign contingent cause we can't get them locally - was powering his gear ... music, various stuff that I was surprised to see ... In fact seeing it all made my mind up to get the Wolf as well as the biggy.

When I have days away on the boat here ... river or offshore - I know the Wolf cheapie will be there ... it takes same fuel as the outboard .... OOOPs !! crossing thread borders here as I've mentioned 2 st o/boards !! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
No Expert here....but

Talking about outboards. I know some of the smaller outboards provide an out put from a small alternator. Is this not the same as a small generator? Or we talking different animals?

Donald
 
Re: As I say again ... I don\'t disagree ...

I did a test when I bought one at various loads they held the voltage very stable, As they are a conventional 2 pole alternator at 3000rpm and not electronic ,they should give a good sine wave.What we need is someone with plenty of time ,to take the alternator off and fit an auto. 12volt alternator on,then we would have a serious bit of kit for battery charging,at £30 odd quid they are cheap enough to do it.I run my TV and video and do not expect to have any probs.
 
[ QUOTE ]
As for your blackspur settling down after running in - maybe the alternator brushes bedded in giving a cleaner output but have you checked for spikes? - I would be curious to know how you checked the output.


[/ QUOTE ]

A real bodge and totally unreliable hence my apprehension.

The 12 v charge didnt seam to work so
I stuck bear wires from an old volt meter into the out let socket (12v)
Nothing much showed up until I connected the feed that the factory hadnt bothered to do.
At the same time I connected a 12 v spot lamp and an unpredictable voltage was jumping about.

After I ran it in I found a constant voltage was given and the volt meter needle was static 15.8 V from memory ??????????????

The 240 V test again was horribly unscientific where I connected a portable car battery charger that had its own output amp meter

Before run in it was unpredictable and flickered.
After run in it worked fine but the needle was not as constant as it was when conected to the mains .

If in doubt Cliff please let me know and I will just keep a seperate car battery charger on board so I dont damage the boat kit.
 
would agree that cheap/low output generators have a role but can give difficulty when trying to charge batteries - I have a 1.5kva Briggs & Stratton powered Genevac which will drive the battery charger at 12A output. This is a bit heavy so bought a 800Watt generator but that would only do 1 or 2 amps on the samer charger? Suppose it is an inductive load that it cannot cope with. My problem is that I want to get a 30A battery charger but will the Genevac let the charger produce a charging current of 30A or will there be a limitation with this set up?
 
[ QUOTE ]
If in doubt Cliff please let me know and I will just keep a seperate car battery charger on board so I dont damage the boat kit.

[/ QUOTE ]For me it is not a problem - it is your boat, your "kit" and hence your choice. I made my choice as I am not prepared to risk £3k+ worth of electronic kit to a cheapo gen set.

What type of genny you choose to use and for what purpose is your choice and yours alone.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
sailroom <span style="color:red">The place to auction your previously loved boatie bits</span>
 
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