Smallest Generator?

Ski is very much on point, good friend of mine I fish with has one of the belt driven 3600rpm gens and between noise coming from engine hatches or the obnoxious exhaust splashing I'm not sure which is worse, on the upside he doesn't leave it running long as everyone complains about it. Recommend you that hear it first hand, personally the Honda is much more user friendly.

Ski in NC said:

Tough one. The 3kw belt drive ones are a bit rough and noisy, but pretty reliable. The 4kw Farymanns are POS's. The 5kw Northern lights is the cat's meow, but probably too big and heavy for your 28. Expensive too.

Probably the best go is the Phasor belt drive. Just don't expect it to be silky smooth and quiet.

Click to expand...

If it were me I'd find room for the smallest Northern Lights unit and call it a day.

I dislike spending money as much as the next guy, but sometimes spending a little more up front makes you happier in the end.

I would contemplate the noisemaker as only part of the on board AC system.

A large enough boat would want to operate 2 air cond at once so about 4KW would be big enough.

A 135A alt would be belted to the front for rapid battery charging

It would have a heating coil in the hot water heater.

If that meant a pair of HW heaters was required , no big deal.

I would add a pass thru and boost inverter to the system , to get the air cond started easily , and make living on a dock with limited power far easier.

Life should be possible on a 15A circuit with minor compromise.

HopCar said:

I've decided to spend some money on Possum and I'm considering installing a real generator. I can make do with my little Honda but I'd like a real generator.
I'd like to find one that I could put in place of one of my 25 gallon water tanks.
It would need to be able to be serviced from one side and as small as possible in a sound shield. Oh yeah, diesel.

Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

Random thoughts:

3600 RPMs is usually loud, 1800 not as much.

I think I've seen "soft sound shields" advertised somewhere. I gather it's a bag-like thing of some sort.

How would you use it? I assume you've done a comparison between small genset and an inverter/more battery alternative? (Dunno if a modest bank of L16s might or might not weigh less than candidate gensets).

-Chris

Chris I think the word your looking for is sound blankets. I've seen them, they look like they'd be pretty effective but have never seen one running with one first hand.

Why would you belt a big alternator to a genset ? It already has a huge alternator. Do a load calculation and get a genset big enough to run everything and a Victron inverter/charger to take care of startup loads/recharging. Assuming enough space is available.

N4712 said:

Chris I think the word your looking for is sound blankets. I've seen them, they look like they'd be pretty effective but have never seen one running with one first hand.

Click to expand...

There was one company awhile back that had generic sound enclosures with soft sides...

Haven't seen it in years...don't know if it is still around.

ksanders said:

I dislike spending money as much as the next guy, but sometimes spending a little more up front makes you happier in the end.

Click to expand...

They say that "good relationships are the hardest won." At the outset, I disagreed with a lot of Keven's posts but continued reading them anyway. Lately, I find myself in total agreement him. The above is just another example.

N4712 said:

Chris I think the word your looking for is sound blankets. I've seen them, they look like they'd be pretty effective but have never seen one running with one first hand.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's probably it. I suspect they were probably meant as an affer-market improvement to an already-installed-but-unshielded genset.

Dunno how effective they might be, relative to sound, but something like that might make service access easier.

(Wonder if something like that could be useful for an AC unit, too, now I think about it...)

-Chris

Codger2 said:

They say that "good relationships are the hardest won." At the outset, I disagreed with a lot of Keven's posts but continued reading them anyway. Lately, I find myself in total agreement him. The above is just another example.

Click to expand...

I've been told I'm a difficult guy to like. Good friends have told me they had to force themselves to like me.

My apologies if I occasionally get up on a soap box.

ksanders said:

I've been told I'm a difficult guy to like. Good friends have told me they had to force themselves to like me.

My apologies if I occasionally get up on a soap box.

Click to expand...

Wifey B: Ut oh... Was I not supposed to like you? Did I F up in liking you and not having to force myself? What am I to do?

Sound Waves Insulation


Sound Waves Insulation, Inc. Thermal Insulation


site under construction...this may have been the place I was thinking of....

ksanders said:

I've been told I'm a difficult guy to like. Good friends have told me they had to force themselves to like me.

My apologies if I occasionally get up on a soap box.

Click to expand...

Good for you and Codger2, you've still got a long way to go to get to the break even point with me Kevin

You're you, I'm me, Neptune & Posiedon designed it to be that..... Someday you',, save my assets, some day I'll do my best to save yours.

It's supposed to be that............. Works really well, actually, when just left to work that way.

Carry on, all!

CPseudonym said:

Good for you and Codger2, you've still got a long way to go to get to the break even point with me Kevin

Click to expand...

You will eventually realize I'm harmless and be

I had a friend with an old wooden trawler with a really noisy straight 671 in it. He put a sound blanket over the engine. It was suspended on wires about 6-9 inches above the engine. I could never really tell that it made much of a difference, that old 671 was a really noisy engine.

We have the Entec West 4.1 KW with sound shield. The PO installed it and it runs well so far but I'm no expert. It only has 136 hours on it. We've nick-named it "Thumper"! Considering the cost of a Genny install, I'm going to "make do" with it.

We use it twice a day when for an hour when on anchor to keep our house bank happy. In order to keep it properly loaded we turn on/off either a space heater or the water heater. Our Webasto is out of commission right now and engine heat uses the same system, so all heat and hot water comes from running the generator. We shut it down when the Magnum 2812 I/C drops into Absorb Charge and < 60 amps.

We watch the loads in the Magnum Monitor, I try not to let the AC amps go much below110 volts, and that happens if the loads get too high. The genny provides approximately 20-25 amps A/C at best.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

Jim, Entec may be a winner for me. It's the smallest I've seen. It uses the same engine that all the other small gen sets use, and one of my customers is a dealer. I bet he'll take good care of me.

HopCar said:

Jim, Entec may be a winner for me. It's the smallest I've seen. It uses the same engine that all the other small gen sets use, and one of my customers is a dealer. I bet he'll take good care of me.

Click to expand...

So what do they cost? The PO purchased it "in the box" from someone who never installed it in his sailboat.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

I'll have to ask for a quote. Price will be a big factor in whether I do this or not.
I'm also not sure I want to cut my water tankage from fifty to twenty five gallons. I do like long showers.

Has anyone ever heard of a problem with running a diesel gen in a gas powered boat.i was at a boat show and asked a generator sales person who said the coastguard would not allow this. Aside from placing proper fuel in separate tanks I can't think of a problem.

Who was the person that said it and what reason did they give for not allowing it?

I have never heard of a rule that may prohibit it....if so it probably would only apply to passenger for hire vessels due to the possibility of mixing up the fuels...but that sounds like a stretch to me.

If in an engine compartment or bilge area where fumes could collect, it would have to be ignition protected to prevent explosion.....which could be why, but the problem could be overcome if worth the trouble.

Either way....why not just run a well maintained gas genset with all the proper safeguards? You can buy a few extra CO detectors for the difference in price.

The CG does not regulate diesel fuel systems on recreational vessels.

A boat manufacturer must follow NMMA and/or ABYC recommendations in order to sell the boat to you but what you do on your own boat is your own business.

RickB said:

The CG does not regulate diesel fuel systems on recreational vessels.

A boat manufacturer must follow NMMA and/or ABYC recommendations in order to sell the boat to you but what you do on your own boat is your own business.

Click to expand...

Rick...
I thought NMMA & ABYC were voluntary...and there is a lot of room for interpretation of standards when voluntary.

Kimbal8892 said:

Has anyone ever heard of a problem with running a diesel gen in a gas powered boat.i was at a boat show and asked a generator sales person who said the coastguard would not allow this. Aside from placing proper fuel in separate tanks I can't think of a problem.

Click to expand...

Could be an issue as most diesel gennies have features that are not "ignition protected". Such as car type alternators with open brushes. Or brushes on main gen, such as NL5-6kW. But I think some small gens are ignition protected just for this type of use. I've never installed a diesel gen in a gas boat, so never researched it.

With the outboard powered boats getting over 40 ft with accommodations generator manufacturers have responded to this market demand and many now offer ignition protected diesel gensets for use on gas powered boats.

psneeld said:

There was one company awhile back that had generic sound enclosures with soft sides...

Haven't seen it in years...don't know if it is still around.

Click to expand...

Not as good as a factory enclosure, but better than none:

Custom generator covers | Great Southern Insulation

Keysdisease said:

Not as good as a factory enclosure, but better than none:

Custom generator covers | Great Southern Insulation

Click to expand...

Think that's the one....thanks.

Bacchus said:

Rick...
I thought NMMA & ABYC were voluntary...and there is a lot of room for interpretation of standards when voluntary.

Click to expand...

That is why you can do whatever you want to your own personal recreational vessel.

However, if you are manufacturing boats for sale to the public:

PART 181—MANUFACTURER REQUIREMENTS :: PART 181--MANUFACTURER REQUIREMENTS :: CHAPTER I--COAST GUARD, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY :: Title 33 - Navigation and Navigable Waters :: Code of Federal Regulations :: Regulations :: Law :: Justia

"The genny provides approximately 20-25 amps A/C at best."

If its rated at 4.1 KW , you got screwed.

120V x 20A =2400W (2,4KW )

120v x 25A =3000W ( 3kw)

There is at least 25% missing output.