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Portable Generator question

12K views 35 replies 17 participants last post by  greg.hadaller 
#1 ·
It seems a lot of cruisers are using portable generators to help charge their house bank while at anchor. I'm considering the purchase of a Honda 2000 to charge my house bank.

I have 55 amp alternator, a 30 amp shore power system, a house charger (120v, 25 amp), and a 450 AH battery bank. Can I plug the generator into my shore power input and charge up my house bank in this way?

The Honda spec's say it puts out a max of about 17 amps. Will my 25 amp house charger run OK with this setup?

We are 1/3 of the way into a 6 month trip to the Bahamas and back ( having a GREAT time BTW).

Thanks,
Mark
 
#32 ·
The portable Generators, like the Honda 1000 are inexpensive enough that you really shouldn't bother futzing with a kludge like that.
 
#33 ·
I have a Honda 2000 that I was thinking about plugging shorepower into to keep batteries up since I run the engine a little as possible. I keep the boat on a mooring and mostly anchor when travelling and have 2 house X110ah ea with Freedom charger/inverter and Link remote panel that can limit draw in the Honda.
The Honda 2000 has a floating neutral and I read somewhere that this situation is a problem on boats if you plug in shorepower. I can't remember if it was 110v danger or corrosion risks.
Need to do some research I guess unless anyone here knows what that's all about???

Thanks
 
#34 ·
Warmbeer-

Should work just fine, since many people do just that with the little Honda generators.
 
#35 ·
The guy anchored next to me had his Mastervolt genset pulled for repair. He bought a Honda to keep his fridge, chargers.etc runningtwo weeks ago - it was alot cheaper than putting in to a marina while his Mastervolt is repaired. It is a little noisy, however.
 
#36 ·
We use a Honda 1000 generator plugged into our shorepower outlet feeding our ProSine inverter/charger. Works great. The Honda pumps in 32 amps, continuously for at least three hours (the longest we've tried). Our 120 amp charger lets me limit the amps it pulls from the generator by configuring a 'breaker size' on the setup panel -- not sure how effective this setup would be without that ability, as if the 'breaker size' is set too high, the Honda pops its circuit breaker.

Note that our Honda has DC output at 8 amps, which works fine, but why settle for 8 when you can get 32 via AC output and a charger? Not sure why Honda restricts it to 8 amps, when clearly more power is available.
 
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