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I would like folks' opinions as to where on the scale from "ill-advised" to "honestly-a-bad-idea-really-don't-do-this" this concept lies:
I will have a generator on, in or about my art car. It's a 1600w, McCulluch, fully enclosed, sorta-quiet inverter (www.northerntool.com/webapp/...00339425 ). The art car base is a big ol' cargo van the interior of which will unoccupied (not even a driver).
What I'd like to do is put the generator inside the [unoccupied] van, cut a hole through the wall and extend the exhaust line out. This will make it considerably quieter and help keep it out of the dust.
Has anyone ever done this? Has anyone ever done this and lived?
Does anyone care to suggest a better alternative?
I will have a generator on, in or about my art car. It's a 1600w, McCulluch, fully enclosed, sorta-quiet inverter (www.northerntool.com/webapp/...00339425 ). The art car base is a big ol' cargo van the interior of which will unoccupied (not even a driver).
What I'd like to do is put the generator inside the [unoccupied] van, cut a hole through the wall and extend the exhaust line out. This will make it considerably quieter and help keep it out of the dust.
Has anyone ever done this? Has anyone ever done this and lived?
Does anyone care to suggest a better alternative?
posted by:
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Minneapolis
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Mon, August 13, 2007 - 11:36 AMI'm not totally sure but I think you would want to make the exhaust line fairly large like at least a dryer vent size. I think there is something called back pressure that could be affected if the exhaust line is too small.
I did put a dryer vent line up the side of my motor home last year so it would be less noisy and stinky for my neighbors on the few occasions I turned it on.The exhaust line was about 8 feet long. You could do one a lot shorter than that.
It worked fine and the weakest link was joining the exhaust line to the exhaust pipe. A hose clamp around the crimped flexible tubing worked out fine. As long as the exhaust is being exhausted there should be plenty of air for fresh air supply. Maybe leave the vent on high with the fresh air lever selected as an extra fresh air supply. Try it out, I think the worst that would happen would be poor performance of the engine.
I have a 2" hitch on the front of my van that was used for launching boats. I am making a holder for my generator that will fit in it. Just a 2 foot long piece of 2" steel and some angle iron to fit the genny. Last year we had the genny just sitting on the deck and that worked fine as well. It was a honda ei2000 which is about 68 db on the loudness scale. With the music and everything else it was barely noticable.
Looking forward to seeing your creation!
Timbshoo
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Mon, August 13, 2007 - 10:47 PMI'd feel it would be beneficial to add another pipe for fresh air to come into the generator, similarly connected to, or nearby it's air intake/filter.
My thoughts are just in case leakage of the exhaust fill the van with fumes, you'll want the generator to have its supply of fresh air.
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Thu, August 16, 2007 - 10:09 PMFWIW I put an exhaust extension on my little 2-person gokart art car and it worked great. 150cc engine with a crummy muffler. I welded up a new exhaust line and attached a better non-Chinese store-bought muffler. After that I attached a bit of flexible exhaust line (available by the foot at muffler shops), then I routed the exhaust up the side of my art car, ending overhead. Exhaust can be seen in the photo presently at the top of this group's homepage; more deets here somewhere: www.nmpproducts.com/artcar.htm
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Tue, August 21, 2007 - 8:24 AMdon't forget - the generator is aircooled and will raise the temp inside the van a lot.
- Bart
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Thu, August 23, 2007 - 3:15 PMI have had tons of problems with generators in enclosed areas. Heat is a major issue as is exhaust and what is a real problem is the intake. When my EU3000 is in the bed of my truck with the tailgate down and the campershell open it still gets clogged up. The intake pulls in exhaust fumes and cloggs up the air filter, killing the engine.
On the Exploratorium I push "fresh" air into the generator box through an 18" filtered hole and exhaust is through a similar hole. This is all actually mounted in a box as seen at:
www.ussyellowsubmarine.com/expl...s.htm
This way, new air (I use the term new instead of "fresh" or "cool" as those words rarely apply up there) is blown across the generator evacuating heat and providing air for combustion. The fan I use is a cheap 115 V fan from Wal Mart. It has worked great for the past four years and I even use the same technique in camp to quiet the generator more and to keep it as clean as possible.
Captain Chuck
Inspiratum 2008
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Sat, September 8, 2007 - 8:41 AMFor those interested: my technique of putting the generator inside the body of the van and porting the exhaust outside worked excellently.
The interior of the cargo van is quite large so there was plenty of air for combustion - even though I had neither the windows nor the vents open. I drilled a hole in the side of the van, covered it with a small, painted welded cage on the outside (to draw attention to the skin searing hotness) and ran a short (~10") length of 1/2" copper pipe from the generator's exhaust to the port on the van. (I tried, and failed, to permanently adhere a threaded adapter to the generator's exhaust pipe so in the end a 1/2" coupler was just slipped onto the generator's exhaust pipe.)
I only ran the generator for a few hours at a time (during the hot part of the day) and it gave me no trouble (except for running out of gas a couple times). The McCulluch is fairly quiet to begin with (relatively speaking) and being inside the body of the vehicle helped reduce the noise considerably. It didn't interfere with conversation at all. When the vehicle was at rest you could feel some vibration in the floor and railings but it was quite inconsequential.
At night I moved the generator to 'round back of camp and was able to sleep inside the van without being overcome by the stink of exhaust or CO poisoning. -
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Sun, September 9, 2007 - 6:09 PMIn the couple of years that I've had an art car at burningman. I've built,driven, and maintained three vehicles.
Heart of Pork (RIP)
Ducky
Some Pig.
My thought on gennies is that if you can do without, so much the better. On the heart of pork I tried two things. First just swapping out deep cycle batteries charged during the day at camp. The second was using a high quality battery isolator and a second battery. On the Ducko I've users the battery swap method, and a gennie. On the Pig I used a gennie.
Based on that experience, I think using the cars alternator to proved power if you can get away with it is the best solution hands down.
I used the a bic75150 battery isolator from.
www.hellroaring.com/ (no affiliation)
Thing is simple and it works perfectly. You use it to isolate a secondary battery from the cars primary battery. When the engine is on the isolator allows the car to charge the secondary battery. When the car is off or the secondary battery is too low, then it disconnects the secondary battery from the system. This prevents the primary (starting) battery from being discharged. The above system worked well enough to run 300W of xmas lights off a stock 1984 Honda Accord alternator without any problems.
If more power is needed, it seems that the Boom Car nut brigade have inspired after market dealers to make higher output alternators available.
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Wed, September 12, 2007 - 5:38 PMI found that the best thing for my art cars has been to put in a big ass alternator. One that still charges at low RPM and has a greaater than average output. This makes things a little more simple, you just run everything off DC. On the other hand, It sounds like your solution worked out just fine. -
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Thu, September 13, 2007 - 2:59 PMIf you want your sound loud enough to be heard, a 150A alternator doesn't come close. Our 6.5K Gennie on the Nexus Mobil Landfill barely did the trick.
All depends on your needs though. A few years ago there was a Ford Ranchero based airplane with solar 'wings' running a 3000 watt system that sounded fantastic. -
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Re: Generator Exhaust Extension
Thu, September 13, 2007 - 6:12 PMYeah, with all the lights on the damn thing I had to make a sacrifice on the stereo end. It ended up being just loud enough for the people on board to hear, which turned out just fine. You know how people up there are: STOP! OK go. WAIT STOP! I wouldn't want people dragging behind the vehicle because I can't hear them screaming that they want off :)
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