Portable Generators

[R MATTA]

Thinking about getting a portable generator; as far as quiet running generators it seems like the Honda and the Yamaha 2000 are the better ones. So now I have it narrowed down to 2. Does anyone out there have any experience with these, what is prefered by other boaters?

[cunuck]

most of the gen i see used are honda and that is the one I will buy this year ( quiet)

[hybris1]

I have a Honda 2000. I put it on the back swim deck. It powers everything on my boat just not all at once. No microwave, stove, water heater, and A/C at the same time. It does not like to start the A/C on eco mode. Eco mode is the mode that slows it down when the demand is low. Some boat A/C work fine on Honda 2Ks. I just start the A/C and then switch mode. Set the A/C to max so that it doesn't cycle on/off. I think I can put an inductor in line and that will help. I have not tried that yet. As far as noise, I put it on the rear swim deck and it is not bad. There is a low level hum from the whole boat vibrating though. I have not tried to run it during the night yet.

[hybris1]

This is the research I have done so far. Xantrex has a white paper on running A/C and refrigerator compressors on an inverter. Since the Honda 2K is an inverter running on a generator, I thought this was appropriate. I hope the link works because the tiny 103k .pdf was too big to post.

http://www.xantrex.com/web/id/730/docserve.aspx

And the referenced inductor:

http://www.newark.com/52F9522/suppli...equestid=69471

[Tommyfmu]

We use the 2000EUI Honda as well and have no other comments further to above, except that in researching others experiences, they all said the Honda was the most reliable for startup (2 or 3 pulls), while all other brands were harder to get going comparatively, and that's why we went with it. New from Mayberry's $890. with shipping last year. We also backfeed the house during blackouts for essentials like 1 A/C, fridges/freezer and Ninendo Wii lol.