Baking day! And while waiting for the bread dough to finish its first rise I went outside and serviced the generator in preparation for wood cutting which will get under way as soon as I get a round tuit. But until then at least I know the generator will start.
Put my dough in a bread pan for the second rising: 15 minutes and then another 15 while the oven warms up…
…and all the time I was watching the sky, because the oven requires many amps and the clouds rolled in just as I needed to fire it up. In fact a storm cell parked itself above the cabin and started booming just to upset Tobie …
…and my batteries.
Well, it’s not that bad – I’ve run the oven in much worse. But after all I did just test run the generator for the first time in months. May as well test run the battery charger…
…for the first time since early February, I think. Whatever. Everything still works great.
Though I’m thinking of building the generator its own stand outside the powershed. Not that it matters, especially – it’s just that parking it in the doorway every time I want to use it to charge batteries seems like more improvisation than I like to admit to. 😉
Nice to see you’re still getting use out of those towels.
Reminds me, I really need to do a test run on the big gifted power bank that’s been sitting in the corner for months. It should run my refrigerator, at least for awhile.
Hey Joel, have you ever thought of getting one of these through the wall kits to use with the generator? I have one for my tiny (9’x12′) workshop. It works great when I’m running lights and power tools. I have this arrangement because the tiny shop is too far from the house to run power too, and it’s too much of a pain to run extension cords.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/E9B07FB0-7EDF-4CF1-8D70-C1BA8AF594B6?ingress=2&visitId=3f40a5e5-b18e-422b-bb99-3c594cceff0b&ref_=ast_bln
Wow, Mike, that’s a lot of money for something so easy to build. In my case I’d need to run an extension cord through the (single layer) wall and that’s all. Probably won’t get around to even doing that, since I’m definitely not going to store the Honda on a roofed but otherwise unprotected outdoor platform and that would make its only purpose esthetic. (Pro-tip: Never run an air-cooled portable generator inside a box.)
These things cost such a ridiculous amount so they can comply with all the insane regulations surrounding electrical anything. Their bursting-at-the-seams teams of lawyers insist on making sure they can never be successfully sued if some moron-on-stilts manages to burn down his outhouse and kill his pet hamster by misapplying their gadgetry.
It costs money to maintain this phalanx, and guess who pays. Put the extension cord through the wall. I do it all the time.
Hey Joel, I didn’t really look at the price. My bad. Oh, my they have gotten pricey. The one I have is around fifteen years old, and it cost around a third of what these run now. Well, I guess if you want that made in the USA sticker, you have to pay the price.
My experience has been that among the more tactically-minded, building (and soundproofing) a ‘doghouse’ to keep your generator in while its running has some appeal. Mostly for the purpose of keeping the noise and whatnot down so the hungry neighbors don’t know you’ve got power, but a doghouse-type of small shed might make a nice ‘generator house’ for hat Honda.
I understand the appeal of soundproofing, CZ, but it’s very bad practice. Airflow is hard enough to maintain when the machine is in the open air: Put them inside and you’ll burn them up. I used to work on the “portable” generators most people use, the ones that have wheels and weigh slightly less than a Peterbilt engine, and even using them in an enclosed carport will have you dealing with seized valves inside 100 hours. The only generators I ever saw that would work inside a box are watercooled, with fans to force air through the radiators. They generally come with their own housings – and they’re still pretty loud.
If you need to deaden the operating noise of your genset, run the exhaust pipe without a muffler direct to a vented box or pipe buried in the ground, but above the water table. The surface of the box should have about four inches of loose gravel to allow fumes to make their escape while reducing the exhaust noise yo near zero, while being maintenance free.
I’ve never tried this so I can’t say for sure but exhaust pressure is really important to how well the engine works. If you restrict the exhaust you also restrict the intake.
An EU2000 is quiet enough you can talk over it in a normal voice. In Joel’s case, sound will likely carry in odd ways. It’d be easy enough to map those one day and then position the generator when running to avoid the ones that are hazardous to security.
The through-wall hookup is easy enough to do with off-the-shelf bits from the big box store, and maybe a bit from an electric supply shop. I did one for the semi-permanently parked trailer with a 1200W array on it. OTOH, doing electrical stuff isn’t a problem for me; I’ve wired more than I care to remember and passed electrical inspections when I had to get them done. (Waggles hand.) The only odd thing I had to do was to change the plug in the inlet box to a 30A 110V instead of the 220V one it shipped with.
The inlet box is probably the most expensive bit, even 6-7 years ago.
Joel, the whole point of the underground expansion chamber and vent is to allow exhaust noise reduction to near zero, but with only the restriction of a standard muffler which is far less effective at noise canceling, and is maintenance free.