Harbor Freight 3500 Watt Inverter Generator - MUST SEE Tips & Tricks

hey it's Matt the old Florida boy haven't been out in a while because it's been raining for the last two two and a half weeks and now there's a tropical storm out in the Gulf so I'm going to talk about some hurricane preparations today I sold my old generator that would wouldn't power my RV because it was only 20 amps and I upgraded to one of these that's right upgraded to the harbor for a predator 3500 watt inverter generator and it is particularly awesome but I want to go over a few tips and tricks with you today if you're thinking about getting one of these generators you definitely ought to do it but when you get one there's some things that you really need to know so I'm gonna get right into some tips and tricks so stay with me alright tip number one and this is a huge tip try to use only non ethanol gas ethanol free gas if you if you can find it around your area it's really really important the small engines and these and basically anything chainsaws or lawnmowers or anything are really really sensitive to ethanol and gas luckily down the street at the Wawa they got ethanol free gas at my Wawa so it's a little bit more expensive but it's really really worth it you know it'll make the the engine run really really smooth and it'll really extend the longevity of your engine and also even if you're using ethanol free gas always remember to use some additive like stable because even ethanol free gas if you leave it in the carburetor long enough it's gonna gunk up on you so tip number one use ethanol free gas and fuel additive tip number two if you're going to use this generator for RV use which this is going to be virtually all that I'm going to use this generator for it comes with a nice RV plug however when you do this and what and when you when you plug this plug in you know you plug in your 30 amp plug and it twists clockwise to lock well the plug is oriented so that the that the cord to plug in your 30 amp service is like this so the weight of the plug and the weight of the power cord wants to turn it and in unlock it so you got to drape your power cord over the generator to hold it and it's just it just doesn't really work too well so what I did is I took this plate this face plate off which comes off with seven screws six screws here and one one screw here and it just comes right out and what I did is I took this plug and I rotated it 180 degrees so now when I plug in my RV and I lock it turn it clockwise to lock now when I plug in my RV plug it goes like that so the weight of the plug keeps it locked it's turning it clockwise instead of counterclockwise I don't know why Harbor Freight doesn't change this because it's an easy fix it doesn't warranty you take out two screws turn it around and put it right back in so that's tip number two alright tip number three use this thing on level ground it's got dumpy little wheels that have made out of plastic and you know they they rattle so the way this generator is sitting now it's not level and if you if you run it like this it is gonna shake the death but if I push it just a little farther now I've got a good level spot and all the wheels are contacting and it's in it's solid as a rock also remember to lock the wheels now this sucker is on solid ground and the wheels are locked and when I start that up it's not going to rattle at all so that's tip number three level ground tip number four cover your outlets let me zoom in a little bit basically the generator has four outlets on the left side you can see the the 30 amp RV plug we got our two one 10s over here and we got a 12 volt plug over there I don't really use a 12 volt plug for anything and I'm not going to use the 110 s for anything either I'm going to use the 30 amp RV plug to power on my RV so what I did is I want to keep these outlets covered because this engine draws air like we're like really really hard from the underside where the air intake is and some people have reported surging and everything else and they've changed the oil fill door to a vented one well I don't whether that's the greatest idea or not but you can actually feel when it's generators running air is being drawn through these outlets so what I recommend doing is just cover the 12-volt with a piece of tape like I did and using a couple of these little plastic outlet covers and cover your outlets now the RV is going to be plugged into here so that's not going to be a consideration but now I have my 110 outlets covered and I have my 12 volt outlet taped over and the RV is going to be plugged into 30 amp now no air is going to be drawn through the plugs and there's not going to get any dirt or anything else through there and into the engine so tip number 4 cover your outlets tip number 5 if you want this thing to run smoothly always run it with the load connected to it now I've got I've got just a little space heater connected there and I got my RV plugged in so that I you know no air can get in that I have my other 110 outlet capped with one of those clear protectors and I've got tape over my 12-volt outlet and now I'm going to start it up and you're going to hear it surging and missing a little bit so listen to this [Music] very quiet that's just vibrating because it's an running engine but you can you can hear going to that that that that that that that that that that that's a tire and a lot of people get really pissed off about that but watch in it and this is what the Eco throttle off by the way this is ditte and this is why it opened so II go with rattles off now I'm gonna put a 30% load on it because I'm going to turn the space heater on low and listen to how smoothly [Music] there's a 30% load and it's smooth right out so I is meant to be run with a load on it you know why else do you buy a generator you buy it to run electrical stuff you don't buy it to sit there and idle all the time so this one this one kind of misses a little bit and I'm even gonna turn you out you go [Music] and then throttle down just a little bit but that's as loud as it gets and idea that this this one misses a little bit but as soon as you put even the lightest load on it smooths right up and this baby is purring like a little kitten right now so tip number five always run it with a load okay so there's just a few tips and tricks to make your Harbor Freight generator experience much much better I only got about three hours on mine and it'll probably smooth out once I get up to the eight hour point I'll change the oil and then I get up to the 25 hour point and then I'll really put some loads on it I know I already know that I run the RV with the 15k air conditioning unit perfectly no problem there at all but it'll probably smooth up a little bit but there's just some some tips and tricks to make your Harbor Freight generator experience more positive so once again an upper left-hand corner you're going to see some suggested videos in the upper right hand corner you're gonna see my subscription bubble please like comment and subscribe and once again this is Matt the old Florida boy saying let's get prepared for hurricanes I will see you on trail

Channel: FloridaBoy Survival

Views: 581,438

Rating: 4.7768717 out of 5

Keywords: vented oil door, honda generator alternative, camping generator, inverter generator, rv generator, super quiet generator, harbor freight generator, predator 3500 inverter generator, backup generator, quiet generator, cheap inverter generator, harbor frieght, cheap generator, harbor freight tools, harbor freight 3500 watt inverter generator, harbor freight generator review, floridaboy bushcraft and survival, floridaboy survival, rv generators for travel trailers

Id: 7mBYq9ZgbKk

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018