Generator quieting

profdant139 wrote:
After spending a half hour studying Sound Guy's Quiet Box (see link above), I am sure that this method would reduce noise for almost any generator. His link provides detailed guidance.

Two of his innovations are particularly clever -- first, he rigged up a fan, mounted on the box, to blow fresh air into the generator's intake, and the fan is powered by the generator itself. Second, his vertical exhaust port serves as a baffle for the exhaust, without (I think) creating significant back-pressure in the exhaust system.

Thanks again, Sound Guy, and well done!

Thanks, but the credit really goes to jauguston for his own quiet box design on which mine is based ... his rv.net discussion from 2007 can be found here if you're interested.

Although it may not seem so at first glance quiet box design for an enclosed inverter genset such as the EU2000i is entirely different than for an open frame genset. The former has a cleverly designed plastic case that not only helps reduce noise but also directs and keeps separate cooling intake air, hot engine air that needs to be exhausted, and engine exhaust. With open frame gensets there is no control over movement of these 3 elements which simply meander about the generator as it's running ... not an issue when sitting in open air but when enclosed presents the problem as to how to properly intake cooling air and exhaust both hot engine air and exhaust so the engine doesn't overheat and shut down. Typically, most of these open frame generator boxes utilize high capacity fans at both ends of the box, one to intake cooling air in large volumes and another at the opposite end to vent out hot engine & exhaust in large volumes. OTOH, take a look at jauguston's pics and you'll note his inverter genset quiet box design is very similar to some of these clever Japanese quiet box designs which are intended to keep the 3 elements - intake air, hot engine exhaust air, and engine exhaust - completely separate at all times, as Honda engineers intended. Some such as jaguston's don't even utilize a fan but those that are most effective all feature a multi chamber exhaust baffle, another concession I made because I was utilizing an existing plastic box rather than a custom designed box that would be much more costly to build. The principles in designing an inverter genset quiet box are the same, only the execution varying somewhat in the interest of cost ... but they are quite a bit different than a quiet box designed for use with an open frame genset.