What did you buy today

[Cuppa]

I also have a little Honda Eu10i. Bought it as an impulse buy when travelling, carried all round Australia & only used it to keep the crank battery charged for a couple of weeks when the alternator died. It is probably the quietest gennie out there, but even so, in the quiet of the bush it is noticeable. When camped near others I always approached neighbours to explain I would need to run it for a while, no-one ever objected but were generally appreciative of the approach & understanding of our dilemma. Whenever we turned it off it the quiet just came flooding back! It was useful until we got a replacement alternator, but we’ve never taken it away camping since. Solar + dc to dc charging gives us all the power we need to run two fridges plus various other bits & pieces indefinitely.

Carrying a gennie is a reasonable solution for some, & bearable by those who are their camping neighbours if used with consideration. Running it at night just to power a 240v light globe is not reasonable! Running it during the day to top up a battery is far more acceptable. Note however that the 12v output that most gennies have are inadequate for battery charging, generally the voltage is insuffient to charge a battery & that is not what it is intended for. For battery charging with a gennie a 240v mains charger is generally needed.

Regarding noise, an increase in decibels does not equate to a linear increase in noise. The 67 to 72 decibels of that Ryobi gennie is not just a little louder than the likes of a Honda EU10i (52 dB), it’s a *lot* louder. The level of noise doubles for every 3 db increase! (There is more to it than that though - if interested see http://www.noisehelp.com/decibel-scale.html). This video gives a comparison between the dB of several generators - I sure wouldn’t want to be camped next to a 72dB one on full load!