Electrical Inverter Genny. Buy new or not

[Moto Mech]

We have a 'no name' 3.3 kva inverter genny which has been problimatic since I bought it. I finally got to bottom of problem, the seal in the fuel cap was slowly perishing and falling to bits into the fuel tank, so each time I cleaned tank, more would fall in. So after cleaning whole fuel system, setting valve clearances etc its running better than ever.
Our van has a Heron 2.2 air con in it and its rated at 2.2kw cooling and 1.5kw heating, genny does it easy. Can even use microwave while air con on cooling flat out. Now, I was going to sell our genny and buy a Yamaha 2.0kva genny for reliability, quiteness and light weight. But at 1.6kva continous I guess it wont run our air cond? But I see most have this size for their vans and they run their A/C no worries.
So, who runs what size AC on 2.0kva gennies?
10kg weight saving going to a 2.0 unit plus around 25 decibels(if you can believe yamaha claims and iphone app decibel meter).

 

[Soaring]

op2: Interested in this one. Wondering what people are using to run the Truma Aventa.

 

[Crusty181]

@Moto Mech the 2.2kW rating of the Heron 2.2 is the output rating, not the input. The input current for a Heron 2.2 is around 1.2kW'ish, but may spike a bit when the compressor kicks in. The older Aircommand units didn't have the soft start and they thumped into action and had an horrendous input power spike which would overload the smaller generators. On the smaller gensets, the auto sensing smart throttles can also struggle to keep up to the thump of an aircon, and you may find you have to run the genset without smart throttle turned on.

Buying a smaller generator can be very hit miss when your getting a generator which is not a lot bigger than the power load of the aircon. Could be an expensive exercise; you will also find that two identical vans, with identical (smaller) generators and identical aircons parked next to each other, ones genset happily running the aircon, and the others not.

Im running a 2.8kW Aircommand Ibis on my 2.0kW Kipor. Im using the current hot weekend to test both the Ibis and Kipor combo varying loads and settings so I can do a review of it. Had it running for a couple of hours today. Specifically for your info @Moto Mech , my 2.0kW Kipor happily ran the Heron 2.2 in my 2009 16.49.1 .... a similar size genset 'should' happily (and likely would) run yours but theres no guarantee; its a trial and error thing with the smaller gensets unfortunately

 

[Hubble80]

I could not run the Aircommand 2.2 in my Expanda with a Honda 2kVa. The inrush current on the compressor starting was about 18A from memory. I found a Yammie 2.4 would, but only with a short lead (voltage drop on startup was the issue here). If your generator you have currently is running everything, I wouldn't fork out more dollars until you need a new one.

Good luck.

 

[Moto Mech]

Cheers guys, ill stick to what I have I think