Portable Generator

[flyboy26m]

I purchased a similar unit called a Generac from Cabellas for about the same money on sale. The unit is made in Wi-USA. I ordered a second hatch cover from the Macgregor factory so I could custumize the A/C air vent, add a hevy duty plug for the gen set and provide a tie down for the Gen Set as well.
I just open the hatch and insert the new hatch and clamp it down
It has been too cool in the evenings to test it out but will post more after I do.

I have used the Gen set a lot on the two four day weekends I have spent on the boat this year. I use it to power the microwave, electric Panini grill and battery charger. for these purposes I have it placed on the cockpit floor and had a fan in the companionway blowing over it. I am very happy with the purchase so far.
[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\Owner.Tab\My%20Documents\Blackbury\Pictures\IMG00011-20100727-1318[/img]

[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\Owner.Tab\My%20Documents\Blackbury\Pictures\hatch%20top%20rear[/img]

Found a Champion 2Kw generator at my local Sam's Club for $449. Weighs 43 lbs. and is quieter than a Honda supposedly. I tested it on the boat sitting on the anchor locker on my running my 5000 btu companionway A/C. In eco mode, the noise and vibration are less than I expected. I always wanted a genset that I could use to run air conditioning but did not want to pay the money for a Honda. I think this champion could be a inexpensive substitute.

!	kmclemore:
	You cannot link photos directly from your hard drive to this forum. Please consider uploading them to Photobucket or one of the other free photo hosting sites, and then revising the above links.

[aya16]

My experience with generators, I own the honda 2000, inverter type, cheap harbor freight 900, two stroke, and a Yamaha 1000 inverter.

I use the generators in place of battery power for camping, or any time I want handy power. The honda 2000 will run everything in my motor home, except the a/c

the Yamaha 1000 at 22 pounds, is my favorite, it runs everything except micro wave or ac, but runs on a 1/2 gallon of gas for 9 hrs or so.

The cheap harbor freight 900 is a toss in the truck go dirt bike riding, go to, for power tools and such, it has saved the day more than once. But it stinks when running, and
not to silent, but for 90 bucks, it does a great job for instant power, it weighs about 18 pounds.

I have only used a generator once on the mac, for a week boat camping trip at an inland lake, it was the Yamaha, at 22 pounds, very silent, and run for ever on a small
amount of gas, it did the job of running my 110 volt refrigerator all week. There is nothing on my mac that would need more electricity than the yamaha provides.
It runs air pumps to inflate the dinghy, run the fridge, all the lights, tv-video, and charge the battery's. Running on the fore deck, I cant hear it, and the with the rubber feet, there's no vibration.

Running an air conditioner on the mac, will require more than a 2000 watt unit, so I would not run air. Even the honda 2000, I have, wont run air, although silent
the honda is a bit heavy and bulky for the mac.

Charging battery's on the mac is simple, I just run my outboard at idle for a few hours, and get full battery's, My fridge turns into and ice box when staying at Catalina
my fridge is a dorm fridge, stainless, from sears. the fridge has been on my boat since the boat was new and works great. My storage area for the boat provides power
so my fridge is always on when the boat is parked.

so what generator would I get for the mac? The Yamaha, or Honda 1000.
Mike

[Sugar Bear]

I wonder if the champion 2000 can be placed in parallel with a honda 2000. I have a honda and really like it on my it will run the AC, micro wave, ect..., but it will not run the AC on my RV.

[Sumner]

I wonder if the champion 2000 can be placed in parallel with a honda 2000. I have a honda and really like it on my it will run the AC, micro wave, ect..., but it will not run the AC on my RV.

I seriously doubt it as they might not know how to sync up the 60 cycles per sec AC.

This got my interest up so I goggled it and here is one interesting read, go down near the bottom...

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f448/pa ... 47937.html

I also found it was interesting that the Honda produces AC and then converts that to DC, before converting it back to AC....

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/prod ... radvantage

...near the bottom "How does the inverter work?"

Also looks like you can't even run a Honda 1000 and a 2000 together for increased output,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links

[flyboy26m]

I purchased a similar unit called a Generac from Cabellas for about the same money on sale. The unit is made in Wi-USA. I ordered a second hatch cover from the Macgregor factory so I could custumize the A/C air vent, add a hevy duty plug for the gen set and provide a tie down for the Gen Set as well.
I just open the hatch and insert the new hatch and clamp it down
It has been too cool in the evenings to test it out but will post more after I do.


]

!	kmclemore:
	You cannot link photos directly from your hard drive to this forum. Please consider uploading them to Photobucket or one of the other free photo hosting sites, and then revising the above links.

Sorry. I just added the pics to the Mod section under ventilation: Portable A/c

[magnetic]

The Topsun inverter generator I captioned above weighs 26 kilos and will run my 12,000 BTU aircon unit without difficulty on about half throttle; it will run the fridge simultaneously and/or several small devices, but not the battery charger. Even when the aircon cycles it is still happy to run on the "intelligent throttle" which keeps the revs right down. The unit is rated 1.6KvA, peak 2.0KvA with a trip on both AC and DC circuits; I know it works, because it tripped when I tried to run my aircon and the battery charger at the same time

I will try to post a photo of my aircon unit; basically it is an upright portable unit with the roller-wheels removed. It stands behind (and is secured to) the companionway steps in the , the condensed water runs into a T-connector with the waste pipe from the sink unit, and the hot air vents out via a corrugated hose via a slide-to-close aperture in the port-side wall of the cockpit, at about ankle height. When it is 38 degrees C outside, I can get the interior down to a comfortable 22 in just under an hour (hatches closed and the companionway and washboards secured). As I habitually have the galley all the way back in any case, this setup doesn't really restrict access to the rear berth (which I in any case use mostly for storage).

When not in use the genset lives in the Heads compartment; I recognise the danger of having petrol/gas below decks, but when the valve on the filler cap is closed, I can't smell anything even after the boat has been closed up for a week. My first move is always to open the front hatch before switching on any electrics

[mastreb]

I intend to place the generator aft in the cockpit somewhere or even on the ground if I were to beach the boat. Just placed it on the bow section for testing. I like the idea of mounting on top of the outboard, will investigate that option.

Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, which means that when placed in the cockpit, it will flow out the transom and down into the companionway. Eventually it will fill up and displace air inside the cabin and create a suffocation hazard. You'd be safest running the genset atop the outboard as suggested or even better, with an exhaust hose placed to pipe the exhaust over the side.

[Bransher]

flyboy26m wrote:

I purchased a similar unit called a Generac from Cabellas for about the same money on sale. The unit is made in Wi-USA.

Generac is located in Waukesha, WI, but their small portable generator is imported from China.

I was also considering purchasing that generator but its price was too reasonable for a "Made In USA' product. Being of a suspicious nature, I called Generac direct and was told that it is made in China. I try to stay away from Chinese products and purchased the Yamaha EF2000iS instead. I am a firm believer in "You Get What You Pay For" and also "If It Looks Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is."

[magnetic]

Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, which means that when placed in the cockpit, it will flow out the transom and down into the companionway. Eventually it will fill up and displace air inside the cabin and create a suffocation hazard. You'd be safest running the genset atop the outboard as suggested or even better, with an exhaust hose placed to pipe the exhaust over the side.

The danger is from Carbon Monoxide, and a battery-operated alarm can be bought quite cheaply. It the exhaust is directed aft of the cockpit, out over the transom well, then both the exhaust pressure and also the immediate topography of the stern will ensure that the fumes exit out onto the water, rather than forwards, over the cockpit sill (about 8 inches), over the companionway track and thence down into the cabin itself. Given the general tendency of a tethered or anchored to point towards the wind, this too will tend to ensure that the exhaust gasses drift harmlessly downwind and away from the stern of the boat, rather than backing up towards the front of the cockpit.

[bartmac]

Charging battery's on the mac is simple, I just run my outboard at idle for a few hours, and get full battery's,

The use of either a portable generator or the outboard engine to fully charge any deep cycle batteries (other than starting batteries) would require VERY long hours of running of either.The task would be more suited to solar panels.Certainly some of the bulk charging of the batteries could be achieved but the absorbtion phase would take too long.The running of the outboard motor at idle is also a bad idea from 2 perspectives.....1. at idle the amperes produced would be very very low 2.The idling of an engine for long periods....no load.....not a good idea......seen many an engine maybe not outboard ruined by idling/running unloaded. Internal charging circuits on many small generators are also very suspect delivering either low amperes and/or very badly shaped charging charactistics.

[Catigale]

Even on the high ampere output engines, they are putting out 200 Watts at 2000 rpm.

A single Group 24 battery (about 1 kWatt hour) would need 2.5 hours theoretical to charge from 1/2 discharge, and in practice more like twice that.

[Sumner]

Charging battery's on the mac is simple, I just run my outboard at idle for a few hours, and get full battery's,

The use of either a portable generator or the outboard engine to fully charge any deep cycle batteries (other than starting batteries) would require VERY long hours of running of either.The task would be more suited to solar panels.Certainly some of the bulk charging of the batteries could be achieved but the absorbtion phase would take too long....

Ditto. We have...



http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-33.html

.. 180 watts, soon to be 200 watts, of solar on our Mac and that goes a long ways to handling our power needs, but still we had to run the 12 volt gen-set on our Fall/Spring trips to Florida that were a month or more. On the spring trip of almost 2 months we ran the....



http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-13.html

....12 volt gen-set probably 3-4 hours total. If we needed to run it we'd usually do it first thing in the morning when the battery was the lowest, but still a little over 50% charged. The gen-set can put out 63 amps, but the most I ever saw was around 22-23 amps. That would quickly drop as we charged using the gen-set and usually withing 15-20 minutes would be down to 10-12 amps going into the battery. I'd usually quit at that point and let the panels do most of the rest of the work. By afternoon the batteries would usually be on float and we might then go 3-5 days or more before needing the gen-set again.

I've read that it isn't practical to charge a battery with a gen-set over 80%-85% as it takes forever to get the last 20%-15% charge into the battery. So if you are charging with an engine driven charger you only have about 30% of the batteries capacity to use if you don't want it to fall under 50% charge and quit at 80% charge. So a single 90 amp/hr battery is going to give you about 30 amp/hrs of juice to use. We use about 45 to 55 amp/hours a day on the boat and have 2 12 volt RV batteries. When they go bad I'll probably change them out to 2 6 volt golf cart batteries,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links

[magnetic]

Even on the high ampere output engines, they are putting out 200 Watts at 2000 rpm

I agree - the Honda BF50 - which I otherwise hate with a vengeance - is one of the higher-charging 50hp outboards and kicks out a 17A charging current = around 212 watts, whilst even the 20A "intelligent" mains charger I use pushes out a maximum of 250w. (In contrast, the unregulated 12v DC output from the generator is a measly 8 Amps. I don't use it.)

At this rate of charge - which is the maximum bulk rate and not the float charge - a 50% depleted 105Ah AGM battery is going to require 3 or more hours motoring in order to come up to anything close to full capacity, and pumping up a bank of 2 requires a fairly solid day's motoring. I rarely go 6 hours under power, and the generator is therefore essential in order to keep the battery bank serviceable when the boat is on the mooring for an extended period of time.

As I believe I mentioned, the genset I use runs for 3.5+ hours on a single tank, although I cannot run the 20A charger and the aircon at the same time. However, when moored or at anchor, the major risk when running the genset for extended periods is unexpected rain - and hence my tendency to use the old companionway hatch as a shelter, just in case. Overall, no aircon for 3.5 hours is a sacrifice I am occasionally willing to make in the name of science, allowing me to then go away for a couple of days without needing to worry about whether to put the cabin lights on, or whether the nav lights will give out at 0300 am when transiting a shipping lane.

Finally, if you are going to use any kind of power tools or a microwave oven when afloat, then the genset is the only way to go; trying to get 1250 watts out of an inverter - even if is is 100% efficient, which it isn't - will draw 100 Amps, which will not only cane the 12v battery in doublequick time, but would require cabling the size and dimensions of a small oak tree if you didn't want to cause a fire. The genset overcomes these issues with minimal hassle. I love it.

[Sumner]

....Finally, if you are going to use any kind of power tools or a microwave oven when afloat, then the genset is the only way to go;.....

I bought one of Sears nextec drills ...

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... CFYQ8wIwAA

... above not expecting much, but now only use it and my high voltage cordless drills are gathering dust. I liked it enough to buy a second one that also came with a ....



....saber saw and light and more batteries plus another charger. The set was refurbished, but looked like new and works fine.

I carry all of that on the boat and they take very little room and I've done work on the water with them. I'm now going to add the ...



...circular saw to the group for cutting plywood while working on the boat away from home. The batteries last forever and charge in less than 30 minutes. I worried if the charger would work on a non-pure sine wave inverter so picked up a Wagan EL2200 Elite 180 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter....

http://www.amazon.com/Wagan-EL2200-Elit ... B003INJ3VI

... for under $75. I've also had some problems at times with my CPAP machine running on 12 volts even though it has a 12 volt power cord and have used the inverter with it and the problems went away.

Anyway I can highly recommend the Nextec power tools from Sears for home or on the water.

Now I'm trying to understand why some of you use a microwave when to use it you have to set up a gen-set? Seems like a lot of work to me . Don't get me wrong I love microwaves and use one at home every day but using up space on the boat for one is a different matter. The Endeavour came with a microwave, but we took it out,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

Our Trips to Utah, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Our MacGregor S Pages

Mac-Venture Links

[Catigale]

Now I'm trying to understand why some of you use a microwave when to use it you have to set up a gen-set? Seems like a lot of work to me . Don't get me wrong I love microwaves and use one at home every day but using up space

I'm with you on this Sum. The only other uses for a microwave I can think of, to bring it to the required three functions to make my ships stores list, are

Aux seat in salon

Emergency boat anchor mooring

Bikini dryer...since the alternative is the admiral going topless while her top line dries, I have been unable to justify this use on aesthetic grounds.