Any Sales on Honda Generators?

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mvweebles said:
Big fan of Project Farm too! I have a 2000w knock-off generator. Similar shortcomings as shown in video, primarily voltage drop. I bought it for power during storms here in Florida. Was surprised when it would shut-down trying to brew Keurig machine coffee. Cost savings of the generator evaporated when coffee-less. Peter
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A 1000W genset not running a coffee machine? That has to be one heck of a coffee machine. I thought you were in La Paz Mexico? Have followed your travelogue.
 
Speaking as someone with the B&S Master Service Tech paperwork, working on all sorts of engines over the years, for my small engines i use the synthetic TruFuel for anything where cost won't make much difference, like my blower, but for any other engines i just run them dry whenever I expect to leave them over a month. At the end of the season, I use the synthetic only for the last use, not necessarily a fill, and sometimes run that dry, but I doubt I have to. It's not a good idea to run 2-strokes dry because dry = no lubrication.

The problem isn't ethanol, the problem is ethanol + moisture causing a phase change in the ethanol. It's gross. Sometimes even an ultrasonic cleaner won't clear the goo out of the smaller passages.

https://www.briggsandstratton.com/na/en_us/support/faqs/browse/fuel-recommendations.html

Contrary to what that article says, I think Sta-Bil elixer is useless based on the state of people's carbs after swearing on a stack of bibles that they used it religiously. Perhaps it's the way it's being used. I'd rather spend the money, time and effort on judicious use of some TruFuel to avoid the issue entirely.

I get so tired of people arguing that they never used Sta-Bil or anything in their grandfathers xyz machine and never had a problem using that anecdote to cure anyone's ills after essentially dissing other's experiences. I also get tired of people saying Sta-Bil solves everything.

Another gripe is people saying premium, is non-ethanol, but only at certain stations. If you want to make yourself some work buy one of these: https://www.amazon.ca/Boost-Monkey-...ZBX/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=ethanol+tester&sr=8-7 The Echo regional rep gave these away during annual tech updates. All the effort doing testing however, can just be avoided by what I have suggested earlier.

I don't mind earning money on other people's refusal to manage moisture/ethanol, but i really dislike working on my own equipment when some simple work-arounds eliminate the problems of moisture/ethanol.
 
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Cargile said:
A 1000W genset not running a coffee machine? That has to be one heck of a coffee machine. I thought you were in La Paz Mexico? Have followed your travelogue.
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You would be surprised. When you turn on your Keurig to heat the water, it will draw ~10-12A. Which is more than a 1k genset puts out.
 
Still Boating said:
Speaking as someone with the B&S Master Service Tech paperwork, working on all sorts of engines over the years, for my small engines i use the synthetic TruFuel for anything where cost won't make much difference, like my blower, but for any other engines i just run them dry whenever I expect to leave them over a month. At the end of the season, I use the synthetic only for the last use, not necessarily a fill, and sometimes run that dry, but I doubt I have to. It's not a good idea to run 2-strokes dry because dry = no lubrication.

The problem isn't ethanol, the problem is ethanol + moisture causing a phase change in the ethanol. It's gross. Sometimes even an ultrasonic cleaner won't clear the goo out of the smaller passages.

https://www.briggsandstratton.com/na/en_us/support/faqs/browse/fuel-recommendations.html


Contrary to what that article says, I think Sta-Bil elixer is useless based on the state of people's carbs after swearing on a stack of bibles that they used it religiously. Perhaps it's the way it's being used. I'd rather spend the money, time and effort on judicious use of some TruFuel to avoid the issue entirely.

I get so tired of people arguing that they never used Sta-Bil or anything in their grandfathers xyz machine and never had a problem using that anecdote to cure anyone's ills after essentially dissing other's experiences. I also get tired of people saying Sta-Bil solves everything.

Another gripe is people saying premium, is non-ethanol, but only at certain stations. If you want to make yourself some work buy one of these: https://www.amazon.ca/Boost-Monkey-...ZBX/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=ethanol+tester&sr=8-7 The Echo regional rep gave these away during annual tech updates. All the effort doing testing however, can just be avoided by what I have suggested earlier.

I don't mind earning money on other people's refusal to manage moisture/ethanol, but i really dislike working on my own equipment when some simple work-arounds eliminate the problems of moisture/ethanol.
Click to expand...


Great info. Thanks for this. Always appreciate hearing from an expert rather than hearsay. Was very interesting hearing about Stabil, I had thought/was told do that and you should be good for 6 months, then use/get rid of that batch. I normally just take my old leftover, which is never more than a 5 gallon container, and put it into my car, which almost always has gas newer than 6 months.
 
jbinbi said:
Great info. Thanks for this. Always appreciate hearing from an expert rather than hearsay. Was very interesting hearing about Stabil, I had thought/was told do that and you should be good for 6 months, then use/get rid of that batch. I normally just take my old leftover, which is never more than a 5 gallon container, and put it into my car, which almost always has gas newer than 6 months.
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The problem with putting it into your car is that once the moisture joins the ethanol, causing it to separate from the gas, is that you can't undo it and force the ethanol/water mixture back into the gas, even with Sta-Bil. Perhaps the ethanol in the car will join the ethanol/moisture from your gas can, but I haven't really thought that through. Maybe. Seems like an issue compared to just doing the simple work-arounds I noted in my previous post.

Other than most cars using all the fuel in less than a month, the reason it's less of a problem is that the emissions equipment on the fuel system in cars these days does a very good job of keeping the moisture out of the fuel.

I see on my new Honda generator good emissions control plumbing, and I see the fuel shut-off that allows the engine to use up the fuel in the carb.
It's symptomatic though.

What about the water/ethanol in the gas tank? Open the valve on the next start and the goo goes down into the carb, however, as per the logic above, maybe closing the vent on the tank, and shutting off the fuel valve will keep the moisture out. I suspect that's what they were thinking. Good idea.
 
High Wire said:
Hondas are easy to add a fuel shut off but they already have one. The trick is to disable the switch behind the big on-off knob so that the engine shuts off by fuel shutoff, not by killing the ignition. Several YouTube videos show how to do it.
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I learned something. Thank you Cap'n... Passing this along the the dock fellows.
 
I was in NYC last week and noticed that ALL of the food trucks use Honda generators, without exception.

David
 
Jbinbi hit the nail on the head concerning fuel for occasional or standby gas engines. AVgas from your local airport. Almost all sell 100LL which is 100 octane low lead gasoline without automotive additives. When I worked for Campbell Hausfeld making gas generators and pressure washers each engine had to be run and adjusted in the factory. Brigs and Stratton recommended we use AVgas because it won’t damage the engine while it sets on the store shelf waiting to be sold. Every unit left the factory with AVgas in the carb.

FYI todays price at my local airport according to 100ll.com is $5.83/gal.
 
DavidM said:
I was in NYC last week and noticed that ALL of the food trucks use Honda generators, without exception.

David
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I’m guessing that the Sopranos own the local Honda dealership. :)
 
Seems like quite a few Southeast states sell non-ethanol fuel. Florida has several stations around me and probably lots more and the non-ethanol 100 octane is around 80 cents more per gallon.

My Honda 1000 from 1998 has run for a decade without an issue for over a decade with ethanol fuel, just let her run dry and first pull usually stars her.... that's with NO maintenance other than a few oil changes and one spark plug change since 1998. Have no idea of total ours but probably pretty low because use is intermittent.
 
psneeld;1211860 My Honda 1000 from 1998 has run for a decade without an issue for over a decade with ethanol fuel said:
It's the 'running it dry' that is making it NO maintenance. Nothing left to gum up.
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jbinbi said:
It's the 'running it dry' that is making it NO maintenance. Nothing left to gum up.
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And that's a bad thing? :D

Gumming comes from any gas, either ethanol or non-ethanol. Phase-sep only comes with ethanol gas.

Gumming is prevented from running dry, draining, keeping fuel fresh, good stabilizers (to a point), or not allowing much evaporation in tank/carb.

Phase separation mainly comes from liquid water getting in the tank...moisture may do it, but I don't think I have seen any or many examples of it (in boats) being moisture versus liquid water.
 
My two cents for what it's worth. Before we got into boating, my wife and I were heavily into RV travels. We started with a smaller trailer and for that we used a Honda 1000 I. It was good enough to run the air conditioning, but could not run a kettle or microwave. Not a problem though, since we just used a cooktop kettle, and we never really needed the microwave. We just use it as a bread box.

Then we bought a larger trailer, and for that, I thought it would be better to get a 2000i( actually a 2200i). I didn't like that it was bigger and heavier, and in the end it turns out that the 1000 I ran our air conditioner just fine. So the 2200 just ended up sitting in storage while we traveled with the 1000 i.
Then we bought the boat in 2021. I thought "perfect, now I can use the 2200 on the boat". In the end, we found that the 1000 work better on the boat and being small and compact, easier to handle, and used less gas.

That was the intent, and to this day, I still use 1000i for both the trailer and the boat just hauling it between thm. However an interesting point of of note: in 2023 we lived on our boat practically all summer and never once used the generator. We have plenty of solar, which provides us all the power we need for our fridge, fans, TV, charging, lights Etc. so the generator is just there as a backup if we ever need it.
My 2c

By the way, I bought my Honda 1000 at list price - 100 bucks negotiating with the dealer. The 2200i I bought brand new from a fellow on Marketplace, for less than I paid for the 1,000i
 
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