Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Generators?

What’s a good portable generator brand?

Honda.

Honda for gas, Yanmar for Diesel.

Honda or Yamaha. Both are excellent, the Yamaha has a little larger fuel capacity to allow a little more running time and it has also been determined to be a bit more quiet.

A few months ago my wife was freaked out about the grid going down.


Honda is the easy answer for a small generator. Or I guess Yamaha.
(We have a 5 year old never been used Honda 5000 in the garage)



But I got to thinking about a big boy generator/welder combo. Wife moved onto the food shortage worry and instead of a generator I bought a bunch of guns.....lol

Lincoln

Depends on your needs.
Ryobi makes a really nice little generator.
I use mine to power my bee vac.
We also have an older Onan that we use for power outages.
The little Ryobi won't start my air compressor. The old Onan has a 240V circuit OR two 120V circuits.
We can run lights, A/C's, TV's, 'fridge, freezer AND some lights.
I can pick up the Ryobi and load it in my pickup.
It takes me and the wife and ramps to load that Onan! It's a hoss! LOL!

Ford

Only other option - Honda

The standard is the Honda eu2000i

its a buy once cry once thing

the inverter generators allow you to run electronics and appliances with circuit boards without worrying about frying them. They have <5% THD. By comparison I was looking at a open frame generator at Costco that wasn't an inverter and the specs were up to 25% THD

for me personally I chose not to spend the money on a Honda, I went with a Champion, significantly cheaper, sold at few big box stores and has a large community of users. I'm hoping with regular maintenance and following the long term storage directions, It will never fail me.

I have the Ryobi. Home Depot had a pallet of them several years back in the store for $459. It still in the box. Its like insurance. Since I've bought it we've never had a power outage of more than a couple of hours.

Prior to buying it, we went without power in an ice storm for more than a week and had two other occasions where we went several days.

My fault, and I will admit it…

We had a major storm around here Saturday. Lots of power outages in some areas, some will be out for week or more.

I personally lost power for about 2 hours Sunday morning, no big deal. In the afternoon I went to start my champion generator (4000). I couldn’t get that fuqking thing started for the life of me. The last time I ran it, about a year ago, I shut the gas off and let it run dry. The only gas l use is premium.

So now I have to take the carb off and clean it up, or at least I think that’s the problem. The next time I get it running I will set a reminder in my phone and start that biotch up at least once a month. Letting those engines set is a death sentence. This modern gas is just trash.. I’m thinking dual fuel is the way to go.

I am thinking having another generator around is good insurance anyway.

Thanks KFWA, for shedding light on the inverters. Good to know.

Generac is a solid brand. Mine is an older one. USA built with 12v electric start. Would probably opt for a dual fuel setup if buying new & considering updating mine with a dual fuel carburetor.

Honda, expensive but I took advantage of HD 0% financing for 12 months. You can buy another later if need be and run them in parallel.

I've also used my neighbors yamaha, very good and quiet. The honda is really quiet in eco mode.

Honda.....Yamaha........HF Predator on a dare............

Yes..........Inverter

Not some loud construction generator

I concur, unless you need to weld also...

I push the yamaha 2400ishc because it will start loads with 30 plus amp draws at startup and 15-20 running amps due to the capacitor pack. It's quiet, efficient and yamaha quality.

For 15 amp loads.....I'd go honda 2000eu.

Loud construction generators have feelers...ya know!

My old 4400 Homelite starts first pull even after sitting for 3-4 years.

Never has E gas touched her lips
And I always shut the gas off and run until dry.

Speaking of Honda: Pulled the little pressure washer out last weekend, SOB wouldn't start[never E gas].

Fed up I pushed it aside[out of the wifes way so she could continue washing vehicles].

Half hour later I was walking by it and decided to tug the rope, SOB started on one pull and ran fine the rest of the day.

Wife was able to get all 4 vehicles and SXS squeaky clean.

93 octane Ethanol Free fuel in everything I own (that isn't used weekly (i.e. lawn mowers etc.)).

I borrowed a Champion wood splitter last fall (brand new machine... maybe 1 hour of use) for a huge oak's demise. Took 30 minutes to fix, start and get running. Pathetically weak. I am not fond of Champion.

I own three diesel (MEP-002a (two of them) and one Onan diesel (in a trailer), and three gas machine (OLD Sears, Onan and a Mil gas.).

Honda.....Yamaha........HF Predator... will be their replacements when they get sold.

Ethonal free is 88 here