How many watts of solar do you have?

I have a HarborFreight 2,000 watt suitcase genny and it's very quiet.

2000 Watt SUPER QUIET Inverter Generator with CO SECURE Technology

Amazing deals on this 2000W Super Quiet Inverter Generator at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

I hate the smell of gasoline, so any fuel tanks go out on the hitch, or trailer.

 

How many watts of solar do you have?

I have a HarborFreight 2,000 watt suitcase genny and it's very quiet.

2000 Watt SUPER QUIET Inverter Generator with CO SECURE Technology

Amazing deals on this 2000W Super Quiet Inverter Generator at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

I hate the smell of gasoline, so any fuel tanks go out on the hitch, or trailer.

I'm not sure how much solar. The base conversion I have is 350w but I have an extra panel so it's North of that amount.

 

I can definitely recommend the small Honda generators. We have the EU2000i and often have used it to power much of our house during power failures. They are very quiet and just sip the gasoline. They're pricy but are a quality pice of equipment. I've heard that the Yamaha gennys are good as well and a bit cheaper.

 

+1 for a Honda if you wan't reliable and lasting many years, others come close but second.

...and the Genmax, and the Genmax,,, said almost 30 times is hypnotic.

 

The small inverter generators are great, but keep in mind you'll also need quite a large charger to effectively use one to replenish your battery bank in a reasonable amount of running time.

 

My thought was to plug the generator onto the shore power plug on the side of my van.

 

Spend the money on more batteries and you won't need a generator.

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We have been using a Harbor Freight Predator 2000 for 8 years now. Runs great always starts.
Used my brothers Honda 2000 before and it was practically identical in use.

 

Honda is quite, Fuel efficiency is good, but tank capacity is just 3.4 gallons

 

This is incorrect. The capacity of aHonda 2200 is approx 1 gallon.

what generator are you referring to?

 

The 12v MultiPlus 3000 needs a little under 1800 watts to charge at full power. The Honda EU2200 is the champ but the Chinese inverter generators are pretty good for around 1/2 the money if that’s a factor. If you go Chinese check out Pulsar/Westinghouse. They make the portables for Onan and I have had good luck with them.

The Honda EU2200 holds a gallon of gas and will run around 4 hours charging the batteries so you’ll be able to recharge twice before filling up if it’s a 12v setup.

If it’s an occasional thing and you’re not in a hurry to charge the batteries the EU1000 is the same money but it’s a tiny little generator that takes up a lot less room and is much lighter. It will work nicely with the MultiPlus set to 7.5 amps on power assist and a full tank (1/2 gallon) will charge the batteries once.

 

The 12v MultiPlus 3000 needs a little under 1800 watts to charge at full power. The Honda EU2200 is the champ but the Chinese inverter generators are pretty good for around 1/2 the money if that’s a factor. If you go Chinese check out Pulsar/Westinghouse. They make the portables for Onan and I have had good luck with them.

The Honda EU2200 holds a gallon of gas and will run around 4 hours charging the batteries so you’ll be able to recharge twice before filling up if it’s a 12v setup.

If it’s an occasional thing and you’re not in a hurry to charge the batteries the EU1000 is the same money but it’s a tiny little generator that takes up a lot less room and is much lighter. It will work nicely with the MultiPlus set to 7.5 amps on power assist and a full tank (1/2 gallon) will charge the batteries once.

Hey @dog_house

Very Informative Post 👍. We use to carry a 2200 Honda & used it so rarely, we decided to remove it from under our bed.

So reading your post sent me down a short rabbit hole this morning; I have AGMs & only 250Ah so my system does not rate for this ,,, but yours 😁🙌 !!

With a large LP4 & even with @runswift9 300Ah ( if 3P 100, I assume a Max charge current of 300 amps ), a DIYer can take advantage of that. If you have tested your PM Alternator in different conditions, do you have an idea ( a range in different parameters; idle, air conditioning on, highway, etc ) of what you are getting into you LP4s with a direct charge system ?

A few years back, the new owner of my 2018 blew the 70amp up fitter fuse which the Rolls 250Ah AGMs were directly charging on. As the max charge current for those batteries are around 70amps ( which is a bit weird as the written spec & the label on the side of the battery are different 70amps on the spec & 83 amps on the battery ), and the upfitter fuse will be “slow to blow”. The difference was in “The Users” ,,, I understand how the system I designed works & the new owner didn’t ( I educated him on the details after he let the batteries run down to an inoperative voltage ,,, the result is they had little resistance to the available current 😳 ). So my design limit of amp draw was the 70 amp fuse. It is simple & effective if the DIYer understands how to operate it, but it requires a current limiting system ( which is onboard ) to get the AGMs past the SOC so the resistance will self limit. That onboard system is the 45amp 120vac charger & Honda Generator. I never had to use it ,,, not once ,,, we just PM Alternator charge.

Blaa Blaa Blaa; With 300Ah LP4 and our conservative 12vdc use & the PM alternator we would not need our Honda 2200 onboard either.

I assume you can get ~ 150 amps from your PM alternator ? That beats the Victron’s 120 amps ,,, But my ticket is only in the cheap seats so I can’t see the stage clearly 👿. What say You ?

 

Keep in mind that many places have generator hours, so you can't run them whenever you want to.

 

Yes...I do keep that in mind

 

This is incorrect. The capacity of an Honda 2200 in approx 1 gallon.

what generator are you referring to?

Yup ,,, Of course in Canada we are in L ,,, maybe that is where the error was;

This Summer was the 40 year anniversary of “Gimli Glider” incident ,,, also a “metric conversion related ordeal” 😜

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BTW; I have never used the 8.3 12vdc supply on my Honda i​

 

Yup ,,, Of course in Canada we are in L ,,, maybe that is where the error was;

View attachment 98693


This Summer was the 40 year anniversary of “Gimli Glider” incident ,,, also a “metric conversion related ordeal” 😜

View attachment 98694​

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BTW; I have never used the 8.3 12vdc supply on my Honda i​

That may be the case regarding liters vs gallons. Good thinking!

I have been suspicious lately of "robots" infiltrating the forum, especially during the wee-hours with off the cuff comments. I hypothesis these "robots" can post a comment but cannot debate, yet. So I prod at it a bit 😁

Other thoughts:

Nor have I used the 8.3 12vdc supply, I would need to refer to the manual the how and why, maybe some YouTube as well. I have retired the genie from the van mostly, primary use is around home only bring it when knowingly going out of cell range and no knight shining available to save me.

 

Spend the money on more batteries and you won't need a generator.

Maybe. It depends on how long the "extended stays" are, and what recharge options you have afterwards. Bigger battery banks need bigger or longer recharges. Under normal usage (YMMV), our 412Ah bank lasts us about 3 days with no charging (solar or alternator). At that point, we need serious recharging. Something like 4-6 hours of driving (60A DC-DC) if solar is minimal. However, 3 days in one place is really rare for us. In those cases, we prefer campgrounds with electrical hookups to carrying and maintaining a generator.

 

Maybe. It depends on how long the "extended stays" are, and what recharge options you have afterwards. Bigger battery banks need bigger or longer recharges. Under normal usage (YMMV), our 412Ah bank lasts us about 3 days with no charging (solar or alternator). At that point, we need serious recharging. Something like 4-6 hours of driving (60A DC-DC) if solar is minimal. However, 3 days in one place is really rare for us. In those cases, we prefer campgrounds with electrical hookups to carrying and maintaining a generator.

Yep. If it takes 4+ hours to recharge with driving, it will likely take much longer than that with a generator. I have never considered a generator as an option.

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Yep. If it takes 4+ hours to recharge with driving, it will likely take much longer than that with a generator. I have never considered a generator as an option.

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We do not have Solar, so the Honda 2200 was a backup / emergency / boondocking 120vac (as we also do not have an inverter).

However, we have taken it out of our van as we rarely used it. So now, I am considering a portable solar system ,,, That would probably be a better system for us vs the Honda Generator.

 

Just to put it into perspective, you have a 300 amp-hr battery.

The fuel in those small honda's will charge roughly a 400 amp-hr battery.

So in my mind, it is better to get a 3000 size generator with auto start and the bigger fuel tank if you can make it work.

In Georgia, that would make air conditioning viable.

Some people carry extra panels to put in the sun and park in the shade.

 

If it takes 4+ hours to recharge with driving, it will likely take much longer than that with a generator.

That's another "maybe, it depends". A 2000W generator could power our 100A shorepower charger, which charges nearly twice as fast as our 60A DC-DC. But campground hook-ups are still a better option for our infrequent needs.

 

The alternator on our 2022 will hit 14.9v if it’s cold outside. There is enough voltage drop in the wiring to the batteries that they can safely split charge but I eventually plan on using the BMV712 to control the ACR ground so that it will disconnect the alternator when the batteries exceed 14.6v

I need to get my butt in gear and mount the Raspberry Pi, second shunt, and battery heaters but it’s too hot to mess with the van right now. Once it’s all hooked up the charge/discharge data will all be on the VRM for the world to see. I want to get it done before summer is over to show the AC running from batteries and how the alternator does keeping them charged up. The smart shunt on the chassis ground is a current meter for the alternator so it shows up separately in the data.

 

Nor have I used the 8.3 12vdc supply, I would need to refer to the manual how best to utilize it, maybe some YouTube as well.

It’s supposed to be for battery charging, I bought the cable to help top off batteries when running the block heaters on heavy equipment but it wasn’t really useful on large batteries, I think it’s just a holdover from Hondas early generators. From what I remember it’s not very well regulated and they are starting to drop it from the newer stuff.

 

Thanks,

I'll look into that out of curiosity, that makes a lot of sense now, never really thought about its function before!

 

The bots add filler to the posts so the dozen or so active members have something to talk about 😂.

 

Spend the money on more batteries and you won't need a generator.

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I've thought of that too...but space is an issue.

 

Yep. If it takes 4+ hours to recharge with driving, it will likely take much longer than that with a generator. I have never considered a generator as an option.

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I see that too. I hadn't thought about judging from drive time to charge. I did try idling just as a test and it took an hour to charge 13%

 

Spend the money on more batteries and you won't need a generator.

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Not always true. We were just in the national forest for a week and it was cloudy and rained most of it. Did not get any solar charging. So without a generator we would have needed a massive battery bank.

 

After reading the replies here and elsewhere...plus some checking around...I decided a generator isn't really workable for me. I found a company that makes "shade tolerant" solar panels (Optivolt) so I decided to go with their product. Now I just have to find someone who can help me get them configured to work with my existing setup!

 

I also recommend the B2B DC/DC charger option instead of a separate generator. It’s like having a generator that’s already hooked up to your fuel tank. We have two 30a Victron Orion chargers using our 220a alternator and this charged our 9kW battery bank from 50 to 90% today just during the drive we were doing anyway, so it feels like almost free charging (some minor additional fuel use by the engine). It was pouring all day in New England so having that option while solar was basically useless was nice. Seems like a simpler and more elegant option than a separate portable generator to me.

 

I eventually plan on using the BMV712 to control the ACR ground so that it will disconnect the alternator when the batteries exceed 14.6v

I've got a HVD for that purpose but haven't set it up yet. I've been thinking about disconnecting my VSR when the voltage hits 13.7v (I only charge to 13.8v with solar).