Generator noise reduction

[acmclsh]

Hey all,

We have a Honda 2000i genny to keep our house batteries topped up when off the grid (non-electric campgrounds).

We hate being "those people," and I was recently thinking about building a quiet box, but in a conversion van, space is limited.  

My question here is, assuming we manage heat (fans?) and exhast, could we stick the genny into a retrofitted cooler (like, a cooler you'd put beer into)?  Seems to me like a cooler is built for this purpose what with all the layers.  

I've done a google search, and can't find anyone with a similar idea, so either I'm crazy, or a genious.  I'd love to hear from you all on which you think it is.  😄

[Grit_dog]

Gonna say your time and $ is better spent elsewhere. 
First you said primarily for topping off batteries so I was going to suggest a Honda 1k. Bit quieter and smaller and will do the job. 
But running AC like you said later, keep the 2k. 
I’ve never thought them to be loud. Assuming you’re not camping in sardine can campsites, a good long extension cord and placement of the genny goes along ways to abating “noise.”  

[StirCrazy]

the easiest way to "not be that guy" is to find a way to put enough solar on the van and work towards no noise.  gennys are nice but now you have to carry extra fuel, take it out when you want to run it and so on.  more and more campground are limiting genny hours or even going genny free.  with solar it runs all day.  first you have to do an energy audit to see how much solar you would need, what I usaly shoot for is my 24 hour use to be replaced in 4 hours ewith the solar as a minimum.

[time2rollagain]

Ok for charging the battery the first thing to review is what converter do you have and what is the charging voltage.  A few are great at 14.2+ volts, most are weak at 13.6 volts.  If the noise cannot be easily reduced at least minimize the run time by making the most of each hour the generator does run.

Please post the converter you have for best answers.

[valhalla360]

The other issue if boondocking often is batter acceptance with lead acid batteries. Once you get above 80%, the amps going into the battery start tapering off. Above 90%, its a very slow charge. So if it's a 100amp-hr battery and you have a 50amp charger, you could go from 50% to 80% charge in 30-45min. To get to 100% is going to take an additional 6-8hr.

A small/medium solar array can help. You charge to 80-90% with generator first thing in the morning and the solar has 5-6hr to slow charge until mid/late afternoon.

If you are going to do it a lot, I would look into Lithium. They will accept significant amps right up until full, so same 100amp-hr battery charging at 50amps will go from 50-100% in a little over an hour. Also, you can take lithium batteries down to 10-20% without damage, so a 100amp-hr lithium is equivalent to around 180amp-hr lead acid (lead acid start to take significant damage if you take them much below 50%.).

[acmclsh]

This is quality info!  Thanks for this!  We’d have to replace our inverter if we put in Lithium, and the van is 20 years old (though it hasn’t gone too far, and with a body job could probably go another 10 years easily).

We are in the market for a new house battery, so we may go this route yet…

Thanks so much for your feedback!  The primary use of the genny will be to keep the AC running at a nominal temp for the times we can’t take our dogs with us (Royal Tyrell Museum for example).

[StirCrazy]

you wouldn't have to touch your inverter, the converter yes but that is cheep.  

and the little bit about the primary function of the genny would be to run the AC, that little tidbit would have changed 90% of the answers you got and should have been in the original post, not "to keep the batteries topped up"  yes LiFePo4 batteries would be a great addition giving you a lot more capacity .. for examble, to get any sort of 5 year life or longer out of a lead asid deep cycle you have to keep ypur usage below 50% of the capacity.  a LifePo4 you can use all 100% and still get 4000 cycles which would be 20 years for the normal person, 10 for a power user (these are just estimats) changing the converter would be benificial either way, the converter of a 20 year old van could be deicent, but old and tired depending on use or it could be an old two stage, so going with a larger amprage converter that is Li capable will let you carge faster and more efficiently on your gen run time.  

so lets say you get two 100AH Li batteries to replace your who knows what kind of flooded battery.  so the ones that come with most trailers are 80ah batteries so 2 gives you 160 but you can only use 1/2 so 80ah capacity, the two li will give you 200ah capacity, so you can go almost 3 times longer before recharging.. also due to the lower internal resistance of Li they charge faster and more efficiently and don't have that slow aceptance phase in the top 20% like normal bateries.  another thing you can do is try find sires on the ends of row and then run the power cord into the bush away from everyone else to minimize the noise to others.  this alone might make a huge difference as honda's are usaly fairly quiet.  

[acmclsh]

My converter would be ancient.  I’m not near my rig at the moment, but I’m rolling in an original 2000 Roadtrek.

[valhalla360]

If you are just charging the batteries, unless you have a huge battery bank and a really big charger...modern inverter generators only make a low hum at low output that's often difficult to hear from the road. You are fixing a problem that doesn't exist.

Now if, you are running the air/con, electric water heater, etc..., while charging the batteries. That little 2000 will be screaming and noise reduction can be useful. I did experiment with a couple pieces of plywood just leaned against each other while running the air/con and from the road, it made a noticeable difference. If I was worried, I'm sure I could do the same with some rigid insulation that would keep the weight down (just keep it clear of the exhaust and don't block the intake).

[way2roll · Accepted solution]

Anything insulated will trap the heat from the generator. There was a guy on the forum a long time ago that posted he built a box for a generator on a food truck. But if I recall it had some elaborate fans to cool it down as well as an exhaust vent.  the Honda's are pretty quiet. Seems like if you run it during approved generator hours it's not an issue. I feel like this is a case of a solution in search of a problem. Probably why you don't see any on your searches.