Generator Covers

I'm not a fan of 'protecting' my generators from sun and rain, and so far have no reason to regret it.

On the little boat we used a Honda EU1000i for air conditioning (6,000 BTU window unit), cooking (George Forman cooker), heat (750 watt electric heater), small microwave, coffee maker and occasional power tool or hairdryer, albeit one at a time. I mounted the generator on the back of the boat and ran it at anchor, underway and in the parking lot while Wallydocking (sleeping aboard on land) day or night, sun or rain (and even snow). The only time I worried about contaminating it was underway, especially in salt water, so it got a sunbrella bib.

The 1000i's bigger brother, a 2000i was mounted on the back hitch of the van to power an R2D2 unit for stealth camping on the road.

I made a cover for the 2000i so the generator was out of sight when not in use. We often ran the generator while driving, even in the rain, without the cover. The van's air conditioner was not up to par at idle speeds while in traffic jams.

Our biggest "i" series, the 3000i was originally mounted on the tongue of the camping trailer. It too got a plain cover to keep it out of sight. The cover was 3/8" ply with aluminum angle corners. I got tired of lifting the box to put gas in it, so I put a hatch on top for easy filling.

Then I put a grill in the front of the box to get to see the indicator lights.

Then I decided to try fitting out the box to be able to stay in place while the generator was running. I put a grill in for the exhaust, and glued a foam band to the inside of the box so when the box was in place, the foam separated the front (intake) and exhaust sides of the generator. I also put a sheet metal cowl in the box above the exhaust. You can see the foam (a little left of center coming down from the arch) as well as the metal cowl (arch) in this pic.

So now she is ready...

well, except for a port to yank the cord when the battery is dead.

The brass thing under the exhaust grill is an old windup heat detector. They were in every room of the hose when we bought it. You wind it up and when the temp gets to a certain point, the bell clangs to wake the dead. It's never gone off.

With the success of the 3000i, I want back to try to use the cover on the 2000i while it was running. I fully opened up the back of the box and put ports in the box where the generator had vents. I didn't plan to start the generator with the cover on, I'd remove the cover, get the generator going and then replace the cover.

The openings are all covered over now because the 2000i had trouble getting the air conditioner compressor running again after it had cycled a couple times. Even without the cover, the generator occasionally had trouble with the R2D2 unit in the van.  R2D2 is the roll around portable air conditioner opposite the wheelchair in the back of the van.

 I decided that it was too much trouble taking the box off for the restart, and if I opened the box up any more for better cooling/circulation it wouldn't serve it's purpose of hiding the generator while we were away from the van.

But, in all fairness, once we went to the window unit in the van the 2000i never gave us a bit of trouble, and I haven't since tried running the generator with the cover on.