Is the twist lock plug really 120V? For some reason I thought a genny this size would have a 220-240V outlet.
Balance of cost versus noise I'm guessing. You don't see many 3kw onboards, they're usually bigger. Bigger inverter setups aren't cheap. I used a 7kw Honda inverter for ours one weekend and it absolutely kicked ass for a portable to the point where I want one but it was not remotely as good as the 12.5kw onboard water cooled diesel - and it wasn't any quieter.
I've got a measly 4kw Onan, high RPM air cooled gas job, an inverter that can draw off the batt bank to help with surges would be much quieter, potentially lighter... absolutely use less fuel, would make for a nice upgrade to my setup.
Put a pair of 2kw inverters together and not sure you'd be ahead of the game - along with them not drawing off the fuel tank in the rv. There is also a lot to be said for the simplicity of the old school onan built ins.
If you really want to know if a generator is quiet, go to a RV show and check out the generator vendors. I wish I could remember what model Cummins/Onan I heard or, more correctly, didn't hear when I visited their booth at the Hershey RV show. If I had to guess, I'd say it was 5K+ watts, but I can't remember if it was diesel or gasoline. The rep cranked it up and I actually had to lean into it to hear it over the din of pedestrian show gawkers. As we spoke, he wound it up to full output. I had to be within five feet to recognize where any sound was coming from over the crowd, ten feet away and it disappeared. To say it was amazing doesn't do it justice. It was, however, quite expensive...same ballpark as the Honda 7000.
That's the one I used. Unfortunately the local store does not have them in stock. So I had to pay $25 shipping. Still saves me a 60 mile R/T
Large gatherings of people can actually be rather loud. You just don't realize it, until you try to talk to some people. I'm sure the generator, in an empty location, would sound a little louder. Then you would notice it because it was the only thing making noise.
I literally had to get my ear within a foot to hear it. At arms reach, touching it confirmed it was running at idle. As far as a crowd's noise level, I hear ya.
So I got a real conundrum here, assuming my Champion 3500 wasn't socially acceptable any more I was going to jump on this HB deal but then I figured buy once, cry once and came across this. https://www.briggsandstratton.com/na/en_us/product-catalog/generators/portable-generators/q6500-quietpower-series-inverter-generator.html Anybody have one of these? The one thing that threw me off is at 66Db it's not that much quieter than the Champ3500 so at this point I'm wondering why I'm buying a generator in the first place... The Westinghouse @hotnail recommended seems nice but I can't fine one in stock and I'm not buying a genny over amazon.
I have had 3 different Briggs generators of the Quiet Power series. I almost bought the one 418 has linked but my hangup was they said it is "not recommended for RV use" which I took to mean maybe it is not as quiet as the others?? I had a 2000 and 2 3000 watt ones and all seemed solid. Here's the link I saw the info https://www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/Briggs-&-Stratton-30675-Portable-Generator/p75239.html
Being a guy that believes in buying quality tools, hardware, etc and only thing i usually get at HF are the little misc odd n ends. To put it in perspective I needed a router table to do some basic stuff that I’ll probably use a couple times and I spent the extra $120 on a Bosch one that was on sale vs the $110 one at Hf which is probably would do the job just as good. That being said I’d buy one of these generators. Their predator stuff has come leaps and bounds in quality etc. is it a Honda? No. But I’ve also seen Honda’s fail. Not to mention for $800 I’d buy this and a backup 2000 still under cost of a Honda. Make sure you put non eth gas in the Honda, start it once and a while and leave it as a spare.
the newer eu2200 have the fuel & power switch seperated so you can run the fuel out of the carb. You can retrofit the older ones with a toggle switch to do the same. Not too familiar with the larger units. Id like to see if you can parallel different brands.
I have this generator, but I've barely used it yet. I've played around with it some and it seems good and quiet enough. I plan on using it for a river lot without power and odd jobs since I don't race anymore. I think it would have worked well at the track and I wish I would have had it then. Really don't have enough time with it to give you the it's wonderful or it's a huge piece of crap review?! Not sure how this helped you any, but there you have it!
I guess what I'm wondering the most is if it's quiet enough to run at night at the track. I've got decent amount of cord to run to my toyhauler but some places you're not gonna have enough cord to get away from everybody.
The construction crew at my work has a couple of them that they use daily and they had nothing but positive things to say about them. They had one running some grinders and it seemed just as quiet to me as my Yamaha 2400. However I’m not the type to nitpick shit, I’d welcome any pit neighbor running one all weekend.
