Genset Input Please

[bottleinamessage]

I have a FP 4.2. At the time it was the smallest and I had very limited space for one.
I'm pretty satisfied with it. There were a few surprises I discovered after I bought it.
It does not have a battery charger to replenish it's dedicated battery, which not only starts it up but provides juice to the remote 12V fuel pump. The fresh water cooling only applies to the engine, not the electric generation unit. It doesn't have an oil filter. Manual says to remove and clean the oil strainer at about 500 hours. That's not an easy thing to do as you have to raise the assembly out of the sound shield to access it. All things considered, if I had to do it again, I'd seriously look at the Honda's. I've seen a couple installations where they have been permanently mounted with the exhaust plumbed overboard.

[btrayfors]

Originally Posted by cabo_sailor

Thanks Bill,

That's what I was looking for. From the sound of your post it would seem that gen was quite to others but a bit noisy on board. Was it engine noise or vibration? The Mastervolt does have an optional steel mounting plate with rubber feet to help absorb some of the vibration of a 1 lung diesel.

The vibration isn't bad at all. But my engine room isn't very well insulated, so it's just some noise that could be further supressed. Not bad, but not quiet, either :-)

Bill

[The Mons]

We've had a NextGen 3.5 for four years. Ours does not have the voltage regulator on it. We did purchase the sound shield (a well made necessity). We mostly use it to charge the batteries and run our 16K Mermaid aircon. Our marina did not have electricity for two months after Ike, so it was running almost every day.

The installation was a tight fit, we had to remove our locker lid to get it in vertically. We also had to temporarily remove the top sound shield to get it in. I thought incorrectly that the sound shield would be sufficient. I ended up having to also sound proof the cockpit locker and lid with 1 inch material before I was reasonably happy with the sound level. Outside of the boat, it is very quiet with a centek inline waterlift muffler. In the cockpit you mostly only hear the hot air extraction blower. The vibration is not bothersome.

It does not have a replaceable oil filter . Instead, there is a fine mesh basket. It also does not have an alternator or battery charger . The solenoid and fuel pump run off of your 12 volt system. This means that you must have a charger running. This is not really a problem unless you are not also charging your batteries at the same time. Make sure that you have more than one battery charger on board. On a recent trip, both our main engine and our 60 AMP battery charger were disabled . Even though we had a functioning generator, we could not recharge our batteries.

The only problem we have had is that some devices like battery chargers are sensitive to the voltage fluctuation on startup . We have to temporarily run our water heater to stabilize the genset so that the charger will function.

We asked NextGen why they didn't tell us about the voltage regulator when we purchased the system. They said that it introduced additional reliability problems. They also said that the generator / battery charger issue did not have any particular patterns. That is sometimes the generator would work with an identical charger on one boat and not another.

We would buy another.

[cabo_sailor]

Thanks,

From what I'm seeing I'm starting to lean toward the NexGen. Price is one reason, but the low profile would mean I might be able to squeeze past it into the lazarette. With access to the lazarette service would be easier and I would still retain some accessible storage space for low weight items such as fenders, spare lines, parts, etc.

As per suggestion I also looked up Northern Lights, Onan, and Westerbeke but physically they are too big and/or too heavy.

Some disassembly will be necessary to get the rascal thru the hatch but the NexGen rep assurred me that only a handful of bolts have to be removed to allow reasonable passage.

I'm not too thrilled by the external blower but I guess it comes under the heading of compromise.

[Hudson Force]

We have had our Next Generation 7KW for eight years with 4,000 hrs. and no problems. Our only maintenance has been the standard oil changes, zincs & valve adjustments. 'Love the Kubota! 'take care and joy, Aythya crew