Generator Help...

[Cinimod]

Perfect timing for this thread for me too - will likely do the same thing in a few months time.

And I would also heartily recommend the Smartgauge too - I will also be fitting one in addition to the existing instrumentation

 

Nick glad it is useful - can I ask you about the smart gauge - it is a £150, what is the benefit over a basic meter?

 

how do you figure on setting it all up then?

Paul - DEFINITELY NOT leaving it on the tow path - someone could feasibly come along and nick it, though they would have to connect the gas bottle or take that too! This gennie is being padlocked. As we got back to our car last night (near Midgham Lock) and found the passenger window broken not too trusting of people at the moment.

 

Our thoughts are to have it on the front deck with the gas bottle next to it. I don't think we have room for 3 bottles in the hold and the two which are in there are set for domestic use - I guess if I could have figured a way to tap off that it would be useful, but in the mean time we will just need to buy an additional bottle. Any idea on best price for 13kg near Newbury?

 

The only issue there is that the 240v input is at the back of the boat, so will need to run the power cable all the way down the side of the boat to put it in properly. (Or be suicidal and plug it in directly to a 3 pin socket at the front of the boat...)

 

I built my own generator

Very impressive if you have the know how - and I would guess you could still buy a conversion kit from Edge if you wanted to run it from LPG (adds about £150, I think) - LINKY!

How loud was it though? I am guessing that it did not have the mufflers as you have on the 20i?

 

All I ever did to it was change the oil regularly. Never even changed the spark plug..

Interesting - as Edge recommend you take it in for a £45 service every 500 hours and give it a full oil change every 100 hours. If you are going to claim on the 5yr warranty would you have to have had it regularly serviced, or could you say you did it? We are looking at running ours up to 8 hours a day I guess (normal working day!) and also have a Sterling 30AMP charger

 

Point taken about the fumes... the issue is I don't want to be filling the back deck with stuff... mind you would make it a lot shorter run to the 240v inlet - but I only have 1 very long cable...

 

OK - well thanks again for all your input... speaking of work, guess I better do some!

[rover220]

if you are going to buy another bottle, calor will want £29.99 off you plus the cost of the bottle of gas. im assuming you dont have an empty to exchange being as you said "buy" another bottle?

[Justme]

Nick glad it is useful - can I ask you about the smart gauge - it is a £150, what is the benefit over a basic meter?

 

It calculates state of charge.

Can activate a secondary item like start & stop a genny when you hit a voltage or charge level.

& I guess more too. Read all the smartguage web site & you will know.

 

Justme

[colin loach]

Nick glad it is useful - can I ask you about the smart gauge - it is a £150, what is the benefit over a basic meter?

 

 

Paul - DEFINITELY NOT leaving it on the tow path - someone could feasibly come along and nick it, though they would have to connect the gas bottle or take that too! This gennie is being padlocked. As we got back to our car last night (near Midgham Lock) and found the passenger window broken not too trusting of people at the moment.

 

Our thoughts are to have it on the front deck with the gas bottle next to it. I don't think we have room for 3 bottles in the hold and the two which are in there are set for domestic use - I guess if I could have figured a way to tap off that it would be useful, but in the mean time we will just need to buy an additional bottle. Any idea on best price for 13kg near Newbury?

 

The only issue there is that the 240v input is at the back of the boat, so will need to run the power cable all the way down the side of the boat to put it in properly. (Or be suicidal and plug it in directly to a 3 pin socket at the front of the boat...)

 

 

Very impressive if you have the know how - and I would guess you could still buy a conversion kit from Edge if you wanted to run it from LPG (adds about £150, I think) - LINKY!

How loud was it though? I am guessing that it did not have the mufflers as you have on the 20i?

 

 

Interesting - as Edge recommend you take it in for a £45 service every 500 hours and give it a full oil change every 100 hours. If you are going to claim on the 5yr warranty would you have to have had it regularly serviced, or could you say you did it? We are looking at running ours up to 8 hours a day I guess (normal working day!) and also have a Sterling 30AMP charger

 

Point taken about the fumes... the issue is I don't want to be filling the back deck with stuff... mind you would make it a lot shorter run to the 240v inlet - but I only have 1 very long cable...

 

OK - well thanks again for all your input... speaking of work, guess I better do some!

The engine was a Honda 5.5 bought from eBay brand new but badge up as a different name, the two pulleys came from chelmer bearings, then the alternator, fan belt and volt metre came from a car spares shop. the engine was 4 stroke and fairly quite.

[trigger]

Hi...

 

We have pretty much all we need running off the 12v system now...

• LCD TV (Max 5A with DVD playing)
  
• 2 x Laptops (via 12v to 19v adapters from Maplins)
  
• 1 x Wireless Internet Router (12v 1A)
  
• 2 x phone chargers (?Minimal?)
  
• 1 x Fridge... (Lots of power)...
  
• (plus the radio if that is on...)
  

 

Now - we can run this lot no problem.

But as we do not have an electric hook up we need to charge currently using the engine.

The bonus to charging using the engine is it does the hot water too, but how much fuel does the engine typically use per hour?

Drawbacks?

• The engine is pretty noisy in the boat!
  
• The engine is noisy for the neighbours
  
• I believe it is not good for the engine to run it with no load
  

 

What we are considering is a generator - now I think we have 2 options -

1. Use the genny to charge the batteries and take power as 12v only
   
2. Use the genny to supply 240v to run applicances and also the battery charge unit (which we use when on mains)
   

The issue I see is that looking at the generators their direct 12v output appears to only be about 8.5Amps tops... which I do not think is enough to charge up the batteries whilst we are using the 2 laptops and LCD TV(as a 2nd monitor) at the same time

 

Are any of these any good? Or can anyone recommend a different genny?

 

Kipor IG2000

Whole list of eBay ones...

 

ANY help in making this decision is greatly appreciated.

 

Thank

 

The other thing we are considering is 360w worth of solar panels to cover most of our needs - but this is going to attract an outlay of around £1k and does not help us if we need more power at night!

hi im new to this site , i have tried many gennys and maybe able to help , do you know you can convert a petrol genny to run on gas , less cost and less money

[Triton]

Not sure - but don't have to worry about that one now... made the decision today whilst on the phone to Edge Technology (nice chap called Chris)

 

Not sure why we delayed so long, as we knew what we wanted... just had to justify it I guess... so the decision - Drum roll - Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who helped us decide - the Honda EU20i... BUT not just a Honda EU20i, but one with the LPG conversion on it so we don't need to bother with petrol. (Or at least have the choice)

 

Apparently the gennie uses 1/3 kg of gas per KW/h of energy, so by my calcs..

at a 1/4 load which is 400w - it would use 0.13kg per hour...

 

Which at approx 20quid for a 13kg cylinder works out at - 20p per hour...

Petrol on the same load is about 0.4l per hour or approx 40p an hour

 

Given that we can save 20p an hour, that means the conversion pays for itself in 800 hours... about 100 working days...

So let's face it - that is not really the issue. For some reason it is supposed to be greener... also does not need as much servicing when running on LPG and is imperceptibly quieter!

 

The thing that made us decide is the longer running time you can get from a gas cylinder

13kg @ 1/4 load lasts about 100 hours - rather than the 10hrs for petrol!

I will be very interested to see what the ‘actual’ LPG usage figures are when you have had the generator up and running for a few bottles of gas. They look very good to me, maybe too good to be true??

 

Any way you look at it, you have still made the right choice with the EU20.

[NBMike]

Sorry for a slight hi-jack, but if a genny is decided to be the best route, where do people store the petrol, can it be stored in the gas locker legally?

 

Paul

To be strictly correct petrol should be stored in a drained locker just like the gas locker but not the gas locker.

Nothing apart from bottles and regulators should be stored in gas locker

[Cinimod]

hi im new to this site , i have tried many gennys and maybe able to help , do you know you can convert a petrol genny to run on gas , less cost and less money

To be honest - it is not so much the cost of the gas / vs. petrol, but more the convenience of the LPG in that it 'should' last a lot longer than a tank of petrol so you have to change it less...

 

I have 2 more questions from this;

1. How do you tell when the gas bottle is getting empty - apart from weight...
   
2. Does anyone think it would be possible to take a feed from the gas pipe which supplies the cooker, to also feed the gennie - i.e. T it on the front deck where there is some exposed pipe and run that to the gennie?
   

 

Thanks

[US Marines]

I have 2 more questions from this;

1. How do you tell when the gas bottle is getting empty - apart from weight...
   
2. Does anyone think it would be possible to take a feed from the gas pipe which supplies the cooker, to also feed the gennie - i.e. T it on the front deck where there is some exposed pipe and run that to the gennie?
   

 

Thanks

 

I can only answer the first one of those - not being a gas engineer or knowing anything about gas gennies etc.

 

Weight is one way, twisting it around to hear it slosh is another, tapping it gently to hear its 'ring tone' a third - and the cooker etc spluttering is the last !

 

Most people use two gas bottles which are either separate or, more conveniently, with a valve arrangement that lets you switch between the bottles. When one runs out, you switch it over and go and exchange the original one. If its a real problem, there are now new gas bottles that are made of plastic and are semi-transparent (BP Gas-Light) so you can see the level of liquid gas sloshing around in the bottle. These are also 'lightweight' bottles, said to be 50% of the weight of metal ones, so they would probably be easier getting in and out of a locker and to carry along the towpath when getting exchanged. However, they are fairly new on the market and we haven't got them, so I'm just guessing about those advantages. The link I've put here Clicky! is to a camping store and was the first that came up when I googled 'plastic gas bottle', so I'm definitey not recommending that you buy it from there, but its got a pic and an explanation which might help. Because they're new, I also don't know about the current availability of exchange bottles on the canals.

Edited October 17, 2008 by US Marines

[bottle]

There is a level meter that attaches magnetely (spelling?) to the bottle.

 

 

Sold in many caravan dealers and probably chandlers.

Edited October 17, 2008 by bottle

[Bones]

There is a level meter that attaches magnetely (spelling?) to the bottle.

 

 

Sold in many caravan dealers and probably chandlers.

How does it work?

[chris w]

How does it work?

 

It's a liquid crystal panel. Liquid crystal is very sensitive to temperature and changes colour as it gets hotter or colder. So when it's attached to the side of the gas bottle, the gas gets very cold when being drawn off (due to depressurisation) and a distinct colour change takes place on the liquid crystal from the boundary of the very cold gas as compared to the relatively warmer vapour above the gas.

 

Hope that makes sense?

 

Chris

 

PS: I find the "gaslow" meter a much better device see click here (shop around for the best price, I got mine for £12.99 but can't remember from where).

Edited October 17, 2008 by chris w

[Cinimod]

OK well I have the Honda EU20i - locked to the boat with a STURDY chain... and the gas bottle...

 

But erm... boy is it noisy! - In fact I would say it is as noisy in the boat as with the bloomin engine on, not exactly what I would call silent.

 

So what are the options? - Stick it on the tow path? Guess that may work in some places as I think the vibrations add a lot to the noise - stick it in a box - so the noise goes away from the boat? (Making sure there is plenty of air!

 

Would it work in the engine bay as long as I vent the thing through my old Makuni tube out the side of the boat???

 

I am a tad dissapointed with the noise level, I must say - good job I did not go for the kipper!

[Cinimod]

Also - it is hard work to get it going - does anyone else have a gennie on LPG and have any tips for easy starting!