Good/Bad Timing

I've switched to Jack Black - go for it!! Just kidding.

It is apparent that I do not possess the true power I thought. Watt I will do, however, is continue to resist, use my best inductive reasoning and avoid capaciture!! (sic)

If you looked at the current and voltage waveforms on an oscilloscope you would see that for some loads they are overlayed (in phase), on some the current lags the voltage (out of phase) and on some the current leads the voltage (out of phase).

The loads where the the waveforms are overlayed are "resistive", ones with current lagging are "inductive", current leading are "capacitive".

Since power equals volts x amps you have to multiply the instantaneous current and voltage at each point on the waveforms to get the true power, which represents the work being done by the electricity.
If the two waveforms are out of phase the true power will be less than VxA as measured individually by a multimeter.

VA is called apparent power. All the electrical gear (windings, inverter transistors, conductors) still has to handle the current even if it's not doing as much actual work.

Space heaters are big resistors do they are resistive loads, meaning that their current and voltage are in phase and VA = watts. So your space heater would be expected to have VA=watts.

Motors are inductive loads, meaning that their current lags the voltage.   So watts < VA. Power factor = watts/VA and motors are typically in the range of 0.8 to 0.9 PF unless PF correction has been added, typically a capacitor.

So say your Honda is designed so that it's engine and generator sections are matched for max loads of 2200 watts with a PF of 1 at sea level. That would mean that if you ran a 2200 watt space heater the engine would lug and the generyor would start to overload simultaneously. If you went up to 7000 ft elevation (assuming the rule of thumb 3% per 1000 ft elevation derate) the engine would lug first.

Now put a motor load of 2200 VA and 0.8 PF on instead. At sea level the generator would start to overload before the engine would lug. But at 7000 ft both would give up at the same time.

Hope that makes sense.

True power might be as much as 20% less than VA on some motor loads. The generator windings and transistors care about amps while the engine cares about true power. So if the power factor is low we could see the inverter/generator trip it's breaker while the engine still has significant available power. That would make a difference in how the system works at high altitude for example.

That's why I'm curious. The power factor can be difficult to measure accurately if you're using two different meters because relatively small errors between the two can build up. That's why I was wondering if the new Hondas did both. You can try with the Kill A Watt but the result might not be very accurate.

Interesting. The scale is reading in VA in your screen shot. Does it display watts as well? I'm interested in what the a/c compressor power factor is.