School me on travel trailer living

[retired jerry]

I have one of those little Honda generators. Pretty quiet. Runs many hours on a tank of gas.

I have the 1000W version which is quieter, but not enough watts to power something like the microwave or coffee maker.

I have a solar panel but it doesn't provide enough power to do much. It would take like 50 hours to charge up a battery. Maybe a week.

[Lumpy]

I'll be installing as many PVs as I can afford, and charging batteries with a good controller. Will also need a good inverter/converter. I'll probably use golf cart batteries for storage. Lots of options available.

[kelkev]

I'm not into the RV world myself, but I've camped next to plenty of them. One way to be a good RV neighbor in a campground where you're near tent campers is to run your generator VERY little, and definitely not too early or too late in the day. Nothing ruins a camping trip faster than listening to an obnoxious generator running for 30+ minutes.

Amen to the generator thing. We've got a quiet Honda 2000 watt generator that gets very little use when we're camped at USFS campgrounds, mainly because we don't need it often and because I don't like running it when we have neighbors in close proximity. Even in an RV, nothing is worse than listening to somebody's generator clattering away for hours on end.

[Limey]

For our camper we got a small solar panel. Prior to that we would run the truck batteries down and have to start the noisy, smelly, diesel beast to charge them back up. We have a good inverter/converter. The longest we have camped with the solar panel is 10 days. Seems to do a fine job of keeping the battery charged. Granted, we only use the battery for lights and the radio but haven't run out of juice yet. Did run low once on an ancient battery but it recharged nicely while we were out hiking.

[Lumpy]

I'm considering a setup like this: http://www.yamahagenerators.com/EF2000i ... _combo.htm
$1800 for the combo including parallel kit and RV plug, three year warranty and extended warranty available, can be serviced by any yamaha service center, and *allegedly* the most quiet generator of it's size. Personally, I don't believe the marketing hype, I'm hoping I can find a combined Honda and Yamaha dealer that will start them up and let me be the judge.

Two generators gives me flexibility that I don't think I could have with one large unit. If I just want to make some coffee and use a laptop, one unit can be started. If I need the air conditioning, I can crank them both up.

[retired jerry]

Yamaha - 61 dB, Honda - 59 dB - slightly quieter but you probably wouldn't notice

I see a lot more people using Honda. Maybe the Yamaha is more recent? Honda is a little more expensive. Maybe it's more reliable?

I don't see logic of two generators in parallel. I guess two units are each lighter than a twice as big generator.

2000 W generator will supply 1600W? That should be enough for any normal appliance. If you wanted to run a microwave and air conditioner at the same time then 4000W would be good.

My Honda generator started "surging". I took it to dealer. They said it was unfixable - I ran it at the beach and salt water corroded it so they couldn't take it apart. I took it back home and just ran it for a few hours, surging gradually went away. Stuff from fuel gums up whatever - if you run it, new fuel will gradually disolve the gum.

The generator in my Winnebago had the same problem. Camping World charged me $100 to tell me the only way to fix it was to replace some major part for $100s. A customer in the waiting room told me to just run it for a number of hours, which worked.

A portable generator you can just run until it runs out of fuel, that will avoid the gumming problem. You can't do that with a built in generator so you have to run it for one hour, once a month (or two months?).

[Stefrobrts]

You might want to look up 'Boondocking', which is the term for camping off the grid. You'll find lots of tips there. Lots of good videos on YouTube as well. Some folks go with Composting Toilets to avoid having to hit a dump station frequently. You should watch the YouTuibe videos by Gone With the Wynns, they are fulltimers, and have a whole series on the toilet.

Good luck, if you can make what you're talking about happen, living on the road and working in the woods, more power to you! That sounds like living the dream!

[Limey]

Anyone heard if Lumpy got his business off the ground? Are you out there Lumpy? Let us know how things are going. Really curious about the nature of your business, really sounded intriguing.