Solar panel or generator?

[Deleted member 9849]

There are such things as quiet generators. Its just most people tend to buy rubbish ones from places like tool mart. Ive got a little Honda ex650, which I believe is the quietest ever made. Cost me £100 2nd hand. You cant hear it from a distance. Of course if you are next to it or on a quiet site you can hear it. It gets drowned out by road noise, wind noise, birds tweeting etc at a distance. Of course this is WILD Camping so when you are out in the wild nobody is there to care. Having said all that Im getting some solar panels for the summer!

I have just been to the Peterborough show so have had first hand experience of hundreds of generators,I can't understand anyone that needs their generator running on the first day of a show/meet/rally(unless for medical reasons),they must have a small leisure battery capacity as they have only just arrived.I agree about the Honda gennys,they are a lot quieter than the cheaper makes.However they all kick out smelly exhaust fumes which is quite anti social if you are downwind of them.

Good decision to go for solar panels in my opinion.

 

[ScamperVan]

If you can get the power you need from solar then go for those. If you need power in winter then you'll likely need EHU or a generator.

We have a gennie - it's just for emergencies/recharging of batteries rather than running 240v stuff off it (20 mins is enough get the leisure batteries from amber to green) and I think we've probably only used it 6 times in 3 years. It's not always socially acceptable to run a gennie so you need to factor that into your decision.

 

[IanH]

Solar, B2B and as much solar panel area as poss.

Just done 19 days in Spain/Portugal no hook ups ever, didn't even have the cable with us!

Was parked beside a 6 wheeled bungalow, he was 2 feet from us, and a PVC, also about 2 feet the other side.

Just getting ready for bed, when the bungalow on board genny started!!! Thoughtless b8sta8rd! It was of note though that not once did we here the PVC side door close!!:mad2:

 

[IanH]

There are such things as quiet generators. Its just most people tend to buy rubbish ones from places like tool mart. Ive got a little Honda ex650, which I believe is the quietest ever made. Cost me £100 2nd hand. You cant hear it from a distance. Of course if you are next to it or on a quiet site you can hear it. It gets drowned out by road noise, wind noise, birds tweeting etc at a distance. Of course this is WILD Camping so when you are out in the wild nobody is there to care. Having said all that Im getting some solar panels for the summer!

Let me re-phrase your point "There are such things as quiet generators" It should have read, "There is no such thing as a quiet engine powered generator, however, no solar panel has ever made any noise!!!!":mad2: