Reply With Quoteid be interested in some mods as well , we get a fair few black outs here and have a genny for work i utilise when we do have the blackouts
Silencing a cheap petrol generator
I have a 2.3 kW four-stroke GMC generator. It works well but is a little noisy. I work from home so it creates a problem if the power goes out so I am looking at ways of silencing the generator. Part of the problem is exhaust noise and I found if I put a second muffler on it that drops the noise so my plan is to go to a DYI wrecker and pull the rear muffler off the smallest car I can find or I was thinking I could perhaps pipe the exhaust gas from the existing muffler into a 20 litre drum of water that might reduce the noise.
I did a mock-up of a wooden case around the generator today it reduced the noise a bit but not as much as I would like next I might try bricks I just have to work out what is needed to let the generator expel heat too.
Anyone here silenced a cheap generator before ?
I know I could go and buy a Honda but this is not for everyday use just on (at the moment) rare occasions so I am reluctant to spend a lot on one of these. The GMC works fine it is just a little noisy
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id be interested in some mods as well , we get a fair few black outs here and have a genny for work i utilise when we do have the blackouts
I would actually recommend a Yamaha over a Honda generator – they are quieter and lighter…but that’s another story. How about an old motorcycle muffler? Try a motorcycle wreckers. A lot of people replace an original muffler on their bikes for high performance mufflers. I had a friend with a Yamaha dealership and he had so many titanium R1 mufflers hanging around that he eventually chucked them out. They are quite big though – you may want something smaller.
I had a friend who had to quieten down an air compressor in a suburban environment, he used some sort of really dense brick to surround it with (with an access door for service and replacement of course!)…cant remember what it was now but I could find out if you want?
Be careful what you run on these cheap-non inverted gen sets too. If they run out of fuel they can rev up and pop sensitive stuff.
Thanks for the tip I bought this thing a couple of years ago when the power failed due to fire affecting a major line. It has been sitting in the garage gathering dust other than the occasional start to keep it lubricated.
I have a couple of large UPS units I might try hooking it to one of these and let it filter the output too. It makes mention of electronic voltage regulator on the generator not sure if that suggests it might be cleaner than some or not.
Nah, your ideas sound right, the drum with the water is a great idea, car muffler may not be needed if you just use the drum. Keep the gen higher than the water, on stoppage im unsure how much kick back or reverse rotation (if any) you may get that could draw water back into it.
Try building a muffler from your drum, if you remember years ago the old hotdog mufflers were just canisters full of glass wool. Fill your drum with glass wool and run the exhaust into the bottom of the drum via some pipe.
How about moving the gen further away from where you are and just use a longer ext cord.
I did have to silence a high speed turbine once, built a plywood box around it and lined it with sound deadening glass batts. Dont think it would be too good for a engine that needs cooling air though.
Just make your own muffler like Godzilla said easy to build you can make any size you like, we use to make our own when i was into speedway as long as you have access to the tools and parts your set, and there is info on the net for diff designs.
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My solution would be to bury the generator in the ground sitting on 1 pallet cut in half and stacked on top of each
other so it's 2 high (to keep water out of it)
And make a lid for the hole in the ground made out of 2 sheets of tin with some of that material they use in the fire walls of cars, sandwiched in between them, and i would place the lid on it with one end facing a angle of 15-20 degrees facing away from the house so the little sound that does come out is going away from the house
But really I would go find my saw and look at the pallets and go ahh fark it and go buy a Honda LOL
When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all
lol i would not use a tin lid on it nosie vibration would be bad
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run a pipe into a drum of water.......
or a steel pipe for a couple of meters and hose clamp some of that perforated hose you use in french drains, and bury it.....
I think a lot of air cooled genys make a lot more mechanically noise than through the exhaust
but then again what do i know, I don't even own one LOL
When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all
Thanks for the suggestions I might have a play with a drum of water see how that goes. It is not so bad in the daytime just not good at night as it would upset the neighbours.
I will let you know how the water muffler works if I get time to play tomorrow.
Your right when the power failed a couple of years ago the radio was reporting the interconnector had been badly damaged and there would be big power problems for weeks maybe. So I thought I would grab a generator to beat the problem and allow me to run the AC as it was very hot then like now.Originally Posted by best4less
Alde had 2 KVA generators for $399.00 I went to four of their stores and all had sold out. I ended up with the last 700-watt unit Bunning’s had. That made a horrible racket.
Not sure if it was the overhead valve mechanism or something in the generator or both. I retuned it next day for a refund and latter bought the 2.3 kW unit GMC, which is noisy but not as bad as the smaller one.
GMC have gone bust so if this one has a major problem I might try and grab a better one second hand. If I could justify it, Solar would be good but that’s talking big bucks.
When the gas failed years before I raced out and grabbed a second hand electric water heater that was possibly the best $80.00 I have ever spent as I had hot water throughout the entire outage which resulted in a lot of friends I had not seen for a while dropping in with towels.
GMC=Garbage Made in China.
Everything i have bought with the GMC label was great till the day the warranty ran out.
I was just using a Generator tonight, me and a few mates went down to the river and hooked up a the Gen for lights and music.
my mate just welded a muffler of a peewee 80 on to his and its quite as a mouse!
the water drum is cheapest but you have to keep it topped up evaporation can get high some times also placing the gen on an old tire stops viration and also helps quietening them down
Wouldn’t running the generator exhaust into a drum of water make the poor thing work a lot harder, use more fuel and run hot? It would kill the poor thing wouldn’t it? Am I missing something here?
That depends on how much water is in what sized drum, it can work well for larger engines though. I used to have a dirt bike fitted with a spark arrestor (only the most fevered mind would call it a muffler) and when it rusted out I cut the end off and fitted a huge road bike muffler to it, the end result was I could get so close to people before they heard it they would trip over the front tyre trying to turn around to see what the noise was.
I am to interested i how you go with as well
Sorry I have not had a chance to get near it been too busy with work and today was a slack attack as a result. Just got to work out how to tap off the end of the current exhaust I figure it is pretty hot there so plastic tube and a hose clamp is no good. I have some ¾ copper might try that with a clamp if I get a chance, I will chase up a better muffler.
If my memory serves me correctly, copper pipe for automotive exhausts was banned. An old Hot Roder told me that…is it crap? Anyone else heard this one before? Copper does something when its heated (it wouldn’t be too durable either I’d suppose) maybe it was chrome plated copper – not sure now.
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