That was my thought as well. 50 lbs (40%) lighter than the same capacity generators from all of the competition? More efficient than all of the competition? Smaller? Cheaper?
It makes one wonder just how they are so far ahead of everyone else. While most Americans consider Honda to be a car company, Honda considers themselves to be primarily a small engine company. I believe that Honda and Yamaha stay pretty close to the leading edge of performance, value and reliability in that market segment.
I've seen a number of products coming from China with "optimistic" specifications, including higher voltage chargers (greater than 12V)when I was looking for one.
I stayed away from the original post because the suggested generator wouldn't really help with my boat. The bigger generator won't fit in an existing locker for transport, nor would it fit on the rear deck during operation. To exploit the extra generating capacity, I would need to buy a new charger, my Elcon PFC 2000+ pulls less than 15A of 115VAC.
Looking at my present setup, my Yamaha EF2000iS fits in the desired locations and can just drive the charger during its bulk charge phase (max load). This setup will drive the boat at 4.2kts on generator power alone. Since the generator is the backup to the battery bank for the auxiliary (basically a tertiary drive behind sails and electric), this setup delivers the right value for my boat.
Still, this "new" generator might be a good solution for some of the larger conversions or some power boats like the pontoon boat conversions that have been recently discussed. I look forward to a group member to provide some objective results from one of these generators in action.
Fair winds,
Eric
1964 Cheoy Lee Bermuda 30, Propulsion Marine 5.5kW drive
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, Ben Okopnik <ben@...> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 08:15:40AM -0400, Nanci wrote:
> >
> > I didn't see a price.
>
> What bothered me more was the... how do I put this... somewhat hype-y
> nature of the claims. I'm rather cynical about un- or poorly
> substantiated information, and a claimed 30% jump in efficiency is a bit
> much for me to swallow. Not impossible, I suppose, but it's not like the
> Honda or the Kipor engineers are unaware of the state of the art in
> electronics - and gains of that size normally come with new scientific
> discoveries, not redesigns based on existing knowledge.
>
>
> --
> Ben Okopnik
> -=-=-=-=-=-
>
No comments:
Post a Comment