Generator with inverter technology

Never had a problem with my champion. I own 3 of them. One stays on RV bumper and other are work. Never had any one complain about noise from Champion because when we need to run the genny so do other campers. I stayed at Hershey RV show on site over night and everyone ran gennys until quiet time. You herd all of them

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Thanks for all replies. I now think a Champion will do the work. Have a safe camping season.

Your neighbours will appreciate the inverter genny as well. Most of the time it will be running at not much over idle. Run the water heater on propane. Run the fridge on propane. What is left? Not much. The coffeemaker & microwave will make it run up for a short time. The TV & phone chargers etc. are next to nothing.

If you want to be even more independent, have a decent sized battery bank & an inverter to power the small loads which are on most of the time.

On my one and only trip to the Talladega 500, I can attest there are thousands of RV'ers using old style, cheap generators. They ran'em 8:00 am until midnight.

Inverter generators are the way to go. I've found the Champion 3100 inverter to be in a class of its own in price--available for $828 online. While it may be slightly less quality of the Honda and Yamaha, it's 1/3 the price. Champion may be a Chinese product, but the company appears to be customer oriented and they have a great reputation for service. They also make one that's remote controlled.

We have a non-inverter 3500 Champion. In the 6 years we have had it, only had to use it 4 times( 3 times park power failure, 1 time no hookups. Granted it somewhat louder than a inverter, but for the price, I can deal with that.

Jim

I have a 5th wheel now, but when I had my Kodiak 242RESL travel trailer, I had a receiver hitch welded onto my TT rear and I bought the GearDeck17 to carry my Champion 3100. It runs my 15K A/C just fine. This youtube video shows a guy with it mounted on the back of his 5th wheel. I thing the video covers all the bases. The enclosure is made and sold by a company in Colorado (google it).

Gear Deck 17 video

The GearDeck is nice because when you get where you're going, it's designed such that the whole enclosure slides out about a couple of feet from the bumper. You don't have to lift the genny out to run it.

Then you can also prop the lid open and use it in that stance to be cover to shed from rain while still having sufficient air circulation. Only thing I would do different, is I wish the remote start version of the Champion had been available when I bought.

First thing to consider is what you plan to power by adding the wattage of the devices you plan to run at the same time. An easier way is to decide is if you are going to run your AC unit via the generator. If that is the case you will need about 3K watts to power an AC unit under most conditions, if not trying to run AC a 2K watt genny will power most items including some microwaves.

Inverter generators tend to be lighter and quieter, many pair a couple of 2K watt units to power AC and just bring a single unit when no AC usage is anticipated. There are 3K watt inverter generators available as well if you want to go that route although they can cost as much (or more) as two 2K watt units combined.

Open frame generators similar to those that are used for construction or other commercial purposes are less costly, but are heavier and noisier than inverter generators, not much of an issue if you are boondocking or RVing well away from others. Most can power an AC unit if that is a requirement and will use significantly more fuel than their inverter genny counterparts.

Honda, Yamaha, and Champion make both open frame and inverter generators and they all seem to be well liked by their respected owners. We have an onboard genny and it's primary function is to power high current demand items and to power our Iota converter for quick recharging of our battery bank when our solar panels haven't quite finished the job. We use an inverter to power our HDTVs, DVD/game players, and laptops among other low wattage items.

Since it will be so close to your living area, an inverter gen is the way to go because it will be much more quiet. Without inverter technology a gen has to run at full RPM to keep frequency in check.
A gen is one of those things you don't wan to skimp too much on. If you do you'll end up buying again.