We have used the kzfaq.infoUgkxOTeIs0vv4_9B5hsmnLsk9r930uDQLu_Y for probably 30 hours with our camper and it’s been great! The noise level is really only noticeable when running the AC and other appliances like the microwave, hair dryer, or coffee pot. It’s not huge like other ones and it has wheels so even at 90lbs, I can move it!

I'm always amazed at the number of parts and processes that go into a product like this for $89.

Changed spark plug and put a fuel filter on it when I got mine 3 years ago I have put thousands and thousands of hours of run time and then some on it and is still going today great compression runs like a champ and also have always ran it Rich from day on well worth the money

Thanks for taking the time to tear that down and show us. I saw those generators at Harbour Freight. I wondered about the quality.

I have 3 of the blue version of this one. They are great. I changed the spark plug and run a good synthetic oil. I mix the oil somewhere between 50:1 and 40:1. My oldest one had 300+ hrs on it when I stopped keeping track. The scoring you saw is likely contaminants from the machining process. Adding oil before you start it won't do anything. Plus being a 2 stroke it gets oil as soon as it starts.

Very detailed video, and interesting to see a tiny generator as opposed to the larger ones that I see often. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us! Seems there's already a lot of feedback on many aspects of the unit; however I want to add a few comments. The rear support bearing, (the 6203) is a non-standard design with a locating pin in the side of the bearing. That prevents it from slowly turning in the housing and causing the aluminum to wear out. Do a search for "6203 RS With Locating Pin" and you will find the company Jiang Xin Technology Co., LTD with this bearing. I have a feeling the JT (or was it JP?) on the bearing may be used to denote the pin feature; however I can't confirm that. You mentioned not being able to remove the rotor from the crankshaft; as well as the 10mm headed screw being very tight. The crankshaft has a tapered end, and the rotor has a tapered bore. They clamp together with that screw, and the tapers wedge together to prevent relative motion. The generator rotor acts as a flywheel for the engine, so there is a lot of torsional vibration at the interface between the crank and the rotor. The tapered connection prevents this from fretting or working loose. To separate the two, you would want to place a driver tool down through the bore of the rotor, which would bottom out on the crank; ensuring it is not resting on the threads. Then, strike the driver tool inwards, to jar the tapered crank out of the rotor. The early Briggs & Stratton generators were made this way back in the 60's and 70's. The two different wire gauges in the stator winding are because the stator has two separate circuits. One of them is the output winding which goes through the circuit breaker to the electrical outlet. The other winding is used for building up field current in the rotor. The smaller gauge winding will be connected to the capacitor, which work together with the rotor diode to induce a DC current in the rotor winding. The capacitor winding operates at a higher voltage and lower current than the main winding, therefore it has more wraps of wire, but smaller wire. The manner in which this generator works is as follows. The generator rotor has two "poles" made of the same type of stacked laminations as the stator is made from. The rotor windings are around these poles creating a two-ended electromagnet. The rotor winding is in a loop, with a diode in the loop. This allows current to flow in one direction only, building a stronger and stronger magnetic field as more and more current builds in the rotor winding. The stator's capacitor winding coils are in between the output winding coils. As the rotor poles pass the capacitor winding coils, more magnetism is built in the rotor. As it passes the main winding coils, some magnetism is lost from the rotor. The balance between them sets the voltage output of the generator. This type generator doesn't have much regulation of voltage and is very sensitive to reactive loads such as motors; and as you saw in your other video about the voltage - they are very sensitive to changes of engine speed. If you find a situation where the voltage is wrong, even with the engine speed set for 60 Hz operation, you can change the value of the capacitor (the black plastic one shown early in the video) to adjust the voltage without changing the frequency. More microfarads gives more voltage, less uF gives less volts. As for the 5-20R outlet rated 20 amps on a 8 amp generator, that's not intended to indicate how much power it can put out but more to help the end user to connect their existing extension cords with the unit. The 20 amp outlet will accept 20 amp, 15 amp, as well as 2-wire small cords. People may have extension cords which are rated to carry a maximum of 20 amps, and have the 5-20P connector on the end. If the generator had a different outlet, this would render the extension cord incompatible with the generator. It certainly doesn't hurt to have an overly robust extension cord, so long as the device connected at the other end is within the generator's capacity. So basically they use that outlet on the small generator to ensure the greatest compatibility with cords people probably already own.

Great review. Just subscribed to your channel. I like the honest reviews and tear down videos. Good stuff man.

Thanks for the video, I'll keep running my little 1500 watt Coleman that I bought in 1995, no telling how many 100s of hours it's been used, oil changes and stabil has been a plus.

Can you imagine how many generators are made like this in one year? Say what you want about these generators but for around 100 bucks, it's pretty clear that the quality is nice for the price point.

Thanks for the video. I bought one 3 years back, added an hour meter to it; just crested 200+ hours and still going. Clearly not a commercial unit but doesn’t hurt to give it maintenance every once in a while. Wear a beer hat next time. 😏

I have a pair of these and to be honest, I am not real nice to them as far as service goes. I would go as far as to say the reason I got a 2 cycle generator is because there is essentially no service involved with them. I run them on the same premix I run my chain saws on, which is ethanol free premium gas and I think the premix bottles are 32:1. When I am done with them for the day I unplug the load and turn off the petcock and run the carb out of gas. I have never changed or cleaned the plugs. I have never had an issue with the fuel line. One of them sits in the shed behind the house, and I have a 10 ga extension cord running into the house that terminates next to the outlet strip the living room runs off of. If the power fails, and we live in a rural area so the power does fail on a pretty regular basis, it is easy to unplug the outlet strip from the wall and plug it into the extension cord. BTW, the reason they use a 20A outlet on the generator is twofold. One is so any extension cord will fit into it. You really don't wanna be stuck with an extension cord that will not plug into your generator. And second, you want to use a heavy extension cord because you don't have a lot of power so you want to get it to where you use it and not heat up the wire along the way. The one in the shed fires up the cable modem, the router, the big TV, the ROKU stick, the stereo, our notebooks, and a couple lamps with 9W LED's in them. The other one of these I have I have used for many back woods building projects, running alternately a small air compressor and chop and table saw. You need to give the saws a few seconds to spin up before using them, and you get so you have a good feel for how hard you can push them before the breaker on the generator will pop. I also do display fireworks and in the past have used this generator to run a pair of 500W portable halogen lights to illuminate the field when we tear down after a show. The generator will run a pair of these if you turn one on, and than the other. I have a *much* more efficient portable work light system now, but it is nice to know I can run the halogens if I have to. God only knows how many hours I have on each of these. Many days worth. They never fail to start, though they can be moody in the winter, and once you have them running and have some load on them, they run great. If you have never used one of these they tend to cough and spit a bit with no load, the engines are designed to work at least a little bit, not idle, so they do not idle super well. I get them off the choke ASAP too, to keep the plugs clean; I have been totally happy with them. They even seem to run pretty good with year old stale gas.

I’ve beat on mine for years. It’s pretty easy to overload it, but it’s a tiny generator. I’ve ran a small fridge, halogen work lights, and an angle grinder all at once. Had to play with the trigger on the grinder to get it going, but it powered all three lol. It definitely wasn’t happy. Not one single mod.

I have on that looks identical except it's blue and came from northern tool. Probably came from same supplier. It has been a good generator so far.

I was waiting for you to put it back together and start it. AVE style 😁

Best deal around for 89 bucks, I've had one for about 8 years now and all I've done is cleaned a little bit of metal out of the carburetor and replaced the spark plug.

I've had one of these and it has been put through the wringer in both summer and winter conditions with many hours of run-time with ZERO issues. The trick is to take care of it and run clean fuel in it. This is well worth the $89.00 I paid for it.

The bearing is not ONO, instead of that read aside OZO - OZO BEARINGS AND AUTOMOBILE PVT. LTD.Address :Branch Office: Sco 81, Second Floor, Sec-10A, Gurgaon - 122001, Haryana, India - GOOD REVIEW, remember HF is not as bad as in the past Cheers

Very thorough. Uber clear and concise. Crystal clear and rock steady videography. Not to mention fantastic post production. Now get out of here and keep producing, Mr. DeVille

Really great job on this video! Thanks for all the time it took to make this video.

I am impressed that you can build and sail something like at for under a $100 dollars and still make a profit.

Thanks for the video. The markings on the carb looks like a Briggs sign. The 20 amp outlet was probably used cause of bigger generators. Would have liked to see exactly how motor to generator was connected together. Nice job on the tear down. Shame about the spilled beer...lol . Take care

I brought one of these in July of 2014. So far it's still holding up.

Three years ago, a neighbor gave me one of these. It wouldn't run with the carb full of oil. Maybe he poured oil in the tank and waited too long to mix in the gas. Drained the tank & lines. Then took the carb apart & sprayed it with cleaner. Added a couple fender washers where the air-box bolted on, so the nuts wouldn't chew through the plastic. It runs fine, but I've hardly used it. It's now at my parent's house, where I'm also keeping a 15 year-old Big-Lots 2000 watt Chinese generator with probably about 120 hours. When I'm done, I always shut the valve and run the gas out of the carb with these. Even drain the tank if they're going in long-term storage.

Excellent tear down instructional video!

I think the smaller guage wire is the exciter coil to allow generated current to be fed from this coil to the voltage regulator into the rotor. I think it uses residual magnetism at start up and then feeds current from the exciter winding to generate the magnetic field on the rotor. The larger guage is the coil for the actual voltage output. If I am incorrect, please call me out. Great video btw.

I've seen guys modify the housing to allow the use of a socket on a drill to start the unit after the paw fails. I use the drill method all the time for trouble shooting. Don't want to waste my fight pulling, I need that for fixing.

I have a lot of hours on my Storm Cat. Increase the fuel to oil ratio to 40:1 and make sure the recoil starter pawl is contacting the flywheel before you pull the cord and you will get a whole lot of service out of the $89 generator. I still have the original sparkplug in mine. You have a great review on this generator. The only thing I can comment on is that the cylinder is cast iron and it will not be as smooth as the aluminum castings no matter who casts the parts. When my Storm Cat wears out or fails beyond repair, I will buy another one.

A lot of people trash Harbor Freight. Just because something cost less that doesn't mean it's junk. These generators are great for the price. Also most of Harbor Freight tools are excellent quality. I use there sockets in an impact gun and they hold up. I have put insane amounts of pressure on their rachets and they hold up while Craftsman tools break.

They put in a 20 amp plug because they got a good price on them

I could make use of this little fella. Paying $89 for it would be my way of saying thanks for making the effort.

Have one. Never worked well. Won't run a corded drill. Excellent review

20 amp socket allows a heavy gauge cord. Always use bigger gauge when you can.

Personal experience with three of these. Tl;Dr buy one. Ive put well over a thousand hours into three combined, best lifespan was about 600hours in the newest version. Using parts from older two I was able to get another 100-120 hours before I broke the spark plug boot he mention. I'm amazed I didn't break that Sooner, it's an absolute weak point. Absolutely the worst failure point is the gas tanks will CRACK. usually under the bottom seam on the starter side. I swapped the tank from an older one, which also cracked in the same spot. Huge problem since the spark arrestor, while on the other side, does get clogged and quite hot. Certain generations have different problems that new ones don't. Older versions will cut the pull start cord due to rough edges inside started case. Fuel line broke, but that was because i swapped the tank, not good but replaced it quickly. As for load, was able to run TV, a couple lights, and a laptop while the geni was performing well, which it does for a reasonable amount of time. However be warned that the variable voltage can burn or electronics like laptop. The big issue is that different production runs have specific failure points, so finding a good one requires a bit of luck. For $90 it works great for emergency storm power, and can be used in short term for "low grade living."

String winding ties are the standard way to do it. you'll nearly never see another way, even in extremely high end equipment

Excellent review. Considering one as a small back up for just a couple of appliances during storms

I bought two generators very much like this one, probably, earlier models, from an auction. Both were like new, but, defective with bad ignition coils. I bought two exact replacement coils from the Generator Guru and one of the new ones was bad, too. One generator, with a good coil, ran like crap, so, I threw it away! The other one, with the only good coil, runs and works as well as I would expect a $25 generator to work.

Thanks for the video. Very informative. Was wondering how was made inside.

Mine's gone dead while on load, without any warning signs. Had a good look round at the windings and capacitor, and reckon I have to look at the rotor diode and winding connections. This is a great video, many thanks. If I have trouble separating rotor and crankshaft, I'm going to undo the 10mm bolt just two turns and whack the head. (12:00 on the video). Any other tips most welcome!

I loved my old 1500 watt Coleman/Powermate generator, bought new around 1988 it came with a Kawasaki 4 stroke engine and would run 6 hours full load on one gallon of gas! It ran my microwave and charger for my batteries in my RV, I put about 3500 hours on it @ 6 hours running a day 7 days a week as it was my sole source of power. It never gave me any problems. Of course that was when gas was 89 cents a gallon, so burning a gallon a day cost me less than $30 a month. Offhand I seem to remember the engine was number FA110, a NICE little engine, smooth, quiet, but later Coleman went to the crappy disposable Briggs.

Nice thorough teardown of this interesting cheap generator.

I just came across that video... In order to get the rotor from the engine shaft you should do the following... There is usually a hole with a thread in the engine shaft. So you should put a threaded rood, with a notch for a flat head screwdriver on top, through the rotor axle down to the engine shaft and thread it in for a couple of turns. The threaded rod length should be just about right so you can put the bearing screw back. That screw will press on the threaded rod ant therefore extracted the rotor from the engine shaft. For future use it's recommended that you make that rod from a higher grade steel. I haven't tried it on this smaller 2 stroke generator but that's how it's done on the bigger ones.

Nice video! BTW the beer part was awesome. High Life is cheap but delicious, how do they make all those little bubbles?

we have one for the money its been great no complaints here.

I have been using one of these for 8-9 years now. It has paid for itself many times over. The only thing that I have EVER had to replace was the cheap fuel line (cracked at about 2 years old). Still running the original spark plug. LOL

Generators like these have been made for about 4 decades in about 50 to 100 ? ? 200? ? models and brands The design came from a Yamaha ET650 AND ET950 of about 10 years ago, before that the Yamaha ET600. The Yamaha specs for a ET650 are output 0.8 KvA Rated and 0.96KvA max. and often with a 12 volt DC 8.3 amp out to charge car and motorcycle batteries. The grandfather of all these was a Yamaha ET500 back in 1979 that was 0.5kVa rated, brushless too. It has a tank that looks slightly different, the later Yamaha's tank looks similar to todays clones. My Homier unit from about 2006 has the 12 volts 8.3 amp DC extra plug and wire/clamps to charge batteries, plus an AC voltmeter, came with an extra plug that I still have not used yet. The original Yamaha units had specs that were valid, todays clones are often marketing BS, the peak often fibbed. What the generator cares about is Volt Amperes, not watts. Thus a folks often wonder why these often may or may not run a 5000 BTUH AC unit. The amps running are often 4.5 to 6 amps but the locked rotor amps on the compressor is typically 25 amps. It is marginal. An AC unit that is undercharged with refrigerant draws less amps, plus cool ambient drops the amps too.

So, bottom line: For the basic user; replace sparkplug & squirt some oil in the cylinder before first start, add a fuel filter and better spark plug boot & you're done. Take care when starting so as not to break that plastic pawl. For the advanced user, all of the above, plus remove the head, mark the position of the piston crown at BDC, put a ceramic coating on the combustion chamber & piston crown, clean up those gawdawfully ragged cylinder ports, & add some scavenge ports in the piston walls w/ matching holes in the cylinder walls into the transfer ports (this is why you marked the BDC w/ a Sharpier earlier, so you can get proper placement..] and make a decent expansion chamber for the thing so it can actually pull a decent load when it's maxed out w/o stalling. Oh yeah, you'll probably have to fiddle w/ the jetting due to the new exhaust, but that's an exercise left to the reader... ;-)

The voltage on generators is set high intenionally. It's assumed no one will be running these inside with devices plugged directly into it. They expect people to use extension cords. So generator's I have to they are set high to compensate for voltage drop.

Have you thought about comparing the difference with the part numbers 63024/63025 like you did the grinder.

11:20 - That set screw tapped into the outer bearing race suggests they've had issues with bearings spinning in the journal on the housing due to poor fit/tolerance/quality. Hopefully they used bottom taps and that doesn't go through the whole race.

Pre lubricating through the spark plug hole prior to first start is not only a good idea, but a requirement of the manual, and warranty on these generators.

First video I have seen of yours good stuff but that spilled your beer line cemented the sub lol

Those jagged edges on the intake ports are why the cylinder is scored.

Mine is wonderful use it all the time. Let it run for days on end.

We had mandatory power outages from the power company due to their fear of high winds knocking down power lines and starting fires. They were nice enough to provide dates and times of the outages. We used frozen items from the freezer to keep the refrigerator cold, but after that. I used my $89 TailGator to power the full-sized, French door refrigerator through the night. WORKED GREAT!!! I use it for yard tools, garage tools, etc. Never an issue. Same spark plug, 50-1 fuel mix, 5w30 oil. I have had it for 3 years now. If it breaks, I got my moneys worth.

Very informetive,the only mistake I know you made is the way the main bearings are lubricated by the exaust gases which could not be.They are lubricated but the intake gases.

I recommend disassembling cylinder head ,piston, in order to inspect and clean out any loose debris, iron filing, loose casting flash, even lint . Both carb, and exhaust ports may have something that can cause piston , and cylinder bore scuffing. Don't forget to check crank counter weights, and bottom of crankcase.

I have had my tailgater for two years. Use it constantly to charge my cordless tool batteries, run corded power tools, lighting, at one time to run a battery charger to jumpstart my truck when I left the lights on. Never had a problem. Runs good and reliable. Starts between one and three pulls every time. Naysayers who think you have to spend big money for something you don’t use everyday are fools.

honestly every gas engine should have a fuel filter. Saves a lot of annoyance in the long run.

Excellent. Thanks for sharing the video.

After watching this, any thought about wanting one has evaporated. Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

I understand why hf keeps these on the shelf it's because they must be dirt cheap to manufacture for them... I wish they would take that 69cc 4 stroke and rig that up into a generator and just stop selling this one. I've heard of nothing but issues people have had with these. That said in my experience the rest of their gas powered 4 stroke stuff actually isn't half bad.

They used to different gauges of wire for the stator because it's actually a repurposed electric motor stator, the thicker gauge wire is the start winding.

That motor is a 100 hour motor. Anything over that is a blessing

I bought one just out of curiosity and the price was $75 on sale. It's the green tailgator model #63025. It is the largest 2-stroke engine I have in my grounds equipment. Most of my smaller 2-stroke engine powered equipment do not use reed valves, the piston is the valve. Much simpler, fewer issues. If it works out well I would use it to run the chest freezer (2.13 running amps) during a power outage. I just installed a new Hardlines tach/hour meter on it. I have not run it yet but thought that it would be best to run it with a higher mix of lube for the break-in period from past experience. I already have a 18 continuous running amp 4-stroke generator my parents bought many, many long years ago and it still runs just fine. But limited to how much I can run with that. That generator (powered by a B&S 5 HP flathead Quantum engine) has 198 hours of service on it. Had to replace the 120 volt electromechanical hour meter on it. The new hour meter shows twenty something hours. What I would like to see is a cutaway of small engine mufflers and see if they really do consist of a catalyst. because some of those are ridiculously expensive to replace when they rust out.

That socket is a 20 amp due to the shape and design need and the fact a 15 amp shaped the same is not a normal item from manufacturers.

hello nice break down, can you give more details on the carburetor as I have the same generator. does it have hi & low adjuster? how do you adjust the idle properly? mine sounds like it's idling little low on rpm. thanks

I bet if one were to sell the individual parts, one would make significantly more than $89.

Enjoyed the video. I'd like to see it reassembled and back in working order. Not that you did anything wrong, just some things just don't seem to work as well after a repair or tear down. Great stuff here, subscribed,also.

Maybe you can use it for an Aquarium equipment if you have a power loss. Like airpump, filter, heater,etc..

I have one that sounds like the end cap bearing is shot with a grinding sound. After sitting for a winter it doesn't want to start. Haven't took the time to figure it out, so it's just a $100 chunk of metal sitting there. I saw another video where the no-load waveform is erratic, this is likely due to the 2 stroke engine RPM stability. It would help a lot if a good heavy flywheel was installed in that endcap.

They may have ordered the same outlet for multiple models, which include higher amp rated models. Saves on having two different outlet types in the facility.

The crankshaft and generator armature appear to be the same piece based on my own attempt to tear one of these down. The metal parts were fairly decent, but things like the engine ignition ancillaries are mostly duff (the winding on the ignition magneto was superfine copper which was glued in place, as were the 'fridge magnets' on the flywheel - it had all disintegrated.)

Very educational, I love engines!

One other question since you got it all I'm parts are you going to change any of the parts in that little bitty generator to make it better our last longer.?

I bought me one just to use for camping and to run small stuff around the house had trouble with the pull cord assemble after getting frustrated with it I took a break and went back to fix it finally did it works great now after fixing it the right way I also ran my 15 amp portable table saw on it and it did a great job with it I only used it for the saw for about 3 weeks straight and its still going so well when it tears up ill get rid of it but I think I can make it crank out more amps than what it saids we will see

Thanks! Nice breakdown.

It still OhMazez me that all these machining operations can be made and also shipped from the far corners of the earth for only $89. I started buying the old blue Greyhound engines from Harbor Freight years ago. To my knowledge every one of them are still running strong. I've probably bought and installed a couple dozen of the 212cc engines from them. One was being torchered and came apart. One old man who is a block/brick Mason use to use Wisconsin engines on his equipment. Finally I talked him into Honda engines. Now he runs the Predator engines. He says the Predator engines is as dependable as the Honda.

I believe the 2 different gauge wires used in the coiling is to allow a Transformer like effect inside the coil itself stepping up(or down) the voltage/current.... I could be wrong

I believe the different size wires on the windings are do to the larger being the primary and the smaller being the secondary windings.

Very helpful video sir. Thanks.

Great video. Thank you for sharing it. I have the exact same generator, but it reads 1,200 watts on the sticker (probably doesn’t get that far). However, I was able to raise the volts a little bit (from 90-ish to closer to 150) by turning the side screw clockwise ‘till the end (not sure if it was a right thing to do, but I did it anyways because I noticed that it wasn’t throwing enough power for my table fans). If you can shed some light into it I’d appreciate it. Thanks again for sharing.

the difference in the sand casting and cold set castings both look good I'm surprised to see the quality for this price the problem here is the thin-wall casting and the poor iron used for the cylinder scoring is going to be a biggest problem the price can make it a winner

I used my generator like this and a pole saw from harbor freight to cut tree limbs. They worked great together and it seemed to me that the generator didn't even work too hard running the pole saw.

Thats good,...its clear information about portable genset. Thanks for any sharing.

I bought this generator a couple of years ago (under the same branding, since they rebadge it everywhere)... did the exact same thing with the spark plug wire/boot. Spark plug and wire are the first things I'd say to replace - they're going to disintegrate at some point.

LOL, here hold my beer! 16:35 good video!

This generator is a Yamaha clone so poorly made parts can be replaced with Yamaha one's like the pull start also when starting make sure you take up the slack and pull it straight so the string does not rub against the edges of the hole

The seal on the crankshaft, behind the ignition, isn't pushed in far enough 5:35. One of the lips of the seal is riding on the VERY edge of the tapered part of the crankshaft, as you can see at 20:14. These seals have two lips so it won't fail right away but eventually an air leak will develope here. An air leak of this seal will cause the engine to run lean and eventually overheat and melt the piston. Another problem is that the edges of the transfer ports, should be chamfered inside the cylinder, so that they don't catch on the rings 15:46.

JUST subscribed, THANKS for this teardown, I have the GREEN Tailgator, worked for awhile, then had to result to using starter fluid to get started, THEN it quit putting out electricity, can you advise on HOW to fix that & WHERE to look?? TY

Hey man nice video and I had just bought one that was refurbished and saw that the little spark plug wire a little curly q thing that holds over the the head of the spark plug just came out and it's like a wire that goes into the black part so is there any replacement for that wire to hold spark plug. Thank you and once again great video

I was really hoping you would put it all back together at the end and see if it still works or not. Here's to hoping that's another video I will find later

The bearing ONO was actually named after Yoko Ono for her bearing one the Beatles split up. Great video.

Hey thanks for the video, what's the part number for the NGK plug please ?

about the 20amp socket...i would guess that because instead of making many sockets with different types of loads ..example : 5 amp , 10 amp 15 amp 20 amp etc....it would be more cost effective to just make one size fits all...as the price difference would be so small ...so the same socket can be used with many generator models specially the big ones also it would save on parts stocking costs when it comes to making alot of these generators

Awesome video! I came here for two things, to see how you got the flywheel off and to see what you called the little black thingy under the flywheel. I think those are the only things you didn’t cover. Funny old life, eh?

It is what it is. Mine kinda hard to start even after plug change. Once it warms up she hums along fine. Sometimes i reach in and bump the throttle to get it cleaned out after its started. A good couple revs and back to idle. It can run my wood burner fans a few led lights my desktop comp "have to see if it will run my 40 in sony tv i use for my monitor now" as well as charge phones. Good enough for winter backup. Reading some comments i might bump up the mix in it. Oh another plus is its not very loud and its easy to deflect the sound away since its so small.

I just bought its replacement (tailgator) and for a $100, power was out for a day bc duke power sucks and does maintain their lines...... anyway it ran a light small window unit and a box fan, so right around the running watts for it did fine. The only thing is it doesn't like to start hot, once it's cooled down a bit starts on the first pull. Also has the same cheap spark plug boot which fell a part not the end of the world I just put it back together.

I like it I've used it on the small air condition and other hand tools the bottom line is when you need a little power it's there for what you needed for of course you're not going to plug in a big refrigerator but you can do it TV some lights and plug in your cell phone done this already and I lost power so when you need power or your lights go out this is perfect I also use it at work on the handyman and it comes in handy 4 $88 it is not bad if you just buy one and put it in your shed and when you lose power you will see how much you will love it

Finally, someone did it. I have ben wondering if they are worth my time or not.

Although I cannot find it now, I recall seeing a KZfaq video that indicted that older models of the Tailgator had 12vDC output available through a removable rubber cover on the generator housing. Did you see, in your examination of the alternator, positive and negative posts, presumably connected to the inverter? I would like to add such a feature to my own tailgator. Thoughts please?