Generator hooked up efficiency ?

I might suggest you pick up kill-a-watt and start going through turning stuff off. There is no way that gen should be bogging down given your description of the loads

If I flip the breaker off on my converter, I can run my 15K BTU roof air conditioner off a single Honda Eu2000i. Flip the breaker back on, and the Honda goes into overload, so it is definitely a draw.

With the 4500W unit, you should be more than fine.

That size generator should run your roof A/C just fine.

Yes you should be able to run the air conditioner without trouble. Maybe both the small window air conditioners but probably not all three. TV, lights, water pump, computer are about nothing. Need to watch the microwave, electric kitchen appliances, and keep the hair drier on medium or low. Worst case you need to turn something off and manage your power but all should work fairly well. May need a couple gas cans for extended run time.

Your converter should not draw excessive power unless the battery is allowed to get low. Even then you should be fine within an hour or two and the battery back to full charge.

Yes the Rv's onboard converter I meant to say. I was just referring to it like is it a large 'vampire' draw? Also the gen. inverter is a 4000/3500 Close to 30 amp maximum concurrent amperage draw. My trailer is a 50 amp, but has gas only water heater & no second a/c installed (although supposedly plumbed for one). From my calculations I should be able to run most things with it except possibly the mach 15 top mounted a/c. IF in the heat of summer during a possible outage I would have 2 small window mounted a/c's (again we are full timers due to cirucumstances out of our control at the moment & travel trailer was our only option for the time being). I guess mostly it will be a unplug this & turn that on game worst case scenario.

I think you are getting confused on terminology.

An inverter takes Direct Current (DC) power and converts it to Alternating Current (AC).

DC is usually (not always) battery power.
AC is your typical household power that cycles at 60 hertz.

- You can install an inverter connected to your batteries which takes the battery DC power and converts it to AC power. This is very limited as batteries can't store that much power, unless you have a massive battery bank. Other than possibly trigging the battery charger (converter in RV speak), there would be no load on the generator but unless you are drawing off the inverter, there will be minimal battery charging.
- Old style generators produce AC power directly. They would match the engine RPM to the generator head to generate the correct hertz. This would cause it to run fast even if little or no power is being drawn. Also, when you apply a heavy load, the engine will bog down for a second while it gives it more gas to get the rpm back up...this sends poor quality power out. A toaster might not care but electronics don't like it.
- Newer Inverter-Generators produce DC power and using a built in inverter immediately convert it to AC. The advantage is under light loads, they can throttle way back cutting both fuel consumption and noise. A side benefit is the power supplied is much higher quality and while you will hear the engine surge when you add a heavy load, it will tend to keep the power quality up thru the surge.

So no vampire loads.

There is no "loop" being created, so no, the generator would behave as if there were no inverter at all.

Some advanced inverters/chargers do have load support. It is a feature I love using.

Do you have a 50 amp RV? Does the generator produce 120/240 volts or just 120 volts? The effect can be different depending on how these two systems match up.

By RV inverter "eat up" electricity I am not sure if you are asking if it will drain the house battery fast and you will need to frequently recharge... or if the inverter/charger will consume much of the generator power to charge the house battery and cause the generator to run at full speed and volume.

If you post the inverter model number it will help. Do you have a propane fridge or a residential compressor fridge?

The 12 Volt Side of Life

Matt1221 wrote:
would it bog down the generator like vampire & run gen at high load all the time? Does the rv's inverter eat up electricity?

THe speed of the generator is dictate by the amount of power you are using. If you have a lot of AC appliances on, then yes, the generator will run at a higher RPM, if it's an "inverter generator".

The RV's inverter has no correlation to the generator. Did you mean the RV's Converter (which is a charger)?