Lifan vs Champion???

[wml52]

I am posting here in the hopes of getting some opinions from knowledgeable people who know far more then I.

I'm currently looking at two generators to replace my old and tired genny. The two generators I'm considering are the Lifan Platinum 8500iEPL 7500 running watts, 8500 surge watts priced at around $1,500.00 and the Champion 41537 7500 running watts and 9375 surge watts priced at around $1000.00. Both utilize brushed alternators with copper windings and both have AVR, the difference however is in the THD for each unit.

The Lifan generator states 100% Cooper windings and welded magnetic plates to produce clean, dependable energy or what they call  “Low THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) technology, which produces “Clean Energy” with a Sine Wave Distortion of 5% or less at full load"

The Champion also has 100% copper windings but after speaking with them I found out that THD for this model can range up to 20% depending on load.

As I stated earlier I'm looking to replace my old generator that is used only as emergency back up for running essentials like furnace, well pump, a few lights, fridge and water heater (managed load). I don't use it to power any computers or flat screen TV's as the cable usually goes out along with the power.

My question is do you think the Lifan is worth the extra $$ or will the Champion suit my back-up needs? Any thoughts or opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks to all.

[Flux]

I don't know either generator so can't comment on lifespan or similar.

A few years ago any generator would run anything, only modified sine inverters caused some problems. Here in the UK many domestic appliances are now incredibly fussy and some washing machines and similar will now cause big problems on some generators. 5% thd is quite good and few things should object, but 20% is really awful and I suspect some things would object strongly. Surprisingly it is not TVs and computers that cause the problem and most of them will run off modified sine wave.

Things with speed controls and battery chargers with phase control often fail to find a zero crossing reference on distorted waveforms.

You don't seem to have any loads that would object from what you have mentioned but bear in mind about washing machines and other modern appliances, if they are not used then the bad waveform may not bother you.

If you are happy that the engine in the cheaper unit will last long enough then in your case I doubt that the lousy waveform will be an issue.

Flux

[DamonHD]

Hi,

When I was messing with my demand-control prototype I found a large range of tolerance in my household appliances for 'adjusted' waveforms (in the form of dropped half cycles).

http://www.earth.org.uk/domestic-dynamic-demand-ideas.html#DD1

For example, the kettle would take anything, as you'd expect, being a dumb resistance load.

The toaster would allow about one half cycle in 9 dropped before the magnetic catch keeping the bread in would give up prematurely.

My dishwasher water inlet valve and motor and control panel were all very unhappy with as little as about 1 in 29 half-cycles dropped.  Indeed, I suspect it might be failing EU regs on the "bad" power that appliances have to expect.

Now what I was doing isn't exactly what a non-pure-sine inverter does, but it backs up Flux' comments about fussiness.

Rgds

Damon

[ChrisOlson]

I'm currently looking at two generators to replace my old and tired genny. The two generators I'm considering are the Lifan Platinum 8500iEPL 7500 running watts, 8500 surge watts priced at around $1,500.00 and the Champion 41537 7500 running watts and 9375 surge watts priced at around $1000.00. Both utilize brushed alternators with copper windings and both have AVR, the difference however is in the THD for each unit.

I believe both are Chinese made units.  We used to have a Champion generator and it was very good and no real complaints with it.  I found that they were a little over-rated though.  They won't put out their continuous power rating even at sea level and maintain any decent frequency that electric motors like.

The Lifan generator I'm not familiar with.  But I believe Lifan is the Chinese company that builds all the Honda clone GY6 engines for motor scooters and ATV's.  I do have experience with those engines, and they are also very good so I think Lifan has the capability to build pretty nice stuff.