Top positive review
1,509 people found this helpful
Greatest Yamaha EF2000is clone on the Market
By Willy J on Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2016
I currently have a Yamaha EF2000is. I saw the WEN on hot deals recently and couldn't pass it up for the price. I could have bought two of these and had change for what I paid for the Yamaha. The reason that I purchased the WEN is that the engine is a Yamaha clone, it's very similar inside, and the wiring diagrams are virtually the same so that I believe I can parallel the two generators. It's made in China, but the Yamaha has a label inside that it's made in China also. Smarter tools also has the Yamaha engine but they lablel theirs "Powered By Yamaha". I don't know if WEN licenses this engine or if it's a knockoff. I'm betting that both units might be made side by side in the same Chinese factory. I've received it and have run it a couple of days and really like it. First of all it's very attractive. Inside it seems to have nearly the quality level of the Yamaha although there are differences. The engine is the same design but it has a dipstick whereas the Yamaha only has a plug. The spark plugs use different size wrenches. The inverter on the Yamaha is cased but the circuit board components are open on the WEN. One thing I like about the Yamaha that's missing on the WEN is the little door that allows you to access the oil fill hole without removing the entire side cover. I oiled it and gassed it and then pulled the starter rope a couple of times slowly. Then I pulled twice and it started. I ran it through several short cycles with varying load and then cooldown to break it in. Then I ran it side by side with the Yamaha testing it with the same loads. I believe the Yamaha is marginally quieter but not by much. When on autothrotte the Yamaha responds to load faster whereas the WEN would blink it's overload lamp for a few seconds while catching up to a 1,500 watt load from idle. But really there seems to be very little difference in the performance or noise levels of the two units. Also the WEN is a couple of pounds heavier. Update 04/01/2017 - A couple of years ago I gave away my Onan generator in my class C motorhome and replaced it with more batteries, a charger/inverter, and solar panels. I boondock always and never hook up. I don't want to start a generator every time I want to use the microwave or make a pot of coffee. I carry the WEN56200 in the coach for when solar isn't enough and I'm not driving enough to charge the battery bank from the vehicle generator. I fire up the WEN and run it at 90% load (I've added a tachometer) for a couple of hours. I never carry extra gas for it as I've never come back from a camping trip where I had used half of it's tank. After a year, the WEN still works great and starts right up every time. My Yamaha EF2000is has been gathering dust in my shop. I ran it several hours yesterday powering a 40 amp battery charger charging the two 12 volt batteries on my big truck. It purred away on 1/4 throttle and you could hardly hear it from 50 feet away. I just received the WEN parallel kit and spent yesterday parallel testing the WEN56200i with my Yamaha EF2000is. Both gensets paralleled with no problems. They shared the load well with almost identical RPMS. Both gensets held a nice steady 60cps standalone or paired. The max that I could load the paralleled gensets was 3,000 watts before the overload light came on the WEN. The Yamaha is just a bit stronger. See the attached picture. Ran them with two 1,500 watt heater at various settings as well as my air compressor. The little known secret is that any brand inverter generator that is parallel capable can be paralleled with any other brand. Honda, Yamaha, WEN, Smarter Tools, Etc.
Top critical review
95 people found this helpful
6 hours and 30 dollars wasted.
By G. Sharp on Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2015
I hope my experience will help you in making a better decision. In other words, never buy this product! My experience was as follows: 1) The unit arrived. I was happy. Unboxed it. Happy. I liked the color and style. A little heavy for my liking but I could deal. 2) Not so happy that oil did not come with it but understood the reason why not. Went to the store, purchased the correct oil. 3) Upon arriving home I consulted the manual on how to add oil for the first time. The manual clearly states put the generator on a level surface and fill the oil fill port with oil. This seemed alright. But to do this you need to REMOVE the side panel? Alright. I unscrewed the 3 screws and took the side panel off. No biggy, I guess I could deal but would make checking the oil before every run difficult. I am a patient individual. Then I noticed the fill port for the oil was basically 2 - 5 degree tilt from horizontal and the dip stick was tiny, basically the "max" fill level is at the point the oil would be dripping out all over the place. Not happy. Not having a funnel that would work for this, I had to go back to the store to buy a long neck funnel. 1 dollar, whatever. Back to home, made sure the gen was level, starting the fill process, but every time you take the funnel out to check the level the oil leaks out.... wow. An absolutely awful design flaw. 4) After filling it to half way to max, I decided any more would leak out anyways. So I cleaned up the mess, and went about putting the oil plug back in place. Well, that proves difficult as the threads were not exact. I am used to threading things in for work, but this was very frustrating. I didn't want to thread that plastic threads on the plug, so was very careful in trying to get it back in place. Eventually, after about 5 minutes or so of messing with it, I was able to find the perfect way of putting it back in place. Don't ask me to repeat that process though. Will probably take 5 minutes again. 5) The side panel doesn't go on very easily. The 3 little plastic slats that are suppose to hold the bottom of the panel are difficult to position correctly to slide back in. The "clips" at the bottom on the gen prevent you from getting the optimal angle to make this ergonomically feasible. 5) So, 3 design flaws so far, and I am ready to start the little guy. Well, that didn't turn out as planned. I followed the directions. It started after about 7 pulls. I turned the knob to the "on" position and after running for a minute.... "sputter".... "sputter"..... off. Hummmm. Alright, so I restarted it again.... nope. I pulled and pulled. No starting it. I let it sit over night and it started right up the next day. Great! I let it run for 10 minutes thinking that was the end of the frustrations. Nope. I turned it off, took it to my job site. I unloaded, let it sit for a few minutes. Tried to start it..... wouldn't start! Wow. Ok maybe it was flooded or whatever. I waited 20 minutes. Tried to start it.... nothing. 4th try attempting to start the bugger, THE HANDLE BROKE OFF on the pull cord! WHAT?! Only 30 pulls and it breaks right off? 6) I was done. Returned for a full refund. Had to pay for the boxing of this unit, no fault of the product or Amazon, but yet another expense attributed to bad engineering and testing. Another brand on my radar that wont have these incredible failures. And if I ever see this brand name again I will be sure to run very fast and very far away from it! Complete waste of your time, even for calm well mannered mechanically inclined individuals such as myself.
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