New portable generator All-Power 1000W with inverter

Last week we had to purchase a new generator. We had our Honda EU2000i for over 5 years so I guess it was finally "it's time". It still runs perfect but it doesn't produce power. We've checked the obvious electrical bits but no joy, so we think the inverter is kaput. We searched the web for other people having this problem but hardly anyone has any problems with this Honda generator. They are great machines!

We had great success with the Honda as we never did much maintenance-wise. Changed the oil and cleaned the air filter a few times. I always meant to make a cover for it but that project is still on "The List". We used the Honda for electric power for use at night before we hooked up the inverter. Then we used it to run the Xantec 24V charger/inverter, run power tools, charge the 12V when necessary... that sort of thing.

So, we didn't want to pay $1200 for a new Honda in St. Maarten and we bought a 1000W Honda clone, an All-Power 1000W for about $450. It is a 4-stroke, portable, silenced unit. It works well but it didn't have enough ooomph for our Xantec charger/inverter. We turned down the charger and got the new generator to charge at 13amps but if we turned on the circuit breaker so we could run our computer, the generator stopped producing power and saying "overload"... darn. We are again wasting time as we are now taking longer to charge the batteries and we cannot get on the internet while charging. It did the 12V battery charger just fine.

It is not as quiet as the Honda EU2000i either, but not that bad... just not as good as we are used to. But, we'll use it for now as we have it and we can decide what to do about generating power as we go along... so it goes

See our August 2008 update: CLICK HERE