Fieldcraft Generators

[aslrookie]

I am looking for feedback/suggestions on a rechargeable generator. My wife and I enjoy camping, and it would be nice to recharge electronics, power a coffee maker and etc. Also, we’ve had days during cold winters where the power is off. Either because some idiot crashed into the power supply or just the shear cold weather.

It would be nice to power a space heater for those occasions to at least have one heated room until power comes back on. For that matter even powering a heated blanket so we could comfortably winter camp when there’s no bugs.

I am assuming that would require a 1500watt or bigger generator for this. Basically, an overlanding/home emergency use generator.

 

[Eli17L]

I have 5 generators 2000 to 50000 and I am amazed that i use a Honda 2000 99% of the time. I might suggest a 3000 if you plan on running a window unit in the summer as that's the only time I have to decide what I will be powering up or if I want to deal with a bigger generator during a power failure.

 

[aslrookie]

Isn’t that a gas generator?

 

[Eli17L]

Yes.. Sorry read you post as want a generator to recharge etc.
I have built my own battery backup units so i dont know what is commercially available.
I only use the BUs for electronics at this point and a marine battery to power a cpap during a power failure.
I can't imagine what size you would need to power a space heater.

 

[Blutroop]

Go propane with the heater and coffee maker and it will be a lot more efficient then converting gas to electricity then converting electricity to heat.
Ryobi has a little inverter generator that will run off those little disposable propane tanks and they won’t ruin your carberator from sitting like gas will.

 

[theLBC]

look at inverter generators (small and light, can run on propane).

 

[Gunfighter14e2]

Kerosene, stoves an heaters work perfect for cooking & heating. Inverter w/a extra battery you can recharge from your car/truck will take care of electronic recharges w/o issue. The following link has lots of good Kerosene stuff. I've a 2x7K btu cook stove as well as the 14K btu stove an oven combo.

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Kerosene was used a lot in this country well into the 60's in many places. For what may be coming is why I when back to it, as Kero is easy to get around here so I keep 200+ gallon all the time. Plus they will burn diesel in a pinch.

 

[Jefe's Dope]

So you need batteries? You're gonna need A LOT of batteries to power any space heater or coffee maker, let alone both. Anything with a heating coil is going to use a lot of juice. Usually better off getting a gas/propane heated unit.

Heater Buddy or the Big Buddy for a space heater. Runs on Coleman style propane camping cylinders and is safe to use indoors. You can also get a hookup to connect to your BBQ/Grill propane tanks if needed.

Add another battery to your vehicle and you should have more than enough to recharge all your devices and not worry about killing your single battery. Add an isolation switch and you wouldn't be able to discharge the primary battery at all. Or they sell Lipo battery packs that are powerful enough to jump start a diesel truck but small enough to keep in your center console. These will have a lot of reserve juice for recharging your devices.

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[HeavyAssault]

Goal Zero Lithium with a solar panel. Maybe that would work??

 

[Lowdown3]

We've been producing our own power for 20 years now.

Anything with a heating element will rob you blind as mentioned. Biggest draws in a house are usually electric water heater and electric stove/oven.

Back when we were first getting started and only had 1.6KW of solar I would sweat making coffee in the morning if we had a couple days of rain before and the batteries were low. Often times early on would fire the diesel generator and top off the battery bank first thing in the am before the sun started hitting the panels. Everything got a lot easier when we got to 5KW in solar.

 

[HeavyAssault]

5KW is nice but with what size battery bank??

 

[Lowdown3]

24 L16s currently. Have run as many as 28. Originally it was just 20

It's a 24 volt system. Old skewl setup, no grid tie.

My first panels were $6. a watt if that tells you something

 

[HeavyAssault]

So how does the math work to give total amp hours? 6v x 4= 24v....Amp hour rating x 4 = A ..... A x 24 batteries = B (total amp hours)

Is that right??

 

[HeavyAssault]

Asking most of this as an idea towards a new build including the addition of solar system with battery bank/Power Wall (of sorts) compared to a fuel generator based system.

 

[BullGear]

The Honda 2000 is quiet and will do what you want. It can run 10 feet from your tent/camper and you can talk normally and not get a headache from the usual generator noise.

 

[Lowdown3]

Heavy- off the top of my head IIRC the L16s are 350 amp hours. You can run numbers but ideally you won't be drawing them down much.

Your inverter charger will have a low voltage disconnect (LVD) setting. They usually come with a crazy low number, I think our Trace and later our Outback was both around 22 volts.

After replacing my first battery bank I up'ed our LVD to 23.2 volts. This way we wouldn't have any big draw downs. My first bank I only got a couple years out of, my 2nd bank we got 8 year out of.

 

[Austan]

We like to camp also and a few years ago I put together a solar generator using recycled 18650 batteries paired with a 100 watt panel. It does what expected and I use it regularly around the house to charge devices. Most often I charge smaller battery packs that get used by the wife and kids wherever they are sitting. I have it set up to hold the 300 watt inverter inside the box to take out and use as needed. It gets used to charge a couple laptops and run a tv.

More recently, I put together an off grid solar setup for our camper which will now be used for an off grid cabin we have been working on. 400ah of lifepo4 storage and a 2200 watt 12v inverter paired with 400 watts of panels. I brought the setup with us for 4th of July camping to test it out and I'm happy enough with it. It's a work in progress so I have to add some items yet. The battery prices have fallen considerably in the last couple months and I'm seriously considering doubling my storage capacity and switching to 24v, possibly even switching to LTO for the cabin to leave them without worry during the winter.