Quiet little portable generators

[ron ll]

like the little Honda, seem much quieter in the store than they do on the bow of the neighbors boat in an anchorage.
Just saying'.

[JimConlin]

Would throwing a bucket of seawater at it make it quieter?

[ron ll]

All in all, they may be better than the gensets with an exhaust at the waterline. Heard stories of people rowing over at night and shoving a potato into the exhaust pipe.

[Woxbox]

Got one of those. We set it on a thick foam mat to run it, which makes it a lot quieter. But we never run it late in the evening, and certainly not all night.

[DavidF]

hi-jack alert!
my mom has sleep apnea and thus sleeps with an oxygen mask that must be plugged in. She and my dad live in North Ontario off the grid so they rely on a generator running for 12 hours through the night to make sure she wakes up. (Yeah, not the smartest parents but fortunately I don't believe in genetics.) The kids don't want to visit because of the constant infernal ruckus. I want to buy the folks a small, quiet, reliable generator. 1k watts is more than enough. Do the sages of the forum have any advice?
Thanks,
David

[Woxbox]

Is this generator out in the back yard? If not, it should be. Put a heavy wall between it and the house, and that ought to knock the volume down to a tolerable level.

[Garret]

hi-jack alert!
my mom has sleep apnea and thus sleeps with an oxygen mask that must be plugged in. She and my dad live in North Ontario off the grid so they rely on a generator running for 12 hours through the night to make sure she wakes up. (Yeah, not the smartest parents but fortunately I don't believe in genetics.) The kids don't want to visit because of the constant infernal ruckus. I want to buy the folks a small, quiet, reliable generator. 1k watts is more than enough. Do the sages of the forum have any advice?
Thanks,
David

Yep. Get some deep cycle batteries & an inverter/charger. Charge the batteries with the gen. - run the inverter @ night. Night time will be silent. No pollution (air or noise).

You can get a couple of 8D's for $800 or so, an inverter charger for $800 (for example, 10 sec. of googling turned this up: http://www.donrowe.com/inverters/trace_series.html), & $100 for miscellaneous fuses, cable, etc. A few years down the road, get some solar panels to charge the batteries & you'll hardly use the generator all summer.

Yes, I live off-grid. I have more batteries, but even with just a generator (no solar or wind), during the summer I can run the gen for 2 hrs. every 3 days & run lights, TV, radio, computer, water pump, whatever. I do have propane for hot water, stove & fridge though.

[andrewe]

There have been lots of discussions about the various merits of available 'suitcase' generators. If it matters that it keeps going (David's mum) buy a 4 cycle Honda...and park it a bit away from the house. I have lived a few times 'off the grid' and nothing beats a Lister diesel. For the anchorage, that would really get your neighbours cannons out. A few years back, I fitted a 'Sailor Silent Set' 3.5kva to our company yacht. Basicly a BMW (Hatz) single diesel running a Markon alternator. Double skinned housing plus some carefull thought on the intake air and exaust system. Most noise was the splashing from the water exiting the skin fitting. The old Onan it replaced was not something you would run at night.
A

[andrewe]

Something a bit odd here, I looked at my post and there was an extra 'and Honda', assumed brain failure and went back to correct it. But I didn't type it in the original post?? More new tech glitches?
A

[Lew Barrett]

I barely use mine (Honda 2k), but when I do need it, I am glad I have it. As does Wox, I find the biggest issue is vibration, not noise. They are not silent but good reliable daytime runners. A clever friend made a sling for his and suspends it from his yard, a great solution for killing the vibration. I run mine on the swimstep and...surprise...put a rubber mat under it. It is not a 100% solution, but it is a cheap, reliable way to solve a particular problem. You figure out workarounds with them. If you want to borrow mine for a weekend to see if it is a solution for you, PM me.

[DavidF]

Thanks for the idea, andrewe. The folks only live in the wild six months out of the year. Will the batteries survive the winter, unattended and unjuiced?
David

[Garret]

Thanks for the idea, andrewe. The folks only live in the wild six months out of the year. Will the batteries survive the winter, unattended and unjuiced?
David

Before you leave for the winter, charge them absolutely chock full & turn off the inverter. You'll find they have some juice left in the spring. I've left mine for that long & temps can get down to -30F & lower around here.

[Hwyl]

If you are only running the sleep apnea machine a much cheaper inverter will run it, better to get a larger capacity one though, because as noted other loads will be put on it. I think they are now 95% efficient


As to Ron !! original post, "thus spake the man with a 6_71

[Garret]

If you are only running the sleep apnea machine a much cheaper inverter will run it, better to get a larger capacity one though, because as noted other loads will be put on it. I think they are now 95% efficient


As to Ron !! original post, "thus spake the man with a 6_71

Inexpensive sine wave inverters (do not get modified sine! any motor you run will be loud & rough and computers will be unhappy) run in the mid 80's efficiency-wise - though pricier ones do get into the 90's.

[ron ll]

As to Ron !! original post, "thus spake the man with a 6_71

You flatter me. It's only a 3-71. But point taken. However I did some experimenting out in the dinghy yesterday and altho the 3-71 is loud inside the boat, it is surprisingly quiet outside. When standing beside it on the dock it's hard to tell it's running, and 50 yards away in the dinghy I couldn't hear it at all. But the Honda generator on the bow of the Bayliner could easily be heard more than 100 yards away. But as others have pointed out, that was probably because the deck of their boat was acting as a resonator.

[S/V Laura Ellen]

It's my experience that those little Honda generators aren't that load. A good portable stereo system can more than drown out the racket from the generator.

[Wayne Jeffers]

hi-jack alert!
my mom has sleep apnea and thus sleeps with an oxygen mask that must be plugged in. She and my dad live in North Ontario off the grid so they rely on a generator running for 12 hours through the night to make sure she wakes up. (Yeah, not the smartest parents but fortunately I don't believe in genetics.) The kids don't want to visit because of the constant infernal ruckus. I want to buy the folks a small, quiet, reliable generator. 1k watts is more than enough. Do the sages of the forum have any advice?
Thanks,
David

I have experience with CPAP’s.

They don’t draw much power. Figure about one amp at 12 VDC. Figure a total of 8 to 10 amp-hours of 12 VDC power needed per night. With a typical 75-amp-hour lead-acid deep-cycle battery figure about 4 nights use before a recharge is required.

The cheapest, most reliable way of powering one off the grid is to get a 12-volt cord for it and run it directly off 12 VDC battery. (***)

Almost all these run on 12 VDC. They have an internal power supply to convert 120 VAC to 12 VDC. There is no need to go to the expense and complexity of an inverter to convert 12 VDC to 120 VAC so the machine can convert it back. I believe all CPAP makers market a 12 VDC cord, which bypasses the internal converter. Figure around $25 for the Respironics cord, $100 for the ResMed cord.

A small quiet Honda or Yamaha 1000 watt generator and a small battery charger will recharge the battery. Figure charging a couple of times per week with 4 or 5 hours of charging, depending on the amp-rating of the charger.

(***The ResMed VPAP Adapt SV is an exception. In the unlikely event that your mother has one of those, you need a good pure sine wave inverter rated at least 300 watts. This machine runs on 30 VDC. ResMed’s very expensive 120 VAC to 30 VDC converter is engineered to fail in the real world.)

Wayne

[Thorne]

A small solar "topping up" charger should keep the batteries OK for part of that time, get one of the smart ones that won't drain the batteries if there is a storm. Otherwise just haul the batteries back home with you and keep them charged up.