Generator quieting

jjrbus wrote:
I have looked at your pictures several times and appreciate the temperatures you gave me in another thread.

I am experimenting with duct board doing this and it just about has me beat trying to shape it around the exhaust area and am thinking about Soundown for that area.

It appears that you put a 1/2 inch plywood divider there with the soundown facing the genset as a gasket, is that correct?
Thanks Jim

Jim:
The plywood is 3/16" which allows it to bend and conform to the curve on the exhaust outlet bezel.
Yes, the Soundown is what creates a gasket like seal between the plywood and exhaust end of the EU2000i.
Just got back from a dry camping trip and had the neighbor ask if he could take photos of my sound deadening box. He had a Honda Genset just like mine and you could hear his in my campsite louder than mine.

I have looked at your pictures several times and appreciate the temperatures you gave me in another thread.

I am experimenting with duct board doing this and it just about has me beat trying to shape it around the exhaust area and am thinking about Soundown for that area.

It appears that you put a 1/2 inch plywood divider there with the soundown facing the genset as a gasket, is that correct?
Thanks Jim

I think the rivets give the box a cleaner look. They are much less expensive than SS hardware. If I have any rivets fail, my backup plan is to replace those with nuts, washers, and bolts.

profdant139 wrote:
(And now for a dumb and unimportant question -- why did you use rivets instead of screws or bolts?)

Very well done! I would say that was well worth the money you've invested -- this box will make the difference between running the generator and not.

(And now for a dumb and unimportant question -- why did you use rivets instead of screws or bolts?)

Materials list:
Qty 4 sheets - 2' x 4' exterior grade 3/16" plywood purchased at Home Depot. This yielded the top, bottom, two sides, front and back ends and the two interior partitions.

Qty 2 sheets - 1/2" x 32" x 54" Soundown acoustic foam purchased from Amazon.com. You could get away with 1 sheet, but I opted to use more in places than Jim did.

Qty 1 package - Aluminum Pop Rivets, 3/16 x 1/4-Inch, 100 rivets.

Qty 1 package - Black Carbonized Fiber Welding Blanket, 18" x 18" purchased on Amazon.com.

Qty 1 - 2-Pack Power Cord 3 Feet Heavy Duty AC Power Extension Cord in 3 Feet purchased on Amazon.com.

Qty 6 - 3/4" x 1/16" x 36" aluminum angle bar.

Qty 1 - 24" Brass plated metal hinge(this was cut into two sections for the top).

Qty 1 - 12" Brass plated metal hinge(this was cut into two sections for the inlet end).

Qty 1 - 4 pack 1.75" round furniture cups.

Qty 1 - Brass plated lockable clasp and hinges for pull start door access.

Digital photos:
Left side
P1000073 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Air inlet end
P1000074 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Right side
P1000075 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Exhaust End
P1000076 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Top opened
P1000077 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Open top view
P1000078 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Air inlet open hinge for easier generator ingress/egress.
P1000081 by camelwhit, on Flickr

EU2000i in the Quiet Box
P1000083 by camelwhit, on Flickr

Close up view of how the generator snugs up to the partition between the exhaust side and the cool engine side.
P1000084 by camelwhit, on Flickr

My EU2000i is about 15 years old and still running strong!

ICamel wrote:
With inspiration from jauguston I built a EU Quiet Box for our EU2000i.

It's hard to imagine anyone could complain about your EU2000i running ... great job! :B

ICamel wrote:
With inspiration from jauguston I built a EU Quiet Box for our EU2000i.
I used the 1/2" Soundown material rather than the 1". Total cost was less than $125.
See and hear on my Flicker account. For some reason it won't play on Google Chrome(but will in "incognito window"), but will play on Mozilla Firefox and MS Internet Explorer.

EU2000i in the open.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322575@N07/26138226090/in/dateposted-family/

EU2000i in Quiet Box
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322575@N07/26344709241/in/dateposted-family/

If it helps, they played fine in my Chrome browser.

The difference with load is astounding. You couldn't tell the heater was turned on with the box.

When I get my generator(s), this is absolutely on my "todo" list.

With inspiration from jauguston I built a EU Quiet Box for our EU2000i.
I used the 1/2" Soundown material rather than the 1". Total cost was less than $125(NOT!). On Edit: Whoops!.....in the interest of full disclosure, after totaling up the individual costs it came to $182.01
See and hear on my Flicker account. For some reason it won't play on Google Chrome(but will in "incognito window"), but will play on Mozilla Firefox and MS Internet Explorer.

EU2000i in the open.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322575@N07/26138226090/in/dateposted-family/

EU2000i in Quiet Box
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11322575@N07/26344709241/in/dateposted-family/

SoundGuy wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
We have a Honda 2000 -- it is quiet but not silent. When we are boondocking, we add an extra extension cord so that the generator is as far from us as possible, preferably behind a big rock.

It's certainly possible to quiet an EU2000i to the point where it's barely audible 20' away. I based my own EU Quiet Box on one built for an EU1000i by rv.net forum member jauguston ... his pics are here for anyone interested. However, a major issue became abundantly clear in building my quiet box - "quiet" is directly related to how much you're willing to spend. :W After calculating I'd be in for hundreds $$$ to duplicate jauguston's box for my own EU2000i I looked for alternatives that wouldn't break the bank and although what I came up with certainly works quite well I have no doubt the results would have been even better had I been willing to spend more - lots more. I wasn't so it is what it is BUT with the box sitting the back of my Avalanche and the cargo lids in place my EU2000i running full tilt is barely audible 20' away. :B

2oldman wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:
He can't. The OP's profile indicates he's here in Canada where Honda Canada offers the EU2000i without parallel capability ... there are ways around this of course

Yeah, using two extension cords. It's real simple, but I'm amazed at how many people go ahead and buy those expensive kits.

Now, if Honda removes the synching electronics for Canadian sales, that's quite different. I don't think they do that.

They haven't done it yet as the two EU2000i purchased in the last 6 months parallel just fine :)

Most impressive job on that generator box SoundGuy. Amazing work.

SoundGuy wrote:

AFHauler wrote:
I have a Honda 3000 EU, I am looking for some ideas to quiet it down. Anyone had success with this, want to share some ideas?

Here in Canada there are two Honda 3K models, one known as the EU3000iS which is the class leader in "quiet" inverter gensets and the EU3000iK (known as the Handi in the US) which isn't the same at all and is significantly noisier. If yours is the latter I can understand why you'd want to quiet it down, the former not so much. I built a Generator Quiet Box for my own EU2000i but for a 3K genset it would have to be quite a bit larger and I suspect a handful to move around. Although I fashioned my own exhaust bezel you'd certainly find it easier to design a box by first replacing the 3K's exhaust bezel with this one from Generator Line. For lining the interior of the box I used Reflectix for economic reasons but you'd achieve far better results using a noise control barrier such as this from West Marine. Done correctly, to achieve maximum results, this won't be inexpensive. ;)