Cheap Generator Better Than Honda? Predator vs Honda & GENMAX—Let’s Settle This!

there's the old saying that nothing runs like a Honda but is it possible that a 400 generator can actually run better and outperform this Honda which cost over twelve hundred dollars in the first test we'll see which generator makes the least amount of noise then we'll see which type of generator does the best job of protecting your electronic devices we'll see which generator is the most fuel efficient then we'll have the motor oil analyzed for each engine to see which engine experience the most where at a price of 370 dollars is this gen Max brand they've done an excellent job of packaging and padding the generator for transport the Gen Max is a 2200 watt inverter generator offering pure sine wave electricity is powered by 79.7 CC four-stroke overhead valve engine the generator is designed to shut down if it senses harmful levels of carbon monoxide small access panels are held in place by a Wingnut making servicing the Gen Max very convenient the foam air filter seems properly sealed and well designed access to the oil fill and drain Port is also very well designed and easy to access the Gen Max has two standard 120 volt Outlets it also has two USB charging ports it can be run in parallel with another generator to double the output capability however you'll need to purchase the cables separately it also includes the ground for the generator there's a dial that allows you to engage the choke place the generator in the Run position or shut off the generator the panel also includes several warning lights the efficiency mode switch when in the on position allows the engine to sense to load needed and then run at a slower RPM to save fuel the Gen Max comes equipped with a spark arrestor you can access the spark plug using the access port on top of the generator and a gen Max uses a torch brand spark plug the spark plug is supposed to have a gap of 28 to 31 thousandths of an inch right out of the factory the spark plug gap is off by six thousandths of an inch I'm going to adjust the spark plug gap to meet specifications the gas cap seems well designed with the ability to open and close the vent it also has a removable fuel strainer without gas or oil the Gen Max weighs 41.75 pounds none of the generators come with oil in the crank case so before starting the engine I'll add some 10w30 motor oil and I'll use the same motor oil for all the brands the container holding the oil is starting off at 60 ounces and I'll add very close to 10 ounces of oil the crankcase oil level is full instructions for starting the generator remove the load from all output ends switch the ecosmith it's to off turn ventilation knob of fuel tank to the on position turn combination switch control to choke pull the startup cord with some effort after the generator starts turn the three in one switch to the Run position let's kick off our first test and we'll compare voltage and voltage drop let's use a space heater in the highest heat setting starting off in eco mode the Gen Max is at 123.8 volts powering up the space heater caused the voltage to drop to 99 and it took right at 6 seconds for the Gen Max to recover from the voltage drop under load the Gen Max is only at 119.6 volts unfortunately that's a lot of voltage drop and that can cause a lot of wear and tear to appliances let's turn off the Eco mode and see how it performs and a gen Max only dropped to 116.3 volts and it took five seconds to recover from the voltage drop if there's an extension cord in use there would even be more voltage drop at the end of the cord at a price of 570 or about 200 more than the Gen Max is this Predator which is sold at Harbor Freight just like the Gen Max the Predator is very well packaged for shipping 2000 Max starting watts and 1600 Max running Watts just like the Gen Max the Predator has a 79cc engine the generator's exhaust includes a spark Ruster just like the Gen Max the fuel cap is event that could be opened and closed and the fuel tank has a fuel strainer the Predator is designed to be run in parallel with another generator there's a 12 volt charging port that requires an adapter it also has two 120 volt Outlets there's an eco mode to help save fuel it has several warning lights to include one for oil load and output to gain access to the oil fill and air filter the access panel has three screws that have to be removed not quite as user friendly as the Gen Max once the access panel is off the oil Port is very easy to access just like the Gen Max the Predator also uses a torch brand spark plug the Predator spark plug has the proper gap the foam air filter looks very close to the same as the one on the Gen Max and a predator weighs very close to 47.5 pounds and the Predator holds very close to the same amount of oil as the Gen Max I added 10 ounces of oil open the vent on the gas cap turn economy switch off turn the switch to the start position pull starter handle vigorously slowly turn switch to the Run position before attaching loads just like the Gen Max let's start off in eco mode and the Predator's voltage dropped to 97.9 volts are about 1 volt lower than the Gen attacks however the Predator did recover a lot faster than the Gen Max and only 3.44 seconds let's turn off the Eco mode and compare performance with ego mode off the voltage dropped to 117.2 compared to 116.3 for the Gen Max however the Predator recovered in only three seconds compared to 5 for the Gen Max at a price ranging from 1200 to 1400 is this Honda brand the Honda generator is very well packaged and protected for shipment just like the Gen Max it's rated for 2 200 starting watts and 1800 continuous the predator and the Gen Max engine are 79 CC but the Honda is 121 cc Honda claims that their engine is designed for commercial use includes alarm lights for oil overload and output there's an economy mode for saving fuel the Honda is designed for parallel operation with another generator it also has two 120 volt Outlets it does have an alarm for carbon monoxide and it's designed to shut down for dangerously high levels there's one screw that has to be loosened to remove the side cover the Honda foam air filter is a little bit larger than the air filters on the Gen Max and the Predator generators the oil fill port for the Honda is a little bit larger than the other two Brands there's also side access panel for servicing the spark plug and the Honda uses an NGK spark plug the spark plugs must be gapped between 24 and 28 thousandths of an inch and it is properly gapped at 26 thousands the Honda also has a fuel strainer without gasoline and oil the Honda weighs 47.14 pounds I added 14 ounces of oil to the Honda which is about four ounces more compared to the Gen Max in the Predator make sure all appliances are disconnected from the AC receptacle turn the fuel filler vent cap lever to the on position make sure that the Eco throttle switch is in the off position to start a cold engine move the choke lever to the closed position turn the engine switch to the on position give the starter rope a Brisk pull once the engine starts gradually move the choke to the open position and it took four brisk pulls on the starting rope to get the Honda going for the first time testing the Honda and eco mode and the voltage dropped to 111.7 the best yet and the voltage recovery speed is by far the best yet at only 2.77 seconds and Honda is holding at 121.8 volts which is better than the other brands with the Eco Mode turned off the voltage on the Honda never dropped below 120. so zero recovery time needed and the Honda is holding at 121.8 or 122 volts the best yet if you're using thirsty power tools or appliances tools require a lot of startup current in many instances voltage drop can reduce the lifespan of the tool or the Appliance in eco mode the Honda came out on top with the least amount of voltage drop at 111.7 volts in eco mode Honda had the fastest recovery time for the voltage drop in 2.77 seconds under load the Honda has the highest voltage at 121.8 when that Nico mode the Honda never dropped below 120 volts the predator and the Gen Max perform pretty close to the same so why spend so much money on these generators when you can just buy the Harbor Freight tailgate later for 125 dollars then you can use it to power up your sensitive electronic devices let's hook up an oscilloscope and let's find out and that is a really dirty electricity the line should be very nice and smooth but unfortunately it's very Jagged running the tailgater under a light electrical load did help some but it's still pretty dirty electricity let's use a much larger generator the Harbor Freight Predator 4000 and let's see how it performs and the regular generator doesn't look quite as erratic but this is still some very dirty electricity under load the Predator's waveform is very inconsistent and the Gen Max is definitely offering pure sine wave electricity and should do a great job of protecting sensitive electronic gadgets under load the Gen Max is still performing well just like the Gen Max the Predator is making pure sine wave electricity as the load is applied to the generator everything is still looking good and the Honda is also producing pure sine wave electricity everything is looking good switching from no load to a heavy electrical load so all three generators indeed offer pure sine wave electricity in many instances the amount of Noise by a generator is a pretty big factor to consider and the muffler's design has a pretty significant impact on the amount of noise and the Honda's Muffler is pretty large at six inches in width by nine inches in height the Predator's Muffler sits on top of the engine while the muffler is a little deeper it's a lot smaller muffler compared to the Honda and the muffler on the Gen Max is a little larger than the Predators but not quite as large as The Hondas I found a very quiet place to compare the loudness of each of the generators there's definitely no traffic noise or any noise from urban areas the noise level is in the mid 30s with the Baseline in the 30s let's go ahead and test the generators from 25 feet from the sound meter let's start off testing the Gen Max in eco mode without a load with the exhaust facing the generator the Gen Max topped out at 52 decibels and with the space heater plugged in the Gen Max reached a peak noise level of 64.8 decibels I'll go ahead and rotate the generator 90 degrees and the Gen Max is a little bit louder at 65.3 decibels let's aim the exhaust away from the sound meter facing the exhaust away from the sound meter did help some at 64.4 decibels so taking an average from every direction while under load 64.8 decibels so let's test the predator in eco mode without a load with the exhaust facing the sound meter the Predator is at 51.5 decibels and under load the Predator is about two decibels less noisy than the Gen Max at 62.5 let's rotate the Predator 90 degrees rotating the Predator to 90 degrees really helped reduce the noise 61.8 decibels is almost 4 decibels less noisy than the Gen Max with the exhaust facing away 60.4 decibels for the Predator with the exhaust facing the sound meter the Honda is the quietest at 50.2 decibels in eco mode under load the Honda's at 59.5 decibels are about 2 decibels less than the predator and 5 less than the Gen Max I rotated the position of the Honda 90 degrees and the Honda is the best yet at 59.5 decibels with the exhaust facing away from the sound meter 57.2 decibels let's compare the small generators to the Predator 4000. with the exhaust facing the sound meter 65.2 decibels the loudest yet and the Predator 4000 is at 67 decibels while supplying power to the space heater rotating the generator 90 degrees didn't help and it's even louder at 69.1 decibels with the exhaust facing away the Predator 4000 is the loudest yet at 71.8 decibels so the Honda is the quietest of the three generators with an average exhaust noise a 50 8.9 decibels the Predator finished in second at 61.6 and gen Max 64.8 I ran the generators under load for about two hours the space heaters draw around 800 watts on the low setting and all the generators perform well while it's not required let's go ahead and change the oil in each of the generators I'll add very close to 10 ounces of motor oil in the Gen Max and the Predator the Honda does have a larger oil capacity so I'll add 14 to the Honda let's compare fuel efficiency next using three space heaters running on the highest heat setting the weight of the fuel container and the fuel will weigh precisely 656 grams for each generator the volume of the container I'll be using is 16 ounces the thermostat is set so the heaters won't shut off during the test each of the space heaters will be using very close to 1500 watts I'll go ahead and add an LED light to each of the generators so we can quickly determine when a generator shuts down and the LED light draws right at 8 watts so we're under the 1600 watt limit for the predator and 1800 watts for the Gen Max in the Honda with just over 1500 watts of energy demand the Predator's overload warning light is on and the generator is no longer providing power to the space heater so it's lights out for the Predator at 12 minutes and 45 seconds and the Gen Max suddenly shut down at just under 19 minutes and I spent around three minutes trying to get the Gen Max going again it's hard to say for sure but it appears that the Gen Max overheated and shut down due to vapor lock so the Honda is the last generator still up and running with a 1500 watt load and the Honda is finally out of gasoline at just over 32 minutes not bad for 16 ounces of gasoline supplying 1500 watts of electricity I'll go ahead and run the other two generators until they're out of fuel this time each generator will be supplying power to a 500 watt halogen light the generators will have the Eco Mode turned off let's repeat this test again with precisely the same amount of fuel if you're using energy thirsty devices such as circular saws or other power tools turning off the Eco Mode will help prevent voltage drop with the Eco Mode turned off the Honda's out of fuel in about 43 minutes and 15 seconds with the Eco Mode turned off the Gen Max lesson 7 minutes longer than the Honda and the Gen Max is out of fuel in almost 51 minutes and the Predator outlasted the Honda by almost 12 minutes in the Gen Max by almost five and it slides out for the predator in just over 55 minutes so when you're not using the economy mode the Predator offers the best fuel efficiency let's repeat this test but this time we'll use the economy mode we'll once again use precisely the same amount of fuel for each generator and all the generators are running at a much lower RPM especially the Honda one thing nice about the Honda is it does have a phone app which provides some pretty useful information it includes total hours of use oil life and energy demand in eco mode the predator and the Gen Max are moving around quite a bit so running an eco mode really helped the generators with fuel efficiency and the Honda is the first generator out of fuel in 61 minutes and the Gen Max outlasted the Honda by 30 seconds and the Predator is finally out of fuel at 62.5 minutes or about a minute longer than a gen Max so the economy mode saved all the generators quite a bit of fuel so running in the economy mode all the generators are pretty competitive but the Predator came out on top and 62.5 minutes let's see how much force it takes to start the generators I'll use this Force gauge to measure the peak force of three pulls on the starter row and the tailgater takes 28 kilograms or almost 62 pounds of peak Force the Predator 4000 has a much larger engine than the tailgater how however it has a built-in compression release and it takes a lot less Peak Force at 19.5 kilograms or 43 pounds and the Gen Max takes a lot less Force to start than the Predator 4000 and the tailgater at only 8.5 kilograms or 18.7 pounds and a predator takes a little more effort than the Gen Max at 12.5 kilograms or 27.5 pounds and the Honda takes about twice the force as the Gen Max and the Predator at 24 kilograms or 52.9 pounds measuring the vibration of the table from the generator the Gen Max is performing well at 11.55 meters per second squared and the Predator vibrates a little bit more than a gen Max at 16.65 but that's still pretty good and the Honda vibrates the least of the three brands at very close to 9 meters per second squared so the Honda did the best but all three brands performed well all the generators call for 100 hour oil change intervals they all have close to 98 hours of run time total and 96 hours on the current oil the Predator shut down to being low on oil at around 49 hours of use and I had to add oil lessened off the oil to an oil Testing Lab I did not add oil to the Honda and the Honda oil level is still full I did not have to add oil to the Gen Max and the oil level is still full and the Predator is definitely burning oil the spark plug has quite a bit of carbon deposits for less than 100 hours of use and Honda spark plug still looks really good and the Honda has a lot less carbon buildup compared to the spark plug for the Predator just like the Honda the spark plug for the Gen Max still looks good the oil analysis results are back from the lab and the results are very interesting I'm showing the screenshots briefly of each oil report but if aggregated the results to make comparison much easier to follow the presence of aluminum in the motor oil is typically an indication of engine wear and the Gen Max has the highest level of aluminum Predator finished in second and the Honda did the best with the lowest level of aluminum iron is also a wear metal and this time the Predator has the most iron content in the motor oil followed by the Gen Max once again the Honda came out on top so the Honda definitely has the least amount of wear metal in the oil and Honda won this showdown but it is very expensive at a price between 12 and 1400 if their other generator Brands you'd like to see tested please leave a comment let me know which brands you'd like to see compared all the videos in this channel including this one our viewers suggested so if you have a video idea I hope you take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 1,333,596

Keywords: Honda EU2200i review, GENMAX GM2200i review, Predator 2000 review, inverter generator vs regular generator, honda inverter generator review, predator 2000 generator review, genmax gm2200i generator review, predator inverter generator review, genmax inverter generator review, honda vs predator generator comparison, honda vs genmax generator showdown, best compact generator review, suitcase generator review, pure sine wave generator honda, sine wave generator

Id: 5n1sPy3Al6M

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2023