Wandering Free.com

Rv – Motorhome Essentials: Generators

No matter what type or style of motorhome or RV that you decide on there are a couple of things that you will need to think about taking with you on your wanderings. Weather you have the best solar panels that money can buy and a battery system to backup all the appliances that you are running, the best thing to take with you is a good quality generator.

Now there are a lot of generators on the market and many types of them as well. The most common types in rv`s and motorhomes are run on Petrol or Diesel.

Finding the right Generator for your needs:

Make sure that you consult a dealer for the best generator to choose for your needs.  One of the main things to consider is type and watt size of your generator. All you need to do, to get this right, is make a list of your equipment you are running in you motorhome and show this to youre local generator dealer and they will find the best unit to suit your needs.

But here is a rough guide to help you in the right direction. Please check the lists below for types and general uses of each of the types listed:

I have the Scorpion 2300watt pure magnet generator in my bus, it is not the quietest generator on the market but compared to the GMC there is a major difference. The 2300 watt that I have will power all LCD tvs and powertools alike. It has a 10 litre petrol tank and will give you 10 hours of running on a tank of fuel.

The motor in my scorpion in the 6.5 HP mitsubishi and this is very easy to start compared to the GMC version of the same type. I purschased mine from Repco, but there are other dealers if you dont wish to purchase from them.

Make and Types of Generators:

Some of the more well known house hold brands of generators are Honda, Dunlite, Yamaha, Scorpion and GMC.

Most of these produce the pure sine/pure magnet types.

Pure/sine wave – pure magnet Generators:

If you are going to run equipment like laptop and desktop computers, set top boxes, LED/LCD TVs, Vcr`s and DVD recorders  it is best to have what is called a pure magnet/Pure sine wave generator, without getting to technical this just means that it will give your equipment a constant power supply at 240volt.

Modified sine wave generators:

These types of generators are used primarly for fridges, rear projection tvs, power tools that are not so sensitive to a rise or fall in the voltage. Some of these types of generators have AVR (auto voltage recovery) this system will try and keep the voltage as close to 240 volts as posible, but it still not as good or as reliable as Pure sine wave.

The other thing to have with these types of generators is what’s called a uninterrupted power supply (UPS for short) this will maintain the power supply and stop any other damage being caused by the generator running out of fuel.

Using and storing the right fuel for you generator:

And that brings me to the next important thing on the list FUEL weather that be diesel or petrol, you will always want to carry at least 20 litres of either fuel handy just incase you find yourself in the middle of no where (which happens quite a lot in Australia). The containers are well marked now a days with yellow and or red.

The Red containers are for Petrol and the Yellow are for diesel.

This makes the likely hood of putting the wrong fuel in your generator or heaven forbid your RV,  much less likely.

Hope this helps you chose the right generator for youre rv-motorhome.