Generator Help

if you need temporary power for hair dryer or inverter micro,pick up a 1500 or 2000 watt inverter and wire clips for the truck battery. i use a 5.7 litre hemi, 1000 watt inverter for temp. power. its not very efficient but still cheaper than a honda genny.one day i may even hard wire it into the truck.i also carry a tiny 500 watt inverter genny with a built in charger and a full size charger for the boat batteries.

When we went to Alaska in 2010 I bought a Honda EU2000 to run the microwave and possibly the ac.We took a freezer and I had planned on running it on the way back with the generator but since it was full of salmon and halibut I taped the lid shut.That way no chance of it coming open while moving since it was just magnet type shutting.Every night when we stopped and plugged in to shore power I opened the lid to the freezer and everything was still frozen solid so no reason to run the genny during the day while moving.Driving from Homer,AK all the way back home to Texas I never ran the genny once and the freezer never showed any signs of thawing.So I bought a generator for this trip but i'm glad I did,now I can buy another one and phase them for our regular 5'er if I need to.

trcgolf wrote:
We are heading north...Alaska via Canada
I understand the commercial CG almost all have electric
If we boondock a couple days in a row we will probably need a recharge
Denali for 3 days will require a generator
To just do that if we can't find a campground a 1000 or 2000 is probably fine. No ac or micro but that is fine.

For battery charging you really should review the current charging system. Some are real good with 2 or 3 hours to charge and many take 8 to 24 hours to charge.

Space was too valuable in our truck camper so we didn't buy even a small generator for our 8-week trip. The biggest use of camper battery power was the furnace fan in the morning and maybe the water pump.

During our 3 nights at Teklanika in Denali NP, we just idled the truck engine for 30 minutes during the allowed times and we were charged back up. I don't usually idle the diesel for that long but made the exception there.

Driving around a bit after boondocking also did the trick.

Our trip journal. 2014.

If you have a generator and/or inverter, it will open up a bunch of camping options. Want to camp at Denali for more than a day or two then you will need a generator. Solar will not help because of the trees. There are all sorts of lovely Canadian Provençal Parks, USFS, and BLM campgrounds that are dry camping. We also stayed in commercial campgrounds opting to stay in no hook ups because the price was so much lower. Most of the full hook up campgrounds have you shoe horned in with your neighbor's slideouts are right up next to yours. A couple of times, we spent the the night in pullouts by beautiful lakes and rivers. Unless you always need hook ups, you will want the flexibility a generator provides. My spouse uses a CPAP and we had no issues running it off DC when dry camping. We had a plug installed and he has a DC cord for his machine

Besides a generator, you need to look at your power converter/battery charger. The basic ones take a LONG (like 12+hours) time to recharge your house batteries. Fine if you are driving every day or hooked up to shore power at night, but inadequate for generator charging.

Chances are you will not use air conditioning up here. It really doesn't get dark, so you don't use your interior lights very much. In places you'd like to boondock, invariably there's no TV reception, so you can probably cross that AC load off the list as well. Can you get by using your gas stove instead of the microwave while boondocking? If so, you might be able to meet your needs with just a small inverter.

FYI, places like Denali NP have limited hours you are allowed to run your generator (which often coincide with when you'd want to be taking the bus further into the park).

So, I'm not so sure I'd suggest running out and buying a generator just for this trip. FWIW, I added a few additional house batteries to my class C, and installed a high-performance charger/inverter. We rarely run the generator for any length of time.

trcgolf wrote:
I have been going back and forth on whether to get a generator/invertor and if so how big?
Lots of people say they use it only once or twice... others sound like the couldn't have made it without one.
I need more guideance.

What do you think you need the generator for?
Lots of driving should keep the battery charged. You do have two+ batteries yes?
Will you stay in campgrounds or just pull off and boondock?

Small 300w inverter might be nice to charge small items on the road.
I try to recommend solar over generator unless you need air conditioning 24/7.

PA12DRVR wrote:
Is the question about needing a generator for an Alaska trip?

IMO, you're unlikely to need a generator for Alaska: 18 - 20+ hours of sunlight in the summer, no need for A/C, etc.

On the way to AK...maybe you'll need A/C, but there's that many more CG's with plug-ins. If it were me and I didn't already have a generator, I wouldn't buy one for the AK trip.

To the OP:

I bought one for my trip to Alaska and used it a lot... when I went in May, the CG's with electric weren't open, or were hiding? I spent night after night along the way in "rustic" CGs in AB, BC and YT. Plus the only Walmart I found with hookups was in Fairbanks, and I didn't stay there (it was crowded).

Along the Denali Highway, I did not find any campgrounds with electric. I did find a very beautiful pull-off to spend a night at, and ran the generator for a few hours at night whilst cooking dinner and reviewing my recent photos and videos.

I did not run my generator at most of the overnight campgrounds, but instead, it ran while I was on the highway, recharging the 800 amp-hour battery bank in the trailer.

I have made 13 round trips to/from Alaska by RVs and about half those rigs had a generator built in. But in Canada or Alaska, I don't ever remember starting any of them. If I boondock, for a couple of nights and run down the house batteries, by driving the next day, my RV engine alternator will have the batteries recharged by noon that day. If your house batteries don't charge off your engine, consider getting a larger cable run between the two.

You generally won't need AC nor lights in the evening, plus even if it gets hot during the day, come evening, just open your windows and turn on your Fantastic Fan or equivalent. Your rig will be cooled off in no time.

On our last 4 round trips to/from Alaska, we had a generator only on one of them since we changed rigs and the current one has a built in, that we seldom use anywhere. If uou have one, a generator, and room for it to go along, then take it, but i sure wouldn't go buy one just for a trip to Alaska or or take up valuable space that could be used for fishing gear.LOL

trcgolf wrote:
We are heading north...Alaska via Canada
I understand the commercial CG almost all have electric
If we boondock a couple days in a row we will probably need a recharge
Denali for 3 days will require a generator
To just do that if we can't find a campground a 1000 or 2000 is probably fine. No ac or micro but that is fine.

The Honda or Yamaha are the gold standard but I would suggest you check out Champion. You can pick up a Champion 2000 watt for around $500 and a 3100 watt on sale for $699.

Another option would be scan Craigslist for a used generator.