The WEN is 120 volt only - you originally wanted 230 volts ?
I doubt that you will find an inverter generator that provides
230 volts for anywhere near $ 500. The cheapo units in Canada are $ 1600. Honda is ~ double that.
If you can get copper windings, don't settle for aluminum!!!!! - 25% premium is peanuts.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. An inverter genset is a DC GENERATOR combined with an electronic inverter - which MAY me true sine, or on the cheap ones a stepped square wave. The engine speed is determined by load - is usually quieter under normal use - and is almost always 120 volt only. On good ones you can sync two together to give 240. (This is a generalization) a $500 inverter unit will be low power or low quality or both. Good for camping or running a food trailer etc - or running a sound system at an outdoor event.
In this case but the cheapest crap you can buy, because even a good one will be scrap in 6 months to a year. Better yet find one that doesn't work that you can buy for $50 and save yourself $450
If you go back and carefully read the product descriptions for the two generators that you linked us to - the one with the smaller engine and wattage and only 120 volt is being compared with the other with the bigger engine, more wattage and 120 + 230 volts .. The bigger one has a battery and electric start and low oil shutdown. The little one has CO shutdown. ... tough to compare ! John T.
Maybe I accidentally linked to the wrong two generators as they're both about the same except one is 700 watts more and about 25 pounds heavier.
I'm going to pull the trigger on one of these two generators I think.
It's kind of a toss up between the WEN DF475X with the CO sensor and the cheaper price versus about fifty bucks more for the DuroMax XP5500EH with the heavier metal construction & copper wiring with about 700 extra watts.
I don't know whether the WEN has copper or aluminum wiring though, but there is about a 20% weight difference so that's coming from somewhere.
I think the web site I linked to showed the wrong generator. I'm sorry.
I was mostly working off the spreadsheet I wrote up in Excel because I started with over 20 generators that I tried to find the best $500 one.
These are the correct generators that I'm finally getting down to.
... check out the wheels. John T.
Thanks everyone for the help as I had never bought a generator before. I learned a lot by reading and appreciating all your great answers.
There were about 20 generators to choose from in the $500 price range.
I bought the $550 DuroMax XP5500EH instead of the $500 WEN DF430X.
Both had the required 30A 220VAC twist lock NEMA L14-30 transfer switch connector and both had two GFCI NEMA 5-20R polarized grounded outlets.
The WEN had a RV-ready NEMA 120V TT-30R outlet but I don't have an RV.
Both were a similar sized cylinder with the Wen being about 8% smaller. Both had 12VDC (presumably that's used to charge the battery).
Although the WEN had a cigarette lighter socket while the DuroMax has two
12VDC posts plus a cable that connects to them and then to the battery.Both were dual fuel with wattage within 750 Watts of each other.
Both come with the propane hose & regulator although the DuroMax description doesn't say it does (but it was there in the box).
Both had wheels and handles (although the WEN wheels were plastic).
The WEN also had a Carbon Monoxide shutdown, which would have been nice. The reviews complained that the DuroMax didn't come with the 30 weight oil.
The DuroMax toolkit is 2 (crappy) openend metric wrenches & a reversible screwdriver plus a spark plug removal hex tube & an oil funnel with hose.
As such, it's not something to write home about, but still - I'd rather have that emergency toolkit than an ordinary quart of 30-weight motor oil.
The only thing missing I think is the 20 gallon propane tank.
I've never used a portable propane tank (other than the 1-pound kind that come with the copper pipe sweating kits) so I need to research propane.
I'll probably open a separate thread on sourcing portable propane, but my preliminary searches seem to show that the tanks need to be certified every
10 years and they cost roughly around $60 for a new tank (which I'll need).Refilling seems to be by three methods with the difference being in cost and convenience (not necessarily aligned as you might think it would be).
Since I have a home 500 gallon propane tank, the most convenient would be to refill the 20-pound (4.6 gallon) portable tank (if that's possible).
While I do see "valves" on my 500-gallon propane tank, I don't yet know which would have a siphon tube to get the liquid out and of course I don't have the refill hose which would cost roughly around $250 so it may not be worth it anyway given propane today at my gas supplier is $3.50/gallon.
There seems to only be U-Haul shops and a couple of ACE hardware stores within 30 miles of me which will either refill the propane at about $4/gallon or exchange at about $7/gallon (when you take into account that they only fill the exchange tanks to about 15 pounds or 3.5 gallons).
Given there aren't any stores less than an hour's drive (round trip) it normally would be more convenient to refill from my home big tank but it would take too long (probably) to recoup the $250 cost at the refill rate.
(a) Delivery rate = $3.50/gallon (no tax) [but it needs a $250 hose!] (b) Refill rate = $4/gallon (+ tax) (c) Exchange rate = $7/gallon (+ tax)
Filling at home is most convenient but at 4 gallons per fill, it only saves me $0.50/gallon which is only $2 per fill so it would take a hundred and twenty five fills to recoup the cost of the hose - convenience be damned.
The exchange rates I've been quoted are a ripoff so just on principle I don't think I'd exchange my brand new tank for their crappy tanks anyway.
They should be ashamed of charging that extra $15 for the exchange tanks.
But after ten years, I might exchange my tank (which will be ten years old then, by definition) for a new tank - which would mean I'm spending roughly about $15 extra for the privilege of exchanging my tank for a tested one.
Since I probably will try to NOT run the generator on gasoline, I'm not sure if I want to buy two of those $60 twenty-pound tanks or not yet.
With two twenty-pound tanks I can swap out an empty for a full one, but even if I didn't have a second propane tank, I could switch to gasoline.
If you have ideas of where to get the best price either for the refill hose or for the fillup or exchange of the twenty pound tanks, that would help.
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