A Kipor 1000 or 2000 (get good reviews, but seem to have poor electronics which break if you overload them, and are quite noisy compared to the honda options. Cheap for a new generator though - well under £300 for the new 1000).
A Honda EU10i (the very latest honda, very light (13kg), very quiet (52dB), but VERY expensive at ~£700 inc VAT - also they have some poor reviews by people who use them a lot - these seem more designed for the leisure user who wants them for an hour or two a month say).
A Honda EX650 (or EM650 which is the same but with a bigger fuel tank). These are no-longer in production, but get very good reviews and are quieter than the EU10i surprisingly. They are bigger and heavier than other options - they weigh in at 23kg - but perhaps that says something about their build quality.
I found an old, used, EX650 on Ebay for £225 inc delivery and bit the bullet. Maybe it'll be a dog and stop working in a few hours, but so far it seems brilliant. Bloomin glad I went for the quietest option. It's not really that quiet - especially when sat on deck. I tried hoisting it on the boom which helped a bit, but it was still quite loud. If it's not raining I think I'll stick it in the tender when we need to run it. Should point out that it's only rated to 450 Watts at 50Hz, 550 Watts at 60Hz - but I've calculated roughly that that is just about enough for our needs. All it needs to do simultaneously is charge the battery bank, run the fridge and run our two laptops. The laptops total about 200W, the fridge is very low (not sure what, we can always turn it off while charging), and the batteries peak charging is 20A x 14.8V = 296W. We'll see how we get on.
I played around with wiring also and made up a double-ended wire with a mains plug on each end. By plugging one end into our small 150W inverter, and the other end into any of the mains sockets on the boat - we have mains available at all sockets, powered by the batteries. It means far less faffing around with running cables all over the place and my ammeter showed it only took a few extra milliamps to do it. I had wondered if the inherent capacitance in the mains cables would have taken up more than that - but apparently not.
Need to be careful not to leave that plugged in and on when running either the generator or the battery charger (when we get it back). If it's on at the same time as the battery charger, the batteries will be producing mains which will be sent, via battery charger, back to the batteries in order to charge them! A perpetual motion machine! Or a recipe for the blowing of a fuse - I'm not going to find out which. If the inverter is trying to put mains into the system at the same time as the generator, their wave forms are bound not to be in synch and so again, something likely to go pop. Hard to conceive of a switch to make it impossible to do any of the above so I'll just have to be very diligent.
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Enough about power. We just had a really excellent weekend. Started off going to Barn Pool anchorage off Mount Edgcombe. A lovely place to park your boat, walk your dog, and get a beer! Wanted to stay there all weekend but a forecast of strong south westerlies put made us head up to the shelter of Dandy Hole (an anchorage up the Lynher river). Next day we took advantage for the first time of the visitor pontoon at Saltash, got some supplies and had a barbecue under the I K Brunel rail bridge. Then motored back to Plymouth giving the batteries a good and well needed charge.
Here's some pictures...
High temperature difference between inside and out due to Eberspacher and a Vapalux M320
Fantastic early morning view of Drake's Island from Barn Pool, Mount Edgcombe
Checking the power usage of my laptop
Our new generator sat on padding to try to reduce the noise inside
Rose and Lunar enjoying the sunshine and spotting seals
Ashore, Isabella in the background
Ashore in Mount Edgcombe gardens - spring must be here, another boat joins us!
Dandy Hole in the morning
Barbecue under the bridges at Saltash Visitors Pontoon (free for up to 12 hours)
Lunar fits in the bib of my salopettes!
