Honda 20i Generator for caravan

Submitted: Sunday, Apr 15, 2012 at 16:38
ThreadID: 94915 Views:13581 Replies:4 FollowUps:19
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Hi all should probably not say this but I am a sparky by trade and did my home work on the Honda 20i to use with my caravan.
Like a lot of people I purchased a Honda 20i generator to use while I am off road to run the caravan power but mainly the air conditioner and a as a consequence I have found that the Honda did indeed struggle to run the whole load of the caravan and on investigation the air conditioner was well under the generators rated output but still would not run the whole load of the caravan, to give the whole picture you have to look at the whole load and in my case the caravan has the following:
184 litre Fridge Freezer
Constant potential charger for the 200 amp hour battery bank
Air Conditioner
Add all of these together and you will come up with a load that exceeds the output of the 20i, with my caravan it is easy to get rid of the load of the fridge and the battery charger by simply turning off the circuit breaker for that circuit.
Fridge auto changes to gas and batteries are being charged by the solar panels, no problem.
OK then on a 35 degree day run the generator turn on air conditioner and the generator still went into over load what the ???
Next I looked at the size and length of my extension lead, lead is a 2.5mm squared, (capable of 15amps) but was 33 metres long (to keep the generator away from the caravan and also those caravan parks that have power poles in bleep e positions), so looked at the volt drop and was surprised at the volt drop over that length.
So run the caravan on a 7 metre 2.5mm squared extension lead on 35 degree day for 6 hours no problem and on Eco Throttle.
Basically keep all the load to just the Air Conditioner use a short extension lead from the generator to the caravan and all should be good.
Happy touring
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