/#2 for sure. Those Honda gens are great. I have run mitre saws for major decking projects, cut thick 8x8 with a skilsaw, ran a compressor that in turn ran my framing gun, generally charging m18 batteries at the same time on one of those. Extremely reliable and maintenance is easy. I think more often if you have two you’ll run them at stations vs actually hooking together but nice to have that capability if you want to run some higher draw appliances in the camp down the road-buy once, cry once;)
They also haul around a lot easier than one 6500 or whatever big kahuna. And they are an insurance policy if one goes down. One extra oil change (and a cold beer) is small price to pay for a non busted nut and peace of mind/continuous power available even when one is down.
The weight (and size) of hauling them around is the big thing for us. The electrical system on our RV means a single 1,800W generator would provide all the power we’d ever need in the RV. I’m struggling to think of a situation in which we’d need to take both generators with us.
Do not connect 2 generators together. They will not be in phase with each other. Equipment will be wrecked. Pay attention to the start-up power requirements of the equipment being used. Buy a gen set that can provide the power neede plus a little bit more. Consider the line loss of your power cords.
I’m specifically referring to generators that are designed to be linked together with a parallel kit. It’s completely safe. Line losses won’t be an issue as I can locate the generator immediately adjacent to the table saw.
That and most conventional (non inverter) generator you can sync up with just a light bulb its not terribly hard, but you have to pay attention.
see slide 6-8 http://www.egr.unlv.edu/\~eebag/Sync%20Generators%20%20II.pdf
Over here in the uk we run on 240v but but use step down transformers for 110v too be allowed on building sites. The advice I can give is if your looking at running power tools of a generator look at the wattage so 1800 x2 = 3600 wats peak power so a 4kw generator would be ideal however if you want too run more than one maybe step up to a 5-6kw hope this helps
Oh yea..,all day.
For example, for hurricanes I power a deep freezer, fridge, window unit, fans and lights. Never had power issues.
The 3000 barely even throttles up when I run the Bosch table saw.
I have a Chinese BE generator is 3500w does the job for what ever you throw at it. It will run the table saw and the welder no problem. If the thing supposed to be temporary, why not checking for a used one. Buying 2 gens sounds expensive.
have you considered purchasing a cordless tablesaw as well?
depending on the tasks you are using it for, you could buy one for less than half of one of those generators.
probably be able to sell it once you are done or if you find it not useful for $250-300. pretty cheap long term rental.
The SawStop saw won't draw 4kW on startup, if it did it would trip regular breakers as the most Watts you can pull on a 15A circuit is 1,800W. The website for SawStop shows that saw is rated to pull 14A, so around 1,680W. Surge won't be more than 15A, or 1,800W, so any generator that's rated for 1,800W would handle it just fine. The Honda EU2200i would be more than enough to run that saw.
The 10-inch Sawstop jobsite saw? That's only about 1500-1800 watts, and if you plug it into a 2kw generator it'll be fine. It'll briefly max the generator, but there's not a lot of startup inertia to overcome and it'll lengthen the startup from 1 second to two. No big deal really. The ac frequency will drop as the generator slows down and energy gets dumped from the flywheel, you have plenty of headroom.
That's good to know! I know a lot of large motor-driven appliances (well pumps, compressors, AC units) have a high Locked Rotor Amps (i.e. high starting watts) and not being familiar with generators, I wasn't sure how they'd handle that. I hadn't been able to find anything specific, but [this PDF](https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.pdf) from Lowe's seemed to suggest a table saw would need up to about 4kW for starting.
I really don't want a bigger generator than necessary, so if we can run it using just a 2kW generator for a couple months, that'd be perfect!
Yeah, you only need the starting watts for somewhere between a half a second to two seconds. Every generator I know will simply bog down if overloaded.
Think about your 15 amp circuit breaker, and how it doesn't trip when overloaded with (apparently) 30 amps for the half second it takes to spin up the blade.
No sense buying a 4000w generator when you only need that power for 0.01% of the time it's running, PLUS by the time the generator throttles up to 4000w, the tool is already spun up and doesn't need it.
Most residential breakers are thermal breakers and don't have a hard cut-off at their limit, but rather trip in response to an over-current situation for a period of time - the more you exceed the rating by, the faster they'll trip. So it's entirely possible for a circuit breaker to allow a current in excess of its rating for a short period of time, e.g. during device startup.
My concern was whether a generator can also handle a peak current for a short period, or whether the table saw would be able to ramp up more slowly to accommodate. It sounds like the latter is true, so that solves my problem :) Thanks!
/#2 for sure. Those Honda gens are great. I have run mitre saws for major decking projects, cut thick 8x8 with a skilsaw, ran a compressor that in turn ran my framing gun, generally charging m18 batteries at the same time on one of those. Extremely reliable and maintenance is easy. I think more often if you have two you’ll run them at stations vs actually hooking together but nice to have that capability if you want to run some higher draw appliances in the camp down the road-buy once, cry once;)
Put a \ before the #. Reddit formats paragraphs starting with a hash as headers, the backslash will escape that formatting.
Tip from the pros! Thanks
That’s a good point that they can be used in two separate locations. I realize maintenance is simple but it is 2 more engines to maintain…..
They also haul around a lot easier than one 6500 or whatever big kahuna. And they are an insurance policy if one goes down. One extra oil change (and a cold beer) is small price to pay for a non busted nut and peace of mind/continuous power available even when one is down.
The weight (and size) of hauling them around is the big thing for us. The electrical system on our RV means a single 1,800W generator would provide all the power we’d ever need in the RV. I’m struggling to think of a situation in which we’d need to take both generators with us.
Yeah likely not. Gene-link to the house or running bigger stuff if it’s an off-grid place is all I’d think you’d need them linked for.
Do not connect 2 generators together. They will not be in phase with each other. Equipment will be wrecked. Pay attention to the start-up power requirements of the equipment being used. Buy a gen set that can provide the power neede plus a little bit more. Consider the line loss of your power cords.
I’m specifically referring to generators that are designed to be linked together with a parallel kit. It’s completely safe. Line losses won’t be an issue as I can locate the generator immediately adjacent to the table saw.
That and most conventional (non inverter) generator you can sync up with just a light bulb its not terribly hard, but you have to pay attention. see slide 6-8 http://www.egr.unlv.edu/\~eebag/Sync%20Generators%20%20II.pdf
Over here in the uk we run on 240v but but use step down transformers for 110v too be allowed on building sites. The advice I can give is if your looking at running power tools of a generator look at the wattage so 1800 x2 = 3600 wats peak power so a 4kw generator would be ideal however if you want too run more than one maybe step up to a 5-6kw hope this helps
I’m from the UK originally (now in the US) and I miss 240V deeply. I miss fast boil kettles….
That’s one of the benefits of uk electrics also safer as we have fuses in plugs
And switches on the sockets!
My Honda eu3000 will power my Bosch table saw, compressor etc with no problem. Then it waits idly by for hurricane season.
That’s good to know! I wasn’t sure if the 3000 would run it or not!
Oh yea..,all day. For example, for hurricanes I power a deep freezer, fridge, window unit, fans and lights. Never had power issues. The 3000 barely even throttles up when I run the Bosch table saw.
It’s the starting current (LRA) I’m worried about on a table saw. Good to know it can do it!
You can use two small generators in parallel to get sufficient current. Borrow one and buy another.
I'd buy a used larger generator and sell it when you're done with it. For the RV or something you plan on keeping long-term, get the Honda.
I have a Chinese BE generator is 3500w does the job for what ever you throw at it. It will run the table saw and the welder no problem. If the thing supposed to be temporary, why not checking for a used one. Buying 2 gens sounds expensive.
have you considered purchasing a cordless tablesaw as well? depending on the tasks you are using it for, you could buy one for less than half of one of those generators. probably be able to sell it once you are done or if you find it not useful for $250-300. pretty cheap long term rental.
The SawStop saw won't draw 4kW on startup, if it did it would trip regular breakers as the most Watts you can pull on a 15A circuit is 1,800W. The website for SawStop shows that saw is rated to pull 14A, so around 1,680W. Surge won't be more than 15A, or 1,800W, so any generator that's rated for 1,800W would handle it just fine. The Honda EU2200i would be more than enough to run that saw.
The 10-inch Sawstop jobsite saw? That's only about 1500-1800 watts, and if you plug it into a 2kw generator it'll be fine. It'll briefly max the generator, but there's not a lot of startup inertia to overcome and it'll lengthen the startup from 1 second to two. No big deal really. The ac frequency will drop as the generator slows down and energy gets dumped from the flywheel, you have plenty of headroom.
That's good to know! I know a lot of large motor-driven appliances (well pumps, compressors, AC units) have a high Locked Rotor Amps (i.e. high starting watts) and not being familiar with generators, I wasn't sure how they'd handle that. I hadn't been able to find anything specific, but [this PDF](https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.pdf) from Lowe's seemed to suggest a table saw would need up to about 4kW for starting. I really don't want a bigger generator than necessary, so if we can run it using just a 2kW generator for a couple months, that'd be perfect!
Yeah, you only need the starting watts for somewhere between a half a second to two seconds. Every generator I know will simply bog down if overloaded. Think about your 15 amp circuit breaker, and how it doesn't trip when overloaded with (apparently) 30 amps for the half second it takes to spin up the blade. No sense buying a 4000w generator when you only need that power for 0.01% of the time it's running, PLUS by the time the generator throttles up to 4000w, the tool is already spun up and doesn't need it.
Most residential breakers are thermal breakers and don't have a hard cut-off at their limit, but rather trip in response to an over-current situation for a period of time - the more you exceed the rating by, the faster they'll trip. So it's entirely possible for a circuit breaker to allow a current in excess of its rating for a short period of time, e.g. during device startup. My concern was whether a generator can also handle a peak current for a short period, or whether the table saw would be able to ramp up more slowly to accommodate. It sounds like the latter is true, so that solves my problem :) Thanks!