EU1000i 2000i External Fuel Tanks

[Captain Goddammit]

You need a vent on the external tank.

[--Ever--]

You need a vent on the external tank.

We got this one. It's supposed to have a built-on one-way (EPA) valve.

Is this something I needed to manually open and close? I figured it was always "open" seeing that it was one-way. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006MI ... UTF8&psc=1

This line in the deails:
"Automatic vacuum valve ensures proper fuel flow"

Seems to contradict this answered question:
"Q: is the gas cap oneway
A: Unfortunately no, it's one of those new ridiculous EPA pressure caps."

[MacGlenver]

Haven't read the whole thread, but I'll just note that I probably prefer NOT to add an external fuel tank to my genny, as my campmates often forget to turn the thing off. I'd rather burn thru the last half gallon of gas and have the genny die than to burn thru 3 gallons before I come back to camp and realize that it's still on. I expect that my EU2000i ran out of gas at least 3 times while not being monitored this year. Need to train these people, grrr

[GreyCoyote]

Just to close the loop, here is a post-burn report on our antics at TTITD 2014.

When I left Texas, the EU2000i had 200 hours on the tach. When I returned, it had something like 556 hours. It ran quite literally from the moment we left, to the time we pulled back in the driveway. It got an oil change every 50-ish hours (Mobil One, 0W30 Advanced Synthetic), but other than this was never serviced in any way except for a mid-burn inspection of the air filter (which was fine). The "Eco" switch was always "on", except for brief periods when we were fiddling or being nerdy.

The 12-gallon Atwood bulk tank was a mixed bag but overall did well. On two occasions the genny stopped, even though there was fuel in the bulk tank. I still don't have a good handle as to why, but the working theory is the check-valve in the primer bulb between the bulk tank and the genny tank must have gotten stuck. When we added a bit of fuel to the genny tank, it took right off and ran fine for many more days. Odd, but then again, it's Burning Man.

This apparent fuel bug would seem to be a benediction for the primer bulb, but I plan on keeping it anyway. It was useful and allowed me to completely fill the genny tank from the bulk tank just by cracking the genny cap and squeezing the bulb a few times. When fuel dribbled out the cap, it was 100% full and and a quick turn of the cap allowed the cap to seal tight and the genny to draw fuel from the bulk tank automatically. This ability to NOT open the cap in the middle of a dust storm is something that should be seriously considered. If you have ever seen the size of the hole in the main jet, you will understand the importance of having NO DUST IN THE FUEL!

I should also talk a little about carb jetting: The playa sits right at 4000 feet MSL, and the Honda shop manual states the factory jetting is good to 4000 feet, so I wondered if a jet change would be in order anyway. Answer: the factory jets do JUST FINE at playa level. The mixture runs very slightly rich, and the spark plug insulator was slightly brown (instead of pure white), but it still produced rated power and had no issues starting, stopping or responding to load changes even on the "Eco" auto-throttle setting. So don't bother rejetting an EU2000i for playa duty. The factory jets are fine.

Coming home I DID run into a fatal over-rich condition at 7700 feet coming over the Divide. The genny started to run rough, and then finally quit cold just after the summit. I pulled the spark plug and found it was black, fuzzy, and slightly wet. Not good, so I left the genny off until we descended a bit. After a few hours we were down below 6000 feet and I installed a new sparkplug and it fired-up on the first yank. The next 48 hours we spent in Santa Fe, NM at a barometric altitude of 6000 feet. Again, the EU performed well on the factory jetting, even though we were 2000 feet higher than the book recommened. It did not load-up, and after 50 hours the plug looked very good on the insulator, and slightly (*slightly*) sooty on the face. The genny had no trouble carrying a 1500 watt test load for several minutes. Kudos, Honda!

Final bit of data: A campmate (Kowtow) and I ran paralled for the entire burn just because we're a couple of geeks. In addition to our "planned" loads, (three freezers and misc stuff), we also supported various other bits in our camp that needed some juice: two micropower FM stations, a friends bus ("Millicent!") and some 500 watts of common area lighting, we charged some batteries, ran a MONSTER evaporative cooler for my dome, and generally gifted power to whoever needed it. After all this my genny burned about 3 gals/day, with Kowtow's doing a bit better. Even with the numerous unplanned loads we were still able to gift some gas to a campmate who was staying to help with post-exodus tear-down.

Conclusion: The bulk tanks worked very well, the stock jetting was entirely adequate, and these little EU2000i's needed nothing more than an oil change every 50 hours and a new sparkplug every 200 hours or so. All told this was a very successful trip and the EU2000i's come highly recommended!!

[GreyCoyote]

You need a vent on the external tank.

We got this one. It's supposed to have a built-on one-way (EPA) valve.

Is this something I needed to manually open and close? I figured it was always "open" seeing that it was one-way. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006MI ... UTF8&psc=1

This line in the deails:
"Automatic vacuum valve ensures proper fuel flow"

Seems to contradict this answered question:
"Q: is the gas cap oneway
A: Unfortunately no, it's one of those new ridiculous EPA pressure caps."

Ever: somehow I missed this post earlier. Sorry.

The cap does in fact autovent. But only at a point that is after the EU2000 stalls. I think this is maybe what you were fighting on the playa.

[--Ever--]

You need a vent on the external tank.

We got this one. It's supposed to have a built-on one-way (EPA) valve.

Is this something I needed to manually open and close? I figured it was always "open" seeing that it was one-way. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006MI ... UTF8&psc=1

This line in the deails:
"Automatic vacuum valve ensures proper fuel flow"

Seems to contradict this answered question:
"Q: is the gas cap oneway
A: Unfortunately no, it's one of those new ridiculous EPA pressure caps."

Ever: somehow I missed this post earlier. Sorry.

The cap does in fact autovent. But only at a point that is after the EU2000 stalls. I think this is maybe what you were fighting on the playa.

Ah interesting, no problem.

So what do? How do we keep that little red power box purrin?

[GreyCoyote]

Ever: there are a couple of ways to make this work.

The first is to put a tiny (*tiny*) pinhole in the cap of the bulk tank.

The second, is to make sure the botton of the tank is elevated slightly above the top of the genny. This results in gravity flow.

My final solution is now BOTH "A" and "B", above. Since coming home from TTITD, this solution, minus the Attwood regulator (but still using the Evinrude quick-disconnect and the primer bulb), is really bulletproof.

Another follow-up point: when my genny stopped on-playa unexpectedly (and with mucho thankees to Kowtow and Chuckularone for handling the restart while letting me sleep), it appears the cause was indeed the check valve in the primer bulb. I sat there and just played with it the driveway one day after TTITD and found that about 1 time out of 20 when I blew through it, it would not allow air to pass freely. When I disassembled it, I found there was plastic flashing that would sometimes hold the ball valve both in the stuck-opened mode (harmless, gas would flow) and stuck-closed (which was fatal to fuel flow and eventually caused fuel starvation and shutdown). A few minutes with an XActo blade fixed the problem completely.

TL;dr: Vent and elevate the bulk tank.

[chuckularone]

(and with mucho thankees to Kowtow and Chuckularone for handling the restart while letting me sleep)

No worries. I didn't waste too much time on that sleep crap. And I was only barely psychotic by Saturday.