In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Although smaller than Its big brother, that it WAY overkill, and much bigger than the lunchbox I walked to school with in Elementary School. I don't remember what mine was, but it was prolly something as bad as flintstones!
Can ya imagine letting your 1st grader walk to school, these days?
If honda still makes something about half that capacity, and 3/4 the size, that would be great!
In reply to mtn :
That is SO cool! Now I gotta have one, just for the work shop shelf! Or a Tiny Tiger like was posted...
Ya recon that EU40ii is folowing the same numbering system, and is rated for 40W? 3.3 Amps don't go very far; but what a cool toy!
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :
Those did cross my mind. I also gave thought to something like a 50cc scooter engine. Properly muffled they are pretty quiet.
The EU1000 is a 50cc 4 stroke engine. But its already packaged and quiet. I don't think you will beat it very easily with a homebrew setup.
I totally get the shaded issue for solar. Regarding the roof rack, it would be pretty easy to make a solar setup that could quick disconnect and be tossed up there for a camping trip.
03Panther said:In reply to mtn :
That is SO cool! Now I gotta have one, just for the work shop shelf! Or a Tiny Tiger like was posted...
Ya recon that EU40ii is folowing the same numbering system, and is rated for 40W? 3.3 Amps don't go very far; but what a cool toy!
I agree.....I now want one
I just read an article that said the eu40 was never produced... Only a prototype. Obviously not correct. But that article was about the e300. Which led me to flea bay, which lead me to: Honda E400 pricy for something old, and I think its 50cc also, but physically smaller than the 1000
MadScientistMatt said:Those do exist, although probably not for the reasons the customers intended to use them for. They're typically used for single phase to 3 phase power conversion, DC to AC before solid state inverters became the norm, and other things that aren't (or previously weren't) easy to convert other ways.
And as soon as they release the SuperConductor to market, those will be a viable solution 
I'm going to crunch some numbers and look harder at propane refrigeration. I'll see how far I can get my numbers trimmed down.
That wind turbine thing looks interesting, but 800w from a 3' prop sounds like they added an extra zero for "sales reasons." Just sounds too good to be true.
I will say I have used the 1000w Honda before and it's stunningly quiet. We used to use it for the band when we played at a race, odd place for a band but we played to 45k people.
I've heard box fans that were louder. Depending on how deep in the woods you are it still could be too loud but you might consider them. If you haven't been around them you might want to go to a Honda dealer and hear one. If that's still too loud I bet you could build an insulated box around it too and get it even quieter.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Is 10 days the goal? That's stretching a lot of ideas. 10 days without recharge could mean a pretty big battery bank and limited usage.
Surprisingly, I have been known to go for two months or more on an island in the middle of a lake with just a tent and a flashlight. In that situation I did have access to ice with an 8-mile boat ride, and a small town was about 15 miles from that by car.
Let's say realistically I would like to do a week without returning to civilization. Any longer than that and it's just annoying carrying that many supplies. I also start to smell like a sweaty foot after about day 3 if there isn't a lake or stream to rinse off some of the funk.
Really these things are great and would be fantastic for camping or backpacking. They can't be that loud or use that much fuel or even be that heavy.
I want one
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:I will say I have used the 1000w Honda before and it's stunningly quiet. We used to use it for the band when we played at a race, odd place for a band but we played to 45k people.
I've heard box fans that were louder. Depending on how deep in the woods you are it still could be too loud but you might consider them. If you haven't been around them you might want to go to a Honda dealer and hear one. If that's still too loud I bet you could build an insulated box around it too and get it even quieter.
I'm not trying to be perfectly silent, but the tree hugger in me has a huge respect for the fact that I'm invading the sanctity of the wildlife's wilderness home. I want to be a welcome guest and not the annoying neighbor. I would feel like Hexxus from Fern Gully if I just pulled in and fired up an excessively large generator.
It sounds like I'm going to be looking at finding the most watt-hours I can fit (both size and wallet) and then try to hyper-mile each electron as best as I can. Hopefully that will allow me to go multiple days and then generate for a bit.
Much research to do.
OHSCrifle said:I've seen your comments about camping in the shade - makes sense. But here's an interesting one that I just learned about from a video on the new Predator generators. (Jump to 17:10)
Jackery - Battery in a box + solar.
I bought a predator generator and it is hands down the worst I've ever owned. It was the biggest they make though not the inverter tiny ones
Jcamper said:First off, you won't need 2/0. Can get away with much smaller,
Also meant to respond to this:
The 2/0 is primarily because I already have it. Totally overkill, agreed. It came from a previous project in which I was doing a trunk-mounted battery. I had stopped in to a place to have a cable fabbed out of 2-ga, and the guy offered me one he had made for a Semi and the guy stiffed him on the money. Bingo. Cheap 2/0.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:OHSCrifle said:I've seen your comments about camping in the shade - makes sense. But here's an interesting one that I just learned about from a video on the new Predator generators. (Jump to 17:10)
Jackery - Battery in a box + solar.
I bought a predator generator and it is hands down the worst I've ever owned. It was the biggest they make though not the inverter tiny ones
I'm thinking about getting a 2000 or 3500 watt generator for tailgating and for storms. The Hammer store inverter generators in this size range seem to get solid reviews. I don't know anything about the bigger ones.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:I will say I have used the 1000w Honda before and it's stunningly quiet. We used to use it for the band when we played at a race, odd place for a band but we played to 45k people.
I've heard box fans that were louder. Depending on how deep in the woods you are it still could be too loud but you might consider them. If you haven't been around them you might want to go to a Honda dealer and hear one. If that's still too loud I bet you could build an insulated box around it too and get it even quieter.
I'm not trying to be perfectly silent, but the tree hugger in me has a huge respect for the fact that I'm invading the sanctity of the wildlife's wilderness home. I want to be a welcome guest and not the annoying neighbor. I would feel like Hexxus from Fern Gully if I just pulled in and fired up an excessively large generator.
It sounds like I'm going to be looking at finding the most watt-hours I can fit (both size and wallet) and then try to hyper-mile each electron as best as I can. Hopefully that will allow me to go multiple days and then generate for a bit.
Much research to do.
I get that. I'm sitting in woods that are dead silent right now and it's very nice and peaceful. Also 2 months on an island sounds great, I'm a bit jealous now.
Probably the hyper mile idea is best, I think you'll be the most happy with it rather than using more juice and needing a generator. According to an online calculator we use roughly 17kwh a month here and don't really feel like we are rationing electricity. It can be done
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:. Also 2 months on an island sounds great, I'm a bit jealous now.
Canada. Pre-cambrian Shield geology. Granite and quartz. I spent most of my time cataloging the birds I saw and watching a pair of bald eagles nesting. Ok, that's a lie. I spent most of my time fishing.
I had a Prothonotary Warbler that woke me up several mornings. Pretty rare.
You talked of wanting to build the quietest possible generator from a 1-2 hp engine and 20A alternator.
The EU1000i is a 2.1 hp engine that outputs up to 18.75A at 25% load... Where it runs a mere 42 dB from 23 ft away. Almost exactly what you claim to want, and expectations of beating that by working a smaller engine harder in a cobbled together DIY setup are not particularly realistic.
And then there is the issue of fueling it for 10 days.
Similarly, your initial overall approach was fundamentally flawed, startIng with thoughts of full hookups and trying to cut out as little as possible to be mobile enough. Your apparent realization in recent posts to start with backpacking and add as little as possible to be comfortable enough, looks to be moving you in the a better direction.
You'll get where you need to be by removing the self-inflicted contradictions from what seemed to be a growing list of 'requirements', and identifying where compromises can best be made. I think you'll get more return for your efforts in figuring out a non-electric cold storage solution than trying to DIY a quieter way to produce 15A-20A @12V than a modern 1 kW (peak) inverter generator.
Side note: Those Honda lunchbox generators may be cute, but aren't particularly useful at just 40W of output.
In reply to Driven5 :
It would probably be better to just get a solar panel to do little stuff, I've got one actually, but i think it's cool and that's all that matters to me really.
It would recharge a cell phone/tablet/laptop though
Just read through the thread and had a couple of thoughts.
Anithero obviously knows what he is talking about.
I would not buy expensive fancy batteries just so you can run an inefficient fridge, I would spend the money on the fridge to get rid of as much of that load as possible.
Wind is a great supplement for other power sources but you do not want to rely on it as a primary one, in your case I don't think it is viable for the same reasons solar isn't.
Honda makes a great little generator but the fact that the output is AC is not great for what you need here, ideally it would come on for an hour charging the batteries directly allowing you to turn it off sooner. There are options though, it appears some of the older Honda models include (a measly) 8A 12Vdc output for charging batteries, maybe you can find something like that used (do people actually sell old Honda's though?). I don't know if you load up that 8A DC if you can still get your full AC output out of it or not.
A quick google for Honda DC generator did come up with this - https://www.macfarlanegenerators.com.au/products/150/Battery-Charger-12V-55A, the price looks good in comparison to the other Honda products but I'm sure these are quite a bit louder.
Lastly since we all love DIY, maybe you can find one of those small quiet generators with a broken inverter (who let the smoke out?), open the thing up, gut the fancy electronics and generator out of it and fit an automotive alternator in there. I'm sure you'll find the space tight inside one of these and I'm guessing they run a very small generator at a really high frequency and then do some magic with the inverter to get the power out of them.
The truth is, I don't really need the inverter/generator since I have 120v AC from a sinewave inverter after the battery. An inverter generator would make AC, convert it to DC, then back to AC. Then I would plug it into a battery charger to re-convert it back to DC. Then after the battery, re-invert to AC. Really wasteful and convoluted, and I'm a simplicity kind of guy. The more fancy bits you use to get what you want means just more fancy bits that can fail.
That was my original thought behind an alternator. Just hook it to the battery. I mean, technically, I'm still making AC and the rectifier turns it into DC, but at least it's a simpler, proven setup.
Many of the inverter generators do have a 12v DC output, but I don't know if it's regulated for charging batteries or if it's just bulk juice.
Which brings up the next point... will I need AC at all? If I'm not doing a 120v fridge, anything else on the list could be 12v. I did find a 12v charger for one of my old laptops that I could buy.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
The 12v output is specifically for battery charging on the Honda 2000s I have. They only put out about 8 amps though so it isn't going to give you much boost for the run time. I have used it in an emergency but for actually charging, I'd plug a big charger into the AC output.
Have you considered a larger engine running just above idle and overdriving the alternator through a belt? That may get you the amps you want at a lower noise level. Say a 4-5 hp engine turning 1500 rpms and belt driving the alternator to 3000 or so.
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Which is more important to you, reduced AC-DC conversions or reduced generator noise?
In theory you should be able to get both, in reality it's probably an either/or proposition.
Before jumping too much about the fridge- you may want to watch this- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzbp18L9oc&t=1256s&ab_channel=SterlingPowerLtd and this thread may be something to read- https://diysolarforum.com/threads/dc-fridge-or-ac-fridge-with-inverter.9361/
I kind of wish I did before spending money on a 12V- but in the end, it will really work well for us. And while the video is 240V, I'd be pretty confident a good 120V fridge will be similar with inverter. Once they cool off, they don't run much- so make sure the fridge is at full operating temp and FULL before you leave.
Also, what's your battery budget? LiFePO4 batteries have come down quite a bit. Here are some examples of fully built batteries- https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/lithium-batteries.html and then if you are willing to do some work, here are some individual cells- https://www.mobile-solarpower.com/raw-lifepo4-deals-page.html
Relative to lead acid or AGM batteries, you can use the full potential of them. And you can easily get an adaptor that will charge the battery from your car alternator- it's already a close voltage, but not perfect to the lead acid voltage.
I have thoughts of taking our travel trailer totally off grid, and its 100% electric- fridge, stove, A/C, water, etc. The surge protector that we got will be able to track our usage, so that will help figure out how big of a battery pack we will need and if I have enough space for solar.
adam525i saidLastly since we all love DIY, maybe you can find one of those small quiet generators with a broken inverter (who let the smoke out?), open the thing up, gut the fancy electronics and generator out of it and fit an automotive alternator in there. I'm sure you'll find the space tight inside one of these and I'm guessing they run a very small generator at a really high frequency and then do some magic with the inverter to get the power out of them.
Has that been done ? There are some small alternators off of forklifts etc that put out more than 80 amps ,
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