Yamaha EF1000is; the Energizer Bunny

[Vaughn Simon]

It just keeps going and going and...

We just got an EF1000is at my shop. We will be buying another soon and
will be using them to run our emergency communications repeaters or perhaps to
power a communications closet somewhere following a power failure. Straight out
of the box, (after gas and oil of course) I connected the thing to our shop
'fridge and let it run. (Our 'fridge is apartment-sized, 15 cubic ft.).
According to the book, the tank is only .66 gallon. I ran the thing most of
yesterday and all of today, for a total of about 13 hours. I had to shut it off
at quitting time. The book says it will run for 12 hours at 250 watts, and I
now believe it.

It is a fine piece of equipment. Cheaper than the 1000-watt Honda and does
everything the Honda does except the parallel trick.

Vaughn

 

[Vaughn Simon]

Did you buy online and if so, do you have a dealer recommendation?

I bought from these people (I will be ordering another today)
http://www.yamahagenerators.com/

To be honest, I know nothing about them other than I found them on the Internet
and got good service on that one transaction.

I will be doing a few more tests this week and will report. My double-door
fridge immediately stalls a baby 650-watt "lunchbox" Honda genny that I own, and
my 1000-watt square wave inverter will not start it reliably. It will be
interesting to see if the Yamaha will do the job.

Vaughn

 

[Vaughn Simon]

Without looking it up in the Honda brochure that seems to be a lot better
gas mileage than the Honda eu1000 or eu2000. I have gotten about 12 hours
with an eu2000 at about 300-350 watts with one gallon of gas but for my
general usage it usually only runs about 5 hours or so.

Pretty amazing. I ran it again this morning and finally dried out the tank
afer another hour or so.

Another trick the Hondas do is keep working. It'll be interesting to see if
it still runs at 10,000 hours. Thanks for the review.

I hope we never know! These are intended to run voice/data communications
equipment after a hurricane, or perhaps while we are having some other power
issues. If they get used to power my portable radio repeaters, that likely
means that both of my communications towers have been blown down; a doomsday
scenario I don't even want to contemplate. (Well...they COULD also be used if
we send Police or Fire to another striken area.)

Getting back to Homepower for a minute. This generator explores the lower
size limit of a generator that could be actually be useful for home backup
following a disaster. As I mentioned earlier, I have long owned a Honda EM600.
That generator has very limited usefulness to me as a backup because it will not
do the one basic function that I need most...provide refrigeration. An
apartment dweller could safely store a drained Honda or Yamaha 1000-watt
generator and use it to run a refrigerator plus a few other light loads, CF
lights, small fan, cell phone charger etc. You could store a couple 2.5 gallon
cans (for the duration of the storm) in the trunk of your car, and/or steal gas
from your car's tank. It also has sufficient capacity to run most home medical
equipment, such as an oxygen concentrator or nebulizer.

I don't know if it will start every home refrigerator, but the test I will
make in a few days will provide a good data point.

Vaughn