Generator quieting
A while back someone mentioned looking for a quieter muffler to reduce the noise of their gen. That question brought to mind that a video needs to be made which should clearly show that much of the...
Forum Discussion
road-runner wrote:
I came to the same conclusion experimenting with a portable inverter generator. With this, the plastic case already does a fairly good job of muting the engine noise, but then the noise exits the case with the cooling air that is blown out. To achieve good quieting, the cooling air exhaust would have to run through a muffler, which is what happens when the generator is placed inside a nicely built noise dampening enclosure. Adding a big muffler to only the engine exhaust barely reduced the sound level.
Having built my own inverter genset quiet box I can confidently say that just running cooling air exhaust alone through a muffler would be an exercise in futility. Rather, the key is to design a box that not only features appropriate sound absorbing lining but also has a multi chambered exhaust output compartment that exhausts hot exhaust gases AND hot engine cooling air, along with a method of bringing in cool intake air while keeping it entirely separate from these hot exhaust gases. Most DIY designs don't meet this criteria at all but there are some well designed examples that do. Even my own Honda EU2000i Quiet Box, remarkably effective as it was, could have been much better had I followed these guidelines and had I been willing to invest many more $$$ in materials to build the box. Had budget been unlimited I'd have lined a custom box with this West Marine Noise Control Barrier and modified the genset with a Generator-Line Exhaust System and ported it's output to a multi chambered output compartment. Designed properly, using the correct materials, an inverter genset like the Honda EU2000i can easily be quieted to the point where it can barely be heard at all, and without the use of any muffler. :B
