After the severe winter storms we experienced on the Island this past fall and winter I decided to pick up a small generator for hunting/camping or keep the freezer running when the power goes off at the house. I'm not sure if it will work on the freezer (5 amp) as of yet but I did trial it on the camper.

I had 6 2 amp camper lights on, the stove fan, the furnace, and the stereo playing all at the same time. I also had one of those small ceramic heaters plugged into the 115v receptacle in the camper at low/med setting and it was heating the camper. I had a power converter plugged into the dc outlet and it was still showing 13.5 volts on the battery. If I tried to put the heater to the second position it tripped the breaker. I doubt I’d ever have this much of a load on it at once but I wanted to see what it could handle.

I know this isn’t a Honda generator, you pay for what you get, I asked how long it would last and the guy I bought it off of said around 2000 hrs. I guess it all depends on what type of oil you use in it as well but for $340.00 taxes in I didn' think that was such a bad deal. It doesn’t have an oil filter so the recommended oil change is 50 hours. Not too bad as it takes less than a half liter of oil to fill it.

It's forced air cooled and I was surprised at how cool it actually stays. The only problem I’ve had with it so far, and was my fault for not checking, was there was one screw and nut loose on the outlet and it fell off when I was breaking the motor in and I had to find a replacement screw and nut for it.

I’ll be leaving the solar panel at home this spring while I try this generator out. 4.5 liters of gas should last 4-6 hours depending on the load. The output is 10 A. So six hours at 10 amps that’s 60 amp/hrs per tank full. I'll keep you up to date on how it works. Eventually I plan on permanently mounting the solar panel to the top of the camper instead of having to take it out and bring it into the camper every time I go anywhere with it. I'll add more to this post as I try it out this spring.

Marc.