2 Comments

1. Michael Loftis says:

   September 6, 2011 at 11:15 am

   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

   
   As expected but well built (Cheap, chinese, and diesel), July 13, 2011

   By 

   Michael Loftis (Missoula, MT USA) –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-help/amazon-verified-purchase/189-2203918-7934720', ‘AmazonHelp’, ‘width=400,height=500,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,toolbar=0,status=1′);return false; “>What’s this?)

   This review is from: DuroStar DS7200 6,000 Watt Diesel Powered Portable Generator With Wireless Remote & Electric Start (Lawn & Patio)

   As long as you’re mechanically inclined, or, know someone who is, this unit is not a bad choice at all. I’ve run one tank of fuel through it so far and besides the starter solenoid wire coming off (on the first run, but never since) and the injector line needing tightening (it was weeping fuel just a bit) so far so good. This unit *WILL* smoke on startup, it has no pre-heat at all, so white smoke and stumbling/missing is completely normal until the combustion chamber gets up to temperature. It is also going to throw off black smoke when restarted if it is warmed up as it comes up to speed, and may give a chuff of black smoke on severe load changes. Again all this is normal for a small diesel, and the white smoke starts are totally normal for a cold diesel without any pre-heat assistance. Without a pre-heat I also would not expect this unit to start if the outside air temp is below freezing. The lack of a pre-heat (glow plug or otherwise) is the only big minus, the generator head itself also is not very high quality, another little irritation is the lack of a running hours meter. There *IS* a constant draw on the battery from the stupid remote start system. You’d be advised to rip that out/disable it if you’re unable or unwilling to put the unit on a battery maintainer. I stress MAINTAINER not trickle charger! Cheap plastic fan on the generator head, and electrically speaking, noisy as hell. If Amazon will let me later add a video review, I’ll try to show an oscilloscope trace of the output waveform. It may be correctable and the waveform gets much better under load. Basically w/o any load the waveform practically zero-es out in the middle of the AC cycle instead of climbing smoothly up. This phenomenon occurs on both phases, I do not know if it happens in 120V only mode as I haven’t yet run the genset that way at all. So the generator head isn’t even remotely close to the total harmonic distortion required when under light load, under 50%+ load it smooths out considerably but it is still very clearly there, it is also possible that somehow the waveform I’m seeing is being caused by either my compact fluorescent lights, or computer power supplies, or something else in the house. The generator isn’t noisy, but it isn’t quiet. I’d say it’s about as loud as your typical walk-behind mower, with most of it’s noise being somewhat low frequency. ~200ft away it’s not really noticeable. It’s quieter than other small 3600RPM Gas and Diesel generators I’ve used though.

   Can’t really make any statements for the fuel consumption yet as one tank doesn’t constitute anything more than a single datapoint, and the motor is still wearing in. I won’t know anything realistic about fuel usage until after the first oil change at atleast 20-25 hrs, it may be more than that since I’m using Delo 15W-40 oil in it which is pretty slippery stuff. And while I’m mentioning oil, be *CERTAIN* to use a good quality oil approved for use in diesel engines! Diesels (even small ones!) are built differently and have more very high force/high pinch areas that are sensitive to wear, like the cam lobe that drives the injector pump. Also ALWAYS warm this generator up and cool it off after a run ~3-5 minutes warmup and 10-15 for cooling down, maybe more, the motor is a *BIG* chunky casting and stores a LOT of heat so it takes this guy a bit to warm up and cool down, you also don’t want to run it w/o a load on it for excessive lengths of time, especially in cooler/colder weather because these small air cooled diesels can wet stack, which basically means they don’t fully burn the fuel at low temps and the combustion chamber fills up with fuel. If this happens it can bring the entire rotating mass to a stop instantly, and thats EXTREMELY hard on everything and can break the crank or connecting rod.

   Also, unless you’re hulk hogan, and it’s nice and sunny and warm out, pull starting this animal is not advisable, and if you do pull start it BE CERTAIN TO USE THE COMPRESSION RELEASE! You’ll break your hand, wrist, or if you’re lucky, just the pull cord if you don’t. You really need to get the massive flywheel rolling to help with the super high compression required to run a diesel.

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2. B.B. "garage sell" says:

   September 6, 2011 at 11:32 am

   0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

   
   DS7200, July 13, 2011

   By 

   B.B. “garage sell” (USA) –

   This review is from: DuroStar DS7200 6,000 Watt Diesel Powered Portable Generator With Wireless Remote & Electric Start (Lawn & Patio)

   Mine leaked oil immediately. The type of leak appeared to be major, that is it couldn’t be fixed by tightening a bolt.

   Read the warranty carefully, as it is designed to be worded…

   The generator is loud and heavy. I’ll drain the fluids and then bore a hole into the crankcase and then scrap it. I lose only $925.00

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