Generator option... yes or no...

[Rovobay]

It has been a rough couple months for me. I haven't been on here in so long. I am need to get my butt going on my conversion again. as you can see in my build thread (lacking as of late!!!) I have a roof top AC unit. I want a generator that will power it and charge my batteries as I plan to be off the grid most of the time. what do you all think of this? https://www.costco.com/Firman-Power-...100367440.html

I am super basic and just might need the a/c in the hottest of days and to top off my battery system. seems like a better route than 2 parallel hondas (spendy), but still small enough to handle solo....

I am getting back in the saddle and plan to be on here much more. miss you guys and all your insight. got a lot of build threads to catch up on too!

[david.dgeorge07]

Looks good for the price. Looks like the same design as my champion. Mine has remote start, which seems like a luxury at first, but now I can’t imagine not having it.

[Booyah45828]

Make sure 2900 running watts will power your rooftop ac.

Most of the larger and older ac units require more, so that generator wouldn't be enough. And if it is enough, I wouldn't plan on running anything else with it.

I don't know, at the end of the day, you could always buy it and try. But I'd personally go with a larger unit

[Rovobay]

Originally Posted by david.dgeorge07

Looks good for the price. Looks like the same design as my champion. Mine has remote start, which seems like a luxury at first, but now I can’t imagine not having it.

thanks, do you remember where and what price you got it for?

[Rovobay]

Originally Posted by Booyah45828

Make sure 2900 running watts will power your rooftop ac.

Most of the larger and older ac units require more so that generator wouldn't be enough. And if it is enough, I wouldn't plan on running anything else with it.

I don't know, at the end of the day, you could always buy it and try. But I'd personally go with a larger unit

Nice thing about Costco is there awesome return policies... I wouldn't be powering anything else. my build is going to be fairly basic.

[Booyah45828]

My build is simple in the same way. But you'll find that:

AC will be used more then you originally thought.

It's no fun filling a generator up in the middle of the night in your skivvies.

Larger generators come with larger fuel tanks.

Everything works better when it's not maxed out.

At least that's what I found out. I tried to run an older 15k btu rooftop air unit with a honda eb3000. It did it, but just barely, and ran out of fuel after 5 hours.

We then upgraded to a briggs & stratton 6250. That allowed us to run the genny all night no problems. We could also run a small trickle charger on the bus batteries as well to keep them charged (played the radio all day). That worked pretty well.

Final upgrade is an onboard diesel generator. It has a 6kw ac power and 40 amp dc alternator. Costly, but I'd never go back to what I had.

[leadsled01]

My brother bought that generator and loves it. Runs his A/C just fine.

[david.dgeorge07]

Mine will run both my mini splits, but not much else, or one mini split and most of anything else I would need.

If I were starting from scratch I would probably try to get 4kw or so, but this size works for me well enough that I’m not rushing to change anything. Bigger units have bigger tanks but they also have a higher burn rate generally even at idle, so you do pay more per KWH in fuel with bigger units and may not see a significantly longer run time.

Check the specs if run time is critical and remember that mini splits are more generator friendly than a typical roof top RV unit.