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Reviews For: Honda EX-5500

Category: Emergency/Portable Power: generators, solar, wind, thermal, etc

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Review Summary For : Honda EX-5500
Reviews: 3MSRP: 4265.95
Description:
Super Quiet Generator
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/ModelDetail.asp?ModelName=ex5500
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0034.3
K8IO Rating: 2021-06-19
A field day beast Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am typing this while running on this generator during a power outage in the middle of a storm. IT has ran field day stations for many years. And for days during some severe Storm damage events over the years. I have a 20 KW propane rig but this is a lot easier on the fuel. It is quiet, efficient and reliable. It cost a lot new, you get what you pay for. I have serviced it with coolant, hoses, oil and filters. And it will run our field day ops again this year (2021)
HAMLET Rating: 2012-04-16
expensive parts! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought it in '93, I've had it for several years. I first used it for construction in the first year, then stored it, using only intermittantly. In 2000, the voltage regulator gave out. $300 - $400 for a new one! Not wanting to pay the price, I wired a 75W light bulb into the 24v field exciter voltage lines, routing around the regulator, but leaving the VR hooked up otherwise. I put a lamp base on the top of the chassis and tried several different bulbs before I got a nice balance between light and heavy loads. It isn't "regulated" anymore, but the voltage only fluctuates between a narrow range of 105v to 130v. The cycles stay the same. I might develope my own vr, or use a stack of sand ballast resistors in place of the light bulb at some point. The light bulb should never burn out operating on 22-28 volts. I haven't fried any tools using this hack.
KE6PID Rating: 2005-08-05
Deluxe Power Plant Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Yeah, it's a lot of dough. But you do get what you pay for, and in this case you get a lot!

The EX-5500 is s 5.5KW generator, rated at a continuous power of 5KW. 120 is available as well as 240 vac. This commercial duty generator is electric start only, and very heavy at nearly 400 lbs. It comes with wheels and handles so it can be moved around like a wheelbarrow. It takes three of us to load it into the truck for it's yearly sojourn to Field day. (I do use it for other things too!)

Once on site the liquid cooled engine runs smooth and steady maintaining voltage and frequency within tight tolerance with a multitude of transmitters and loads keying on and off. Due to the water-cooled engine and sound attenuated enclosure sound level is very low, at 50' from the generator it can't be heard in camp. Not only is acoustically quiet, it's electrically clean, no ignition noise or hash is detectable by the stations operating.

I've owned this for 10 plus years now, it hasn't been completely trouble free however, the voltage regulator failed causing a no output condition and the replacement part was very expen$ive. Fortunately this didn't occur during field day. Also the control key switch went bad preventing the engine from starting. Other than those two things, nothing more than normal maintenance (oil, starting battery and coolant changes) it's been trouble free.