SKOOLIE BUILD: Powering the Adventure - Phase 1
We see a lot of people go the solar route but, solar is expensive and air conditioners (our bus will have 2) need more power than batteries alone can practically supply. Utah is a desert plateu, if we are going to climb towers in Indian Creek or do any amount of road biking, we need air conditioning. Having passengered in multiple sprinter's where the generator was not sufficiently sized to run the air conditioning while charging a cell phone without giving up (tripping a fuse), we did not want to have to suffer through the same character building heat.
At peak draw the one of the A/C's could draw 4kw, we have 2 so that could spike up to 8kw... Peak is usually hit at the start of the units... This way, we can safely be running one and then turn on the second one without fear of the generator tripping.
Our ideal generator would be an Onan underbody running on diesel fuel. They are crazy expensive and apprently worth every penny, if you believe the forums. Even searching for a used one that had a reasonable amount of life left in it, we could not justify the price, it was simply outside of our budget.
We bought a 7kw (9kw at peak) Champion from Costco that runs dual fuel; unleaded and propane. Since our heater and water heater will be running on propane, we will be able to share the annister across all these appliances.
DISCLAIMER: You should never put a generator indoors and should definitely not run it indoors. They exhaust carbon monoxide and that shiz can kill you.
Our ideal generator would be an Onan underbody running on diesel fuel. They are crazy expensive and apprently worth every penny, if you believe the forums. Even searching for a used one that had a reasonable amount of life left in it, we could not justify the price, it was simply outside of our budget.
We bought a 7kw (9kw at peak) Champion from Costco that runs dual fuel; unleaded and propane. Since our heater and water heater will be running on propane, we will be able to share the annister across all these appliances.
DISCLAIMER: You should never put a generator indoors and should definitely not run it indoors. They exhaust carbon monoxide and that shiz can kill you.
We mounted our generator inside the bus in the garage section, below the master bed, at the very rear of the bus. To keep the vibration down while the generator is running we mounted it on equipment isolation springs. Those wouldn't hold in tplace though so, we backed those up with bolrs that connected the generator directly to the frame.
We also cut a section of floating subfloor away so that any movement that escaped the isolation springs on the genrator would not cause the whole bus to vibrate.
After that we built a box out of 3/4 OSB around the generator. The lid and side can unlatch and open up, in order to service the generator. The forward wall has the electrical panel and down converter mounted to it.
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| Gas line going into the box and power line coming out. Latches holding the side and lid in place. |
We cut a hole and mounted an RV styled storage door on the outside wall next to the generator. We noticed that the exhaust was blowing against the chair mounting rail. Cutting a notch in the rail allowed the exhaust to escape uninterupted.
Everything looked great and sounded great when we turned it on. Within 5 minutes the generator's housing box was super hot, disconcertingly hot.
We shut it down and went back to the drawing board:
- Figure out how hot it was in the box:
- We solved this with a exterior thermometer with a remote sensor. Mounting the sensor in the box, I can set the led display on the dash and keep an eye on the temp.
- Cooling the generator
- Get the heat out of the top of the box, I bought a paint booth fan and and created a venting system on the lid of the box. We didn't want the exhaust blowing into the bus so we pushed fresh air into the box from the interior of the bus. Thought being it would escape out the side door to the outside air.
- Then we mounted an aftermarket car radiator fan to the interor side of the box, blowing interior air past the generator to the outside.
This system worked great. I have been able to keep it within 1 degree of the outside temprature. Granted I haven't run during the heat of the summer but, I am optimistic this will work.
Lessons and Things I would do different:
- Remote Start Generator
- Ours is an electric start but, it still require s a person be there to start it. With a remote start, we could start it from the driver seat without having to go to the back of the bus.
- Direction of Exterior Door
- My exterior venting door currently swings to the rear of the bus, I would rather it swing up.
Upcoming
- Simple system for swapping from generator, shore, and generator
- Power down conversion
- Connecing the generator to the panel
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