Suitcase generator

[Doug Rutherford]

I am looking for information on a good small generator for my 36 ft. sailboat.
What outputs are required. I have 2 - 12v group 27 house battery and one 12v sealed starter.

[tkeithlu]

Look at the small Hondas. They have about the best reputation on this forum. The EU series of inverter generators come in 1,000, 2,000, etc. wattages. The more important questions deal with where you mount it to avoid CO and where you store the gasoline.

[Doug Rutherford]

That is one name I am familiar with. I have a 30 amp shore power connection. What is the pros - cons between 1000 and 2000 watts.

[chris mac]

Originally Posted by Doug Rutherford

That is one name I am familiar with. I have a 30 amp shore power connection. What is the pros - cons between 1000 and 2000 watts.

More power!!
Seriously though, it depends on usage. We have the Honda 2200. Runs our rainman watermaker and does it well. However you can't run the battery charger or water heater at the same time. In fact any of those 3 can run by themselves off the generator, but not 2.
So look at your energy needs and go from there
I'm assuming battery charger is your main concern. So check the requirements for it.
And the 2200 has the 30 amp plugin.

[barnakiel]

Honda or Yamaha.


Bot very reliable, portable, and generally cream.


Life of about 1000 hours, more if you treat it well.


b.

[a64pilot]

Go find some of the Alaska forums that those guys run their Honda’s for almost forever, some claim several thousand hours out of them. They only complaint is in real cold weather apparently the crankcase vent freezes shut and a crankshaft seal then gets blown out and they have a mod for that of course, not that we would likely have that problem.
I put an hour meter on mine when new and it’s approaching 1000 hours and doesn’t burn a drop of oil and in fact still has it’s original spark plug.
I change its oil at 50 hours, once I ran it to the Honda recommended 100 hours but as it was coal black I decided not to do that anymore.
only maintenance mine has ever had is change the oil, I did clean the carb once, but it really didn’t need it, just had a slight stumble at min RPM, under any load and it ran fine.

The key I believe is to not overload them, a Honda will make significantly more power than it’s rated at, but it’s really screaming RPM and is noisy too.
buy the 2200, even if you only need 1000W, the 2200 will be very quiet at 1000W and the 1000 will be noisy.

I got so that I almost never ran my Diesel generator, the Honda made enough power and was so simple to service, I didn’t need the built in Diesel.

[smac999]

Why do you need a gen. Is the first question.

You don’t need air conditioning in bc. Which is the #1 reason for needing a gen.

How is this boat used. Docked / anchored. Etc.

[tkeithlu]

"The key I believe is to not overload them, a Honda will make significantly more power than it’s rated at, but it’s really screaming RPM and is noisy too."

Uh, A64pilot, did you really mean to say that the RPM changes with load?

[RickG]

We just turned over 1,000 hours on my Honda 2000. The only problem I have is that the oil switch has gotten twitchy; time to replace that part.

Cheers, RickG