camper van and Generators

Groan....

John; questions very much like this are frequently asked (if this site had an FAQ it wouldn't be an issue) if you do a search on the archives - it'll probably take you 3 or 4 hours to, properly, go through all the stuff which comes up - and then come back and ask more specific questions you'll get better answers.

"Which battery should I buy?" - I'll answer Brand X, someone else will say he's had 22 Brand Ys for the past 40 years and they are still perfect, another will reply that Brand Y is rubbish and he's had three fail in the past 12 months....

Mike Harding

With generators, work out what your power useage requirements are then work out who provide a generator to meet those needs and start the research into price, features, etc...There are a variety of brands and different price ranges so you need to work out which one meets your need and what you can afford.

I won't even go near batteries.....

Try in this area of the site:

Power and Electrics

That is not a bad starting point.

Cheers

Pete

John, I'll make some assumptions and give you the 'benefit' of my experience.
Being a Jayco Eagle, air conditioning is probably not an issue. For all your needs, a 1KVA generator should be plenty.
If that's right, I reckon you should go for one of the big well established brands. Honda is the clear leader, but Yamaha is good as well I'd suggest. A couple of years ago, I was in the market for a generator. Back then, the big brands had little competition, so were very expensive. I think a 1KVA Honda was around $1,600 and a 2KVA was around $2,200. I didn't want to spend that much on something that would not get a lot of use, so bought a Kipor for about $800. After 15 months, it died. Although it only had a 12 month warranty, the importer (Primus) repaired it for me free of charge - no problem there. But after 2 years it died again while we we camped near Borroloola in NT. Not many generator repairers up there!

When we got home, I bit the bullit and bought a Honda. Over that time, the 1KVA Honda had come down to about $1250 and the 2KVA to $1,800. And the Honda has a 4 year warranty. I don't know about Yamaha, but I suspect they have stayed competitive with Honda. Sometimes you save money by spending a bit more.

For batteries in a camper, I reckon you can't go past AGMs. Tough, maint free, low self discharge, quick to charge. Read more about them here.
www.fridge-and-solar.net/agm.htm
As for size, well you need to know what you will run off it. But a good rule of thumb is to get the biggest one you can afford and have the space and weight capacity to carry.

If you plan to charge the battery off the generator, you will need a charger. Get one of the newer multi stage chargers. Heaps of threads on these on this forum. Also some info on them on the link I gave above. For charging off gennie, I'd get at least a 15 Amp (25 Amp would be better) to pump charge into the battery as quickly as possible to reduce generator running time. Otherwise, if charging when you have access to 240V, a 7 Amp charger would be enough to charge overnight.
Norm C

Thank you Norm C from QLD you advise has been valuable and informative to me for I have little experience in these thing you information has help me a great deal thanks mate

G'day John, In this day and age why bother with generators, go for a good solar panel or two, couple of batteries say 100amp/h Remcos a decent 20-25 amp regulator, bobs your uncle power on tap.
We have a Jayco Eagle set up for off road with a set up as above, in fact we're on the road now, batteries full. I'm using the computer and my wife is playing cards under light at the other end of the van.
Batteries charge while we travel! There is no noise of any gennies here and that is something worth considering.

andy

No doubt that the best generator is one that makes NO sound,,,, ;-)

Cheers,

Mark

We have a Jayco outback, I have a chinese 4 stroke 750 watt generator (Yanmar) and an 80 A/h sealed calcium deep cycle battery.

Using the plug cut off the bed end light, I have a twin fluro light with magnets that sticks to small peices of galv glued to the ceiling.. One above the sink, the other above the table. We move the light depending what is happening...cooking or eating. (It's so simple you'd think Jayco could do it! But no!)

We always turn off the lights when we are not in the camper and I use small garden solar lights around the camp site. Once it's bed time I use a small 3LED light from Bunnings which sits next to the bed and is easily reached in the dark without falling out of bed.

We can run on one battery without using the gennie for a week.

When the gennie is running we have a bread maker and battery charger for the car.

We do not have kids.

Cheers,

MUZZ

John,

Like so many other I decided to step away from the generator for the reason that many people don't appreciate you running one in a camp.

I went solar on the Jayco and am runnning a 80W solar panel with 2 x trojan 130AH. I also get a charge off the truck whilst driving. I upgraded the Jayco setec charger as it was lacking to a xantrex and have a 750W invertor onboard. We typically camp 4-7 days, have 3 kids who love to watch DVD's before bed and i am an IT junkie, laptop, phone, gps etc yet we never seem to run short on power.

Solar may cost you more in start up but i think this is the more viable and camp friendly solution. You can always move it from camper to camper as well.

If you want to conserve a few dollars go the option of my brother, he bought a scorpion generator for the sum of $145.00 from KMART and just recently completed a 5 month trip around OZ with no problems just plenty of spark plugs. He also threw in a couple of batteries and went low budget on his power system with no problems. Have a look www.trip-around-australia.com/ drop mark a line if you want his ideas on cheap power or alternately you can get me via my members page

Wayne