Generator for camper trailer

[Mc4by]

Hi all,

Just wondering what others have in terms of generators.
We will use it to charge the camper trailer battery when there is no sun.
We have solar for the other days.

[TimE]

I have a 1 kva Yamaha, quieter than a Honda according to the specs and it does the job for me. I have 5 batteries, including the starter, in the tug and trailer. Have had occasions when camped up for 5 days and no sun, run the gennie for about 6 hours during the day charging via 2 15 amp chargers and all good. I am one of those people who HATE the noise of generators so use it rarely, but when there is a threat of warm beer there is obviously no other option! I do have 460 watts of solar so it has to be pretty crappy weather for the NOISE machine to come out ;)

I bought my gennie from Anaconda on a 25% off sale, a few years ago now, keep an eye on their website they do lots of "good" deals.

[Cuppa]

Years ago we bought a 1Kva Honda EU10i. Like TimE we hate using a gennie, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. It did come in useful once when our alternator died. We recharged the crank battery each night for several weeks until we could get a replacement alternator. It stays home now, occasionally used for powering an electric hedge trimmer as we have sufficient solar & battery storage to get through most circumstances. Gennie users can often be consider pariahs in camping areas, especially those who use them for everything & at all hours. Worst offender we've experienced - at Coronation beach, WA, had a horrendous little 2 stroke number which ran into the early hours of every morning just to power a single electric light globe! If you have a 240v charger & only use the gennie for recharging batteries during the day most people will be ok about it, especially if you say gday to them first & explain that you will need to run it for a while to charge your batteries.

[Mc4by]

We have 2 batteries and 160 watt solar panels but thought that a week of rain could see us out of power.
A small gennie to top up would be our limit.
No hair dryers or air con.