Quiet Generator fot 23ft TT

mtofell1 wrote:
I just saw a Yamaha at Costco that looked very similar in size and watts to my Honda for $599.

Watch out for marketing as it can get you with misleading labeling every time. :) The generator at Costco is not a Yamaha, it just has a Yamaha engine. The rest of the generator is made somewhere else.

OP, the best generator for you depends on what you need to power and how you intend to use it.

If you need some lights and a fan and need it super quiet, the Honda or Yamaha 2000 invertors are the best. They are about $1000 new though. They are well built, are quiet and provide clean power.

If you need to power the AC, coffee maker and microwave at the same time (probably trip a breaker anyways...) and are boondocking in the middle of nowhere and don't care about the noise, a less expensive contractor grade generator is your best bang for the buck.

I have the Champion 3500 watt. It isn't nearly as loud as the generator gens, but its also not as quiet as the Honda/Yamaha. I paid about $300 for it new 2 or 3 years ago. The main reason I have it is for power outages at home. At least once a year we lose power after a storm. My 3500 can run a 13K portable AC unit, my fridge and a couple lights/fans in the house. Yea, I can hear it running, but its easy to drown out with a fan or the AC running. Thankfully lots of neighbors have gens, most of which are MUCH louder than mine, so I don't feel guilty about the noise.

I love my Champion. Its well built and reliable. Starts second pull, every time. I change the oil once a year (or if we have an extended power outage and its running for a couple days, immediately after its done). I haven't used the Champion Invertors, but they sure do seem pretty nice. Specs on par (not necessarily equal... but darn close) to a pair of Honda or Yamaha 2000I gens for half the price. I would give that sucker a real hard look if I was in the market for one again.

Boliy 3000 watt continuous rating. 75-78 lbs and much lighter than anything out there. I run mine 8-10 hrs day and it is very quiet. I have had mine 4 years and have over 1000 hours on it with no problems! About 7 fellow campers in my ATV club have replaced there noisy non-inverter generators with same brand...no issues! Got mine from bottomlinetrading dot com for $1000 shipped.

http://www.bottomlinetrading.com/BOLIYCOMPARE.html

We don't usually need ac so went with a Honda 2000. Luckily my mom gifted me it for my birthday two years ago.

I started out with a Yamaha 3600W with remote control. I soon found that it takes one of my John Deere tractors to load it in and out of the truck bed and once at the campground I have no way to unload it if I want to go somewhere in the truck. I now have the Honda's with the parallel kit. They start easy and will run my 15k A/C on econo mode. I set them behind the TT and secure them to the bumper with a security cable. I also bought the Berg extended run tank.

I highly suggest that you buy a brand that can be serviced locally (unless you can repair it yourself).

We bought the Honda 3000 and it weights 78lbs and it runs everything very well. It is so darn quiet too.

I've got a Yamaha 2400 that ran the 13.5k BTU A/C in our old trailer, but it will not run the 15k BTU A/C in our new one. I really thought that it would, since when the A/C starts up, the blower starts first and the compressor is time delayed. Maybe a hard start kit is needed for the comp. We never used the gen for camping, but it was nice to know that if needed, it worked.

I went a different route. I bought a low hour Honda EV4010 watercooled RV generator and built a generator compartment for it. It's 216 lbs, but made to run for days on end.

I see too many people buying replacements for the hondas because they get stolen at large events.

Plus, All I (or my wife) have to do is hit the start button and fire it up when we need juice. It's 4000 watts, and will run everything at the same time. We have a 15K Carrier Low profile Heat Pump.

Just a different perspective. Don't get me wrong, If I went the portable route, dual Honda 2000eui's are the way to go.

I had to take a different approach here on the East side of the US. As it turns out for us camping off the power we have to really deal alot with generator run time restrictions as most all of the places we visit have such things in place. The East side of the US has little DISPERSED TYPE camping locations and it seems for us only PRIVATE locations let you get away with running your generator anytime you want to.

With this in mind I went the route to beef up my OFF_ROAD POPUP 2008 trailer with smart mode charging converter/charger, added more batteries, and changed out all incandescent 12VDC bulbs to LED boards.

Then we had to decide what we wanted to run appliance wise that would match up with our installed battery banks which of course does not include Air Conditioning and running some of the very high wattage items like the Microwave (we run a small manual type white faced microwave from WALMART with good success when camping off the power grid).

With my 255AH battery bank we can do almost everything we do at regular electric camp sites including running all the interior and outside lights we want, watch HDTV and play DVDs every night, run my NOAH WX Alert radio, computer and cell phone chargers, fans, even an occasional lap electric blanket. I also get to play some with my Ham Radio hobby... This includes all of the parasitic items the trailer requires to have on 24/7 when camping.


All of this planned out to allow us to to camp one day/night off the batteries and then connect our trailer shore power cable directly to the 2KW Honda EU2000i sitting secured in the tail gate corners of my truck bed which is also locked with a FOLD-A-COVER bed cover. Using the smart mode technology PD9260C converter/charger I can re-charge my batteries to their 90% charge state in a quick three hour generator run time each morning when allowed to run our generator. My 2KW Honda Generator runs very quiet sitting on the tail gate of my Truck when being used.


Been doing this now since 2009 and it works out very success for us camping off the power grids around the high country here on the east side of the US.

These are just some of the things we campers here on the East side of the US have to put up with. When I lived in the Arizona area in the late 60s early 70s it was no problem running a generator anywhere we wanted to. We tent camped all over the high country of Arizona with our Jeep buddies pulling util trailers loaded up with our Tent camping supplies.

This is a google photo of how we all looked back in those days


My camping off the power grid story...
Roy Ken

I've owned about every gen out there at one time or another and none exceed the Honda 3k-is. The quietest gen out there except for the Yamaha 1000. Quieter than my Honda 2k.

Runs for like 20hrs at 1/4 load. I just leave it in the back of my pickup and all out takes is a twist of the key to start, no yanking on the rope for the wife. Electric start is great.

I much prefer it over my Honda 2k except for the weight although the smaller is a great little generator we use alot when it's not hot out as it runs everything except the air, but does run the air fan.

A lot of gens won't run the air when it's over 90 degrees out like the Yamaha 4kES I had. Some only run a couple hours before having to fill up again like the Champion I had. My Onan was good but noisier than my Honda and temperimental... My Generac 4k is a solid reliable generator but to loud.