Couple of things to check. I suspect either an air leak in the intake or a plugged idle jet. Check to see if the bolts that hold the carburetor on are nice and snug. If they are, remove the carb (very easy 5 minute job), remove the float bowl and look for debris in the bowl. Blow out the jets with compressed air, particularly the idle circuit.

This generator is set up to run very lean to comply with EPA emission specs. Therefore the least little obstruction of the fuel circuits will cause lean surge, what I think you’re experiencing.

John

Thanks for the kind words. Maybe certain people (ahem) will now believe that this is a quality generator for an absurdly low price. Oh, and if one needs a brand name, try Yamaha

http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global/consumer/pp/generator/120v-60hz/0-1/et950/index.html

(sent to me by a RORT Lurker. Thanks!)

It’s amazing how the little thing quiets down when loaded, quite the opposite of most generators. Mine too pings when idling under little to no load. As little gas as it uses, I suppose I could splurge for premium :-)

Re: remote fuel tanks. You read my mind. I’m just about to post a review of some commercial products and then describe my setup. Stay tuned.

It is also remarkable quiet. The noise is on the order of my neighbors 2kw honda.

Here are some of my observations and comments:

1. It starts on 3rd to 5th pull.

2. It will run for 9-plus hours on a gallons of gas while producing between 4 to 7 amps. Damn, that is sweet. I love it.

3. It runs better under load than without at least a 3-amp load. I say that because it is noisier at no load — it sort of knocks without a load but smooths out under a good load.

4. My neighbor with the 2kw honda has a 6-gallon boat gas tank connected to his honda with a 1/4″ gasoline hose. The set up is totally neat in that it connects to the honda via a “special gas cap” with a fitting on top that would normablly be where air is vented to the gas tank. In this set-up as the generator draws gas out of the generators built in gas tank a vaccuum is ceated in the built in gas tank and that vaccuum pulls gasoline through the gas line from the external 6-gallon gas tank. This fellow installed two inline shut off valves in the gas line between his external gas tank and the honda gas tank. One valve is on each end of the gas line. Using this set up the fellow has a full generator gas tank when his 6-gallon external tank becomes empty. Thus he just switches off both valves and disconnects the external tank and fills it. Talk about sweet. This is an awesome setup. My neighbor spends 3-months here every winter so he is set up for this life.

As creative and handy as you are you might consider “rigging” an external gas tank. That sure would make long stays virtually trouble free. If you do please share your “rig” with us. I would be interested.

mike

Please drop back in and let us know how the repair went. Lots of interest in that regard.

Thanks,
John

You then go and buy one of their products, thus providing cold hard cash to these hated “ChiCom” infidels and proving that not only are you an obnoxious holier-than-thou turd, but also an utter hypocrite.

Masterfully done.

Do you think I sould disassemble and switch the connections on the output plug?

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In a word, NO. The generator output is completely isolated from earth ground. In this context, there is no concept of hot or neutral – only two power leads floating above ground. Stray capacitance is probably fooling your tester.

Your question has spurred a whole ‘nuther article to be posted shortly but in a nutshell, my Megger showed isolation better than 1000 megohms at 500 volts, output to ground.

If you like (wait for the photos if you wish), you may designate one wire, say the one hooked to the wider blade on the outlet, as neutral and jumper it to ground. That will make your tester happy. It also increases the risk of shock from touching something live. With the system floating, one connection (through your body, for example) between either conductor and ground does nothing. A second connection would somehow have to be established before shocking current could flow.
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Mike sed:

am also interested in your adsense web site. I would like to take the content from my current web site and turn it into an adsense web site.
———-

You don’t have to move your site anywhere. What you do is sign up for AdSense with Google. Go here http://www.google.com/ads/ads_2.html

Sign up as a publisher. You will be assigned a publisher number and then given a choice of what kind of ad you want to run. Horizontal, vertical, pure text or graphics, etc. You are then presented with a little hunk of code that you paste into your web page(s) wherever you want the ads to appear.

You can see the code in my pages by selecting “view source” and looking at the HTML code. I have the google code clearly delineated. Don’t copy my code, though, unless you want me to get paid for clicks on your site.

The way the money works is, every time someone clicks on an ad, Google applies a sooper-secret algorithm that depends on your PageRank and how much was bid on the AdWords by the advertisers (AdWords – key words, if you will – are auctioned in real time to advertisers. The advertiser that has bid the most gets the spot when your page loads.) and the end result is, you earn a few pennies. It varies but with my current PageRank (low), I think that each click is worth about 4 cents on average to me.

When you’ve earned $100 or more, Google pays you, either via check or EFT to your designated checking account.

I have done absolutely NO so-called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. My PageRank is what it is. There are people who claim to have figured out Google’s algorithm and for a price will modify your site to optimize your PageRank. I know that I could do several things such as becoming a link pimp (begging other sites to link to me – an important ingredient in PageRank) but I’d rather just post useful stuff and grow slowly.

In terms of income, I’m up to almost $200 a month. PageRank (and thus the value of each click) increases with frequency of site changes, strong motivation to post something new every day. I’m working on that :-)

Unfortunately the current algorithm rewards people who post little content of value but who do it every day. Those type typically post something that is actually interesting about as often as I do, providing the incentive for people to link in. The result is a very low signal to noise ratio but lots of revenue.

My approach is to post good stuff and enjoy whatever it earns.

As a web user, I generously click on ads at good sites to reward the webmaster for his hard work. When I have the opportunity, I also nick advertisers that I loathe. For example, I click on every sleazebay ad I see! With their PageRank and the amount they have to bid to get on practically every search result, each click costs them a bunch.

John