Storms remind me; our Champion 2K watt inverter

[fnbrowning]

The Midwestern tornadoes reminded me it was time to unpack and provision the new Champion generator. It's not a whole-house unit, but for us, it's definitely a 1/2 house unit, and that's enough! Watch the YouTube link below to see it power up most of this guy's RV.

The Champion has a cast-iron engine,& metal rocker arms. Compare to other inverters like Honda that use aluminum sleeves and <span style="font-style: italic">plastic</span> rockers! The inverter will provide clean sine-wave power for your modern electronics. Decibel rating is 53. It is extremely quiet.

If you're looking for a light, inexpensive genny/inverter for SHTF, this should be on your short list.

Demonstrator of Champion 2000 watt inverter.

 

[fnbrowning]

Re: Storms remind me; our Champion 2K watt inverter

Today we accomplished a test of the Champion 2000 watt inverter to simulate a power outage. Voltage and Hertz tests were done using a P3 International Kill A Watt meter.

<span style="font-weight: bold">WARNING! DO NOT TRY THIS PROCEDURE BELOW UNLESS YOU UNDERSTAND ELECTRICITY AND HOME ELECTRICAL WIRING</span>. A MISTAKE COULD CAUSE AN ELECTRICAL SHOCK OR EQUIPMENT DAMAGE!

I have a chart of all electrical service in the house, so I know that two outlets in the garage each service 1/2 of the house separately.
1. I took the mains and the dual breakers for the A/C offline.
a. This allows me to back fill the power using the existing wiring instead of running multiple extension cords. (A <span style="text-decoration: underline">transfer switch</span> is a safer solution to let you use your home's wiring system. I'm just too cheap!)
2. The Champion starts easily and idles smoothly with low noise.
3. Using a male to male heavy duty extension cord, I powered up 1/2 of the house at a time and observed the results.

> The Kill a Watt showed the Champion maintained 59.9Hz at all times.
> Voltage was between 118-122 volts, depending on the load.
> The entertainment center and computers are on uninterruptable power supplies. The APC UPS especially will <span style="font-style: italic">cry</span> if the waveform and Hz are not clean. I observed that there were no problems with power to sensitive electronics.

In conclusion, the test was a success. We are satisfied with running just 1/2 of the house in an emergency. Power may be switched from side to side without much trouble. Others may want to run heavier loads. In that case it may be noted that the Champion Inverters do stack (with an additional wiring kit) to provide double the power of one.

Hope this helps with your emergency power generator selection.