Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:18:47 -0500
Reply-To: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
Subject: Re: generators/inverters for camping
In-Reply-To: <6bc66ccf1002091028i647b163ex2d4739a5f3a1b063@mail.gmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
Just a note for you. The Honda 2000 generator is (slightly) quieter,
but substantially heavier than the Honda 1000 generator. The Honda
1000 is very nice for camping, and will handle most loads. You'd need
the 2000 if you wanted to run a window AC unit, but otherwise, the
1000 will cover nearly everything.
On Feb 9, 2010, at 1:28 PM, Don Hanson wrote:
> Thank you all for all for the input. I spent a chunk of time
> yesterday
> online trying to learn some more about all this. I also looked
> around at
> quality generators, online, and found a good source for that Honda
> 2000ie
> at about $849 shipping included. Appx the same cost for an equivalent
> Yamaha brand. I should just bite the bullet and get one of those.
> But
> since I am only an occaisional user of a generator and I already
> have one
> that 'sort of works'...I just hate the concept of buying another and
> I can
> see my S.O. saying..."Hey, the new generator is quiet, let's watch a
> movie
> tonight, and turn on the heater, and and and..." All of a sudden, I
> will find myself maintaining a bunch of additional electrical
> widgets that
> we happily do without now....And when we go on Vanagon trips, I can
> see
> being asked to 'bring the generator, we can run a heater and and
> and...."
> So my plan is to *try again* on a different battery charger with that
> coleman genset...see if I can find a charger that is NOT solid
> state, one
> that will work with my "Flintstones" generator so I can make it
> through this
> trip by charging my coach batteries with a secondary accessory
> charger when
> the sun is gone for 2 days and my batteries go flat without the
> solar panel
> working. When I get back to the Northwest I'll get more serious about
> finding a good used Honda or maybe decide to just buy a new one and
> E-bay
> away the Coleman Powermate..
> Don Hanson
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> David, I thought the complaint was not that the output was NOT a
>> sine wave,
>> but that the "precision" of the wave was somehow not that great.
>> That might
>> be that the amplitude varies, and in a non-predictable way? Not
>> knowledgeable enough about generator function to be sure, but
>> that's what it
>> sounded like to me. That might account for the ability of the
>> thing to
>> drive a tool motor, but not to support electronics (which the battery
>> charger, if it is recent, almost certainly contains). Make sense?
>>
>> David
>>
>> ---- David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET> wrote:
>>> At 06:24 PM 2/8/2010, Loren Busch wrote:
>>>> I think you have already received the right answer: The modified
>>>> sine
>> wave
>>>> coming out of the generator is not liked by your charger.
>>>> A brief look what I could find seems to indicate that (if you
>>>> have the
>>>> generator I think you do) it has a special connection for charging
>>>> batteries. If so, did you try that connection?
>>>
>>> Why should the output of a rotating generator be anything but a sine
>>> wave? Does the generator have a low-voltage output which feeds an
>>> inverter for 110v?
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>> David
>>
| 
