Honda eu2000i and home furnaces

Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

Mr Wizzard wrote:

Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace... Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book... Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire...

Got 2 Variacs? How about plugging the EU2000 into a wall socket?
Nick

"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message [snip]

So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.
I had the reverse problem with a Yamaha 2800SE.

It would not feed the generator input of a Xantrex SW+4024. The Xantrex was kicking back hash that spooked the Yamaha protection circuitry, even when the current was zero! The solution was similar to yours; I put a line filter appliance in between them.

Possibly the noise from the ignitor or furnace was screwing up the generator inverter, making it misfire or confusing the feedback circuits for regulating quantities.
"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message

Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

I just purchased a Yamaha 2400 Inverter generator, just got the box today, I have a familiar furnace, Carrier MVP58, fame sensor, hot surface and all, after your problem with the dirty wave,I will be interested to see how Yamaha deals with this, bought the thing expressly for the furnace and a couple lights, Yamaha says it will drive Microprocessor etc., I will see, furnace man says you have to be very careful with ground connection as the flame sensor works off gnd. potential, will get back to group after I try the thing out. Good Luck Phil "Mr Wizzard" wrote in message

Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

"SolarFlare" wrote in message

Possibly the noise from the ignitor or furnace was screwing up the generator inverter, making it misfire or confusing the feedback circuits for regulating quantities.

Well, wasn't anything like that. It certainly wasn't misfiring, and like I said, the since wave was so rock solid on the scope it was amazing. Its definetly RFI related. Found this on the web for a non-homebrew solution: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-1164
And excelent home-brew solution here, although the page seems like it goes off the air, or not reachable at times, but is worth re-visiting to see if it comes up. Its woth it:
http://www.dellroy.com/W4EF's-Ham-Radio-Page/Portable_Operation/EU2000i_Filter.htm

"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

"Phil" wrote in message

I just purchased a Yamaha 2400 Inverter generator, just got the box today, I have a familiar furnace, Carrier MVP58, fame sensor, hot surface and all, after your problem with the dirty wave,I will be interested to see how Yamaha deals with this, bought the thing expressly for the furnace and a couple lights, Yamaha says it will drive Microprocessor etc., I will see, furnace man says you have to be very careful with ground connection as the flame sensor works off gnd. potential, will get back to group after I try the thing out. Good Luck Phil

Well, I certainly wouldn't call it "dirty" per-se, and in fact, the sinewave symmetry was absolutly outstanding. I think its this super high frequency hash superimposed on it thats SO small, that you really need a decent scope to see it. I'm sure its perfectly safe for microprocessors, I just think the "flame detect" circuit in these modern furnaces are such that it gets affected somehow.

"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

wrote in message

Mr Wizzard wrote:
Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace... Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book... Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire...
Got 2 Variacs?

Got tons of Variacs. (you should see this 15-Amp job I got)
How about plugging the EU2000 into a wall socket?
What would that do ?

Nick

Mr Wizzard wrote:

Got 2 Variacs?
Got tons of Variacs. (you should see this 15-Amp job I got)
How about plugging the EU2000 into a wall socket?
What would that do ?

I used to think 2 EU2000s sent special signals to each other in order to operate in parallel, but it seems they don't. The AC outputs are just tied together and the inverters figure out how to sync and share the load, so it seems very likely that a single EU2000 can act as a grid-tie inverter :-)
I don't own one, but it seems safe enough to try this with a variac hooked up as an autotransformer and 2 light bulbs or another Variac in series. If it syncs, the bulbs should be dark. Viewed in a fixed font: --------------sC----B---B------- | | C | Honda | C 120 VAC wall socket | | C --------------------------------
Moving the variac slider s downwards should make the bulbs light again. Then short out one bulb, then the other, put a Kill-a-Watt meter into the Honda socket, and run the exhaust into the top of a $200 gas water heater, then out a window, cooler, to preheat water for showers, so most of fuel's heating value ends up in the house. You are trying to heat the house with the Honda powering the furnace, no? The house needs a CO detector.
With a 125K Btu/gallon high heating value and a 10,000 hour engine lifetime, Honda EU2000 cogen looks marginally economical: if we burn 1.08 gallons of gas with a fuel value of 135K Btu in 4 hours at the 1600 W rated load and make 6.4 kWh (21.8K Btu) of electricity and 113.2K Btu of heat (another 33.2 kWh, ie 39.6 kWh total) and the heat replaces electric resistance and the Honda costs $899 (mayberrys.com) and wear adds $0.09/h, ie 5.6 cents/kWh, this kind of cogen seems to make sense at an off-road gas price of $1.75/gallon if electricity costs more than 100x$1.75/39.6+5.6 = 10.7 cents/kWh.
Nick

Is the unit going through a grounded transfer panel, and is the gen itself grounded by a wire hitting dirt. So what grounds it. The EU should run it right or may be bad-defective.

First off your talk of wave forms etc, is way over my head. Having said that I have a Yamaha 1000is gen. It screamed, and the red light (Overload) came on for about 2 secs, but it did start and run my furnace circa 1998. 1/4 hp motor, ng furnace. The Yamaha did'nt like it so I wont make it a habit, thinking of moving up to a ef3000 just for this emer use. I use a small transfer panel. Mabey a bad Honda? Strange as that seems.
.........................Rob

A furnace of that size should run at 350-375 watts and may well pull to much load on startup over loadiing a Yamaha1000. But your furnace may need attention, old caps, old motors can pull up to 9x surge. Put a meter on it to find surge draw , if its over 3x get it looked into, a yamaha 1000 should start a furnace. But a Generac 4000exl failed a load test by Consumer Reports, so who knows. You can have the fan set to auto to cycle the blower first then switch on heat mode, that depending on unit type may or may not help.

I appears to only have common mode noise filtering but not differential which I would think would be the problem.
"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message

"SolarFlare" wrote in message Possibly the noise from the ignitor or furnace was screwing up the generator inverter, making it misfire or confusing the feedback circuits for regulating quantities.
Well, wasn't anything like that. It certainly wasn't misfiring, and like I said, the since wave was so rock solid on the scope it was amazing. Its definetly RFI related. Found this on the web for a non-homebrew solution:
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-1164
And excelent home-brew solution here, although the page seems like it goes off the air, or not reachable at times, but is worth re-visiting to see if it comes up. Its woth it:
http://www.dellroy.com/W4EF's-Ham-Radio-Page/Portable_Operation/EU2000i_Filter.htm
"Mr Wizzard" wrote in message Got a new Honda eu2000i to run my home furnace here in the NorthWest. No go. Furnace is a York Diamond 80 (small modern garden variety deal) Furnace starts its cycle, ventor motor runs, hot-surface igniter fires, gas valve open, furnace fires, igniter shuts off and starts its cool-down, and after about 5-6 seconds, the gas valve closes, and flame goes out. Then it immediately goes back into the hot-surface igniter glowing cycle, and repeats.
Put it on my overly expensive 200 Mhz Tektronix hand-held digital scope, and shit, the sine wave is cleaner than anything you'd see in a printed text book. Expanded the heck out of the trace, and see very slight high frequency hash riding on the sine wave, but its _so_ minute, that I didn't give it a second thought (more impressed in how utterly perfect the sice wave looks in general)
At first I thought it was a voltage surge after the high-current igniter goes out, but realized that the gas valve kicks out about 5 seconds _after_ the igniter shuts off. Frequency is dead-nuts on. I tried a large Variac, and other stuff.
Decided to start putting shit (inductors etc) in series with the Honda eu2000i and the furnace, and started rooting thru my junk box. Found a real nice ferrite pot core inductor with what looks like to be 16 gague wire. About an inch and a half in diameter, probably an inch high. (nice looking thing) Anyways, well-A! Furnace starts and runs fine. Worried about possible too thin wire, I put the scope "accross" the inductor and let the furnace run thru its cycles. Man!, talk about hash? Whoa. Some shit getting caught in that choke, *thats* for sure. Anyways, getting about 5v PP accross the choke (which by the way looks like it is a component of a high frequency switching power supply ro something). Anyways, 5v peak-to-peak accross the inductor is not enough loss to worry about, and the inductor is not getting warm, so the heck with it, I'll put it in a little project box with extension cord ends and make that portable accessory.
So there you have it. My conclusion is that the hash (running around the electronic control circuit board) was screwing up the "flame sensor" (of all things) which is probably an ultra sensitive analogu thing like a thermistor. Wish I could find my WaveTek meter that measures inductance.
So maybe you ran into this situation, maybe you didn't, but thought I'd pass this on.

Maybe shield some of that nasty Ignition noise too... http://www.dellroy.com/W4EF's-Ham-Radio-Page/EU2000i/Ignition.htm

do you think that those hondas will give 10,000 hours of service at 1600w continuous load?
Does this also imply that more than 2 of the Hondas could be hooked in parallel?
If so, then, with NG, this might make a very attractive n+1 off grid power source - with both high reliability and low cost.
nicksanspam@ece.villanova.edu wrote: .....

I used to think 2 EU2000s sent special signals to each other in order to operate in parallel, but it seems they don't. The AC outputs are just tied together and the inverters figure out how to sync and share the load, so it seems very likely that a single EU2000 can act as a grid-tie inverter :-)
I don't own one, but it seems safe enough to try this with a variac hooked up as an autotransformer and 2 light bulbs or another Variac in series. If it syncs, the bulbs should be dark. Viewed in a fixed font:
--------------sC----B---B------- | | C | Honda | C 120 VAC wall socket | | C --------------------------------
Moving the variac slider s downwards should make the bulbs light again. Then short out one bulb, then the other, put a Kill-a-Watt meter into the Honda socket, and run the exhaust into the top of a $200 gas water heater, then out a window, cooler, to preheat water for showers, so most of fuel's heating value ends up in the house. You are trying to heat the house with the Honda powering the furnace, no? The house needs a CO detector.
With a 125K Btu/gallon high heating value and a 10,000 hour engine lifetime, Honda EU2000 cogen looks marginally economical: if we burn 1.08 gallons of gas with a fuel value of 135K Btu in 4 hours at the 1600 W rated load and make 6.4 kWh (21.8K Btu) of electricity and 113.2K Btu of heat (another 33.2 kWh, ie 39.6 kWh total) and the heat replaces electric resistance and the Honda costs $899 (mayberrys.com) and wear adds $0.09/h, ie 5.6 cents/kWh, this kind of cogen seems to make sense at an off-road gas price of $1.75/gallon if electricity costs more than 100x$1.75/39.6+5.6 = 10.7 cents/kWh.
Nick