honda <span class="highlight">generator</span>

hi mike
so whats the output of that gennie its hard
to comment without the facts
cheers

I have a ctek 25 amp charger and a 10i honda.
The honda puts out 8amps on battery charge circuit
I put the ctek into the 240v. outlet and run the honda on eco mode .
All is ok. have done this for 10 years.

Mike,

The specs say the charger pulls 1080 watts for a 35 amp output. Your genny is 1000kVa, about 1000 watts. I think you'll be overloading your generator.

The 25 amp model pulls 792 watts. That should be ok.

Cheers

G'day Mike
1080 eh, sounds a bit poisonous!

The Honda Eui 10 is around 800 watts constant.

If the charger you intend using is running at 14v and delivering 35 amps then that is around 500Watts being stuffed into batteries, probably won't be that much at that voltage however.

Given the charger will have a loss factor the 500 watts needed from the generator will be possibly around 600watts. Therefore you have plenty of reserve for continuous running.

The 1080 may be the initial surge at startup of the charger and that wattage won't be while running normally. The Eui10 started off ECO, and then switched to ECO when all is running and stable would seem quite possible.

Ross M

Mike,

I have a friend who has a Honda EU10i and had a 40 amp charger of a different brand to the one you're considering. The generator would not run the charger. The generator would go into overload as the charger started and cut off the power. The charger would shut down the generator would recover and the charger would try to re-start - with the same result. And so it would go until he switched everything off.

That particular charger, though otherwise very good, did not have an adjustable output, so he couldn't wind it down to reduce the load on the generator. The extra 5 amps capacity may have had something to do with it and also, being an older charger, the power factor was down around 0.8.

Ended up he got my 20 amp version of the same brand plus $100.00, and I got his 40 amp. (My genny is a Honda 2kVa and the two are fine together.)

By all means try the 35 amp charger, but make sure you can return it if your generator can't handle it. Many retailers will not accept returns on electrical goods, so beware.

Cheers

As has been mentioned, people consistently have an over optomistic view of what their generators will deliver, and a similarly over optomistic view of what their appliances will draw.

To start with the generators the way they are generally specified these days will not deliver their plated rated output continuously...even as a resistive load with a power factor of 1.

So look at the specs of your generator....other have mentioned it may only have a 800Watt continuous rating on a resistive load.

Now consider if you will be getting any real benifit from this 35 amp charger.

Unless you have batteries in the 400AH range, you probably will not deliver 35 amps into you batteries for very long.

Notice that almost no current smart battery chargers have a AMP meter on em.

As the state of charge of the battery progresses, regradless of the type and capacity of the charger the charge current will reduce......

You may get very little if no advantage at all running a 35 amp charge over a 25.

SO...how much battery capacity do you have.

AND......which of these two devices do you already own .

cheers

I run a 1kva Yamaha inverter gennie and breeze along with my 21amp Projecta smart charger, as well as powering the Engel at same time. When leading into darkness the occassional 240 light is on as well. Most of the time I run gennie in economy mode also

I had a 4hp Honda coupled up to a 80amp alternator charging 2 x 100amp AGM batteries. I also had a clamp meter to see what amps were going in and I found it would quickly drop back to 35 amps and within usually 3 to 5 mins it would be only putting in 20 to 25 amps.
I now have a Ctek 25 amp charger and Yamaha 1000 Generator, Incidently the Yamaha in its eco mode runs slower and hence quieter than the Eu10 Honda I also had and being a smart charger it seems to charge up in about the same time as the alternator set up. Much quieter so my camping beighbours appreciate it also.I dont allow the batteries to go lower than 50 but mainly 60% so they will get a reasonable lifespan.