CarGenerator provides off-grid power without the hassle of a gas generator.
Sponsored by Car Generator
If You Rely On Solar, Here’s Why You Need An Alternative Power Source
Solar power has seen a steady rise in popularity in recent years, and with good reason. This popularity has flowed over into the RV world.
Although solar power is great, it does have some limitations and disadvantages. CarGenerator can eliminate those limitations and give you ultimate freedom with your RV without the hassle of a gas generator.
How does CarGenerator work?
RVing and the freedom to roam and be self-sufficient are synonymous with one another. One golden rule of RVing, especially for off-grid and boondocking, is to be prepared for anything. Having a reliable source of power is key to confidently roaming without limitations. A CarGenerator, tucked away behind your seat, is the most reliable alternate power source.
Whether you tow your RV or drive it, with CarGenerator, you always have a power generator with you. As quickly as you can hook up a set of booster cables, you have a safe, steady power source and a great alternative power source.
A high-quality, power inverter is utilized to convert your car’s 12-volt DC power to clean AC power, usable for a large variety of items. Simply put: it does the job of a portable generator without the weight, noise, fuel storage, and maintenance costs.
Turning your vehicle into a generator only takes seconds by hooking the battery cable leads to your vehicle’s battery jump-start connections. After that, start your vehicle and you’ve got a reliable, efficient generator for up to 50-70 hours if needed. There are no complicated connections or switches; CarGenerator is a plug-and-play setup!
It is very likely that CarGenerator will be used for emergency power and backup power when the weather doesn’t favor solar. The all-weather design is made for RV life and allows for safe, reliable power, regardless of weather conditions.
CarGenerator is essentially a high-quality, patented pure sine wave inverter–the only inverter you can buy that’s safely enclosed in a weatherproof housing.
The magic of CarGenerator is the patented, custom-engineered weatherproof housing and a turn-key, ready-to-go solution you can pull out anytime, day or night, and in any weather conditions. CarGenerator gives you the AC power you need and charges your DC RV trailer batteries at the same time.
Take the RV trailer shore power cord you usually plug into the campground power, but instead, plug into the CarGenerator. Instantly, all of the electrical outlets in your RV trailer will be energized and usable. You will be able to run small items such as TV, internet, laptop, chargers, etc.
Why not use a portable gas generator?
Many RVers who like to explore areas outside of full-service campgrounds rely on portable generators. In addition to solar, most RVers will have a generator for emergency and solar backup power.
Generators are a great way to provide power; however, some have common inconveniences. The first downside is cost. Both upfront and maintenance costs for generators are factors.
It’s worth noting that many cheap generators don’t provide RV-safe pure sine wave power. Generators (particularly cheap generators) are notorious for problems. These fixes, along with the maintenance required of any quality generator, add up.
Using the already maintained engine of your vehicle gives you the peace of mind that your generator will start and run problem-free.
Another common complaint about generators is the noise. Everyone has cursed a running generator at a campsite. The smaller generators commonly used are often working extra hard and screaming to do so.
Modern vehicles idle quietly and the engines are not easily loaded down. The multitude of emission controls ensures modern car engines are running cleanly and efficiently, unlike the basic old school technology in most generator engines.
Even small portable generators can be cumbersome to drag around. When you factor in the need for jerry cans with fuel, the storage space adds up. And this is all for a generator you may only use once or twice a year, and in some cases, not at all.
If your tow vehicle is an SUV or sedan, you have no place for smelly, dangerous, messy, gas cans or a big smelly motor. CarGenerator is just 11 pounds and has no smell, so you can store it in your vehicle or trailer easily.
CarGenerator is small enough to fit behind your seat or in the back corner of your trunk. There is no fuel required, no maintenance, and setup takes seconds.
CarGenerator Airstream Edition
Why you need an alternative power source
Solar is, without a doubt, a great power source for RVs. Using the sun to power your RV so you can be one with nature just sounds right.
Those who decide to use solar, however, are faced with the challenge of ensuring they have enough power. In many circumstances, solar alone is not enough, and generators are required either as an alternative power source or for backup.
We all wish it could be sunny, clear skies, every day we are RVing. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. With solar, you’re relying on mother nature to provide the right conditions, and we all know you can’t rely on her.
The time of year you are camping and your location will both affect the hours of sunlight you have for charging batteries. Another factor is the size and number of panels you have. RVs have limited roof space with the vents, antennas, and AC units all mounted up there. Most RVers will have smaller panels and a limited number of them. This, of course, limits the amount of charging that can be done.
A common thought is if you have four 100-watt panels, and get 5 hours of prime sunlight, you have 2,000 watts, right? Well… not all at once, and not for any length of time. Depending on the hours of usable sunlight you receive, the batteries will charge over this time. Of course, until you have sunlight again, there is no more recharging.
With CarGenerator, you can have fully charged batteries in just two hours and the ability to quickly top them up regardless of weather conditions. In order to have the 1000 watts CarGenerator provides continuously, you would need the equivalent of ten 100-watt solar panels working at full efficiency all the time.
Quickly recharge portable solar battery packs when solar is not available.
CarGenerator and solar battery generators
Solar generators are convenient energy sources; however, they rely on a bright sunny day to recharge them. What happens if your solar battery generator runs out of power while it’s raining or at night?
Just plug into your CarGenerator and refill your solar generator in an hour or two on some models. The typical capacity on a solar battery generator is 1000 watt-hours, so you get 1000 watts for one hour. CarGenerator produces up to 1000 watts continuously on a typical vehicle for 50-70 hours, which equals 50,000-70,000 watt-hours!
You can also use CarGenerator to quickly charge e-bikes, electric scooters, electric trail bikes, and more.
How will it affect my vehicle?
You often hear people say solar is free power. The process by which it happens may be free, but the setup isn’t. Multiple pieces of equipment need to be purchased and set up.
CarGenerator is a single piece that, once purchased, only requires you to keep fueling and maintaining your vehicle as you currently are. If you are towing an RV, you already own and maintain a vehicle.
Running CarGenerator for a few hours to recharge your trailer batteries will barely even move your vehicle fuel gauge. See the example below; producing 1000 watts of power uses .37 gallons per hour (1.4 liters/hr).
CarGenerator is the best alternative power source
Using your vehicle as a generator is a safe and effective way to produce backup and emergency power. Ford, the number one automaker in North America, agrees and has even added built-in generators to their flagship F series of pickup trucks. Idle times of 85 hours on these models confirm the technology works.
A car’s charging system is designed to run all of the accessories, including air conditioning, at the same time. The draw on the system with your vehicle idling just powering CarGenerator is no strain for your vehicle. With most vehicles able to idle for 50-70 hours, the idle time required for solar backup power for your RV is no more than some vehicles idle in traffic on a daily basis.
The engines in vehicles, especially modern vehicles, run cleanly and quietly, while monitoring all systems for problems and efficiency. Compare this to many of the portable generators without emissions technology, and idling a car to produce an alternative power source makes sense.
RVing without the need for serviced sites opens up a whole new world of adventures. Solar is a great option to give you this additional freedom but needs to be combined with a reliable alternative power source. Camping during times of the year with fewer hours of daylight, rain, and overcast conditions will all affect your solar power. One struggle with solar can be the inability to run RV air conditioners.
The obvious solution is to park in the shade. This keeps the RV cool but doesn’t allow your roof-mounted solar panels to do their job. As with all great technology, solar has limits. Combining your RV solar system with the 1000-watts CarGenerator can provide power at the turn of a key, and you’re free to roam wherever your heart desires.
Continue reading:
At RV LIFE, we build tools that make camping simple. We run a network of websites and services that help RVers get the most out of their adventures.
With all the storms and power outages, http://www.CarGenerator.com can power your home to keep your fridges running, watch TV, internet, and more, for 50-70 hours on an average vehicle. Uses about the same amount of gas as a portable generator.
I assume the Car Generator can not be used with motorhomes [A, B, or C]. That would likely create a closed loop .
A 2,000 watt, pure sine wave inverter is a lot less than $300 on Amazon. A set of heavy duty, 16 foot, jumper cables is $25 – cut the ends off and crimp on some lugs. So for under $300, you can make one of these without the weather resistant/proof box; 16 foot jumper cables would let you put the inverter in your garage at home. In the wild, a water proof/resistant box would suffice, cut a notch for the cables and add weather stripping. Still under $300.
Jim, yep you certainly can DIY this yourself. See in the previous article about doing this. CarGenerator is a turnkey convenient ready to to go system.
So why not just buy a cheap inverter?
First and foremost, because power is most often needed during bad weather, so just an unprotected, cheap Harbor Freight inverter is useless. This is especially true on days and nights of rain while camping (no solar), or during a bad rainstorm, snow, or ice at home when the power goes out.
The magic of CarGenerator is the patented custom-engineered weatherproof housing, and a turn-key, ready-to-go solution you can pull out in any weather and attach in a minute, and have power for hours or days.
The cover is not only for protection, though. It also serves as a comfortable carrying handle, and when I say carrying, I’m talking one hand! With models ranging from 11 lbs to 17 lbs, you can carry your coffee in one hand and CarGenerator in your other. No more asking a neighbor for a lift with your generator and then getting gas stains on their pants.
Your RV or house electrical systems require clean stable power. For this reason, a cheap inverter may do the job, but do you really want to cheap out on your emergency power generator? It’s a high-stakes risk. You would have to buy a high-quality pure sine wave inverter. Then you’d have to construct a weatherproof container and have a safe way to connect it to your vehicle. While this could be done, CarGenerator has already spent the time and money to safely engineer a complete product that has proven itself over the last 6 years on the market with no reliability or safety issues!
No cheap booster cables rigged up to your “on-sale” inverter, either. The CarGenerator cables are custom made in the USA from oxygen-free, pure copper and high heat materials. Why does this matter? Well, the high heat from your engine combined with outdoor elements can be hard on cheaper materials. Oxygen-free copper is proven to stay cooler, have higher conductivity, and is less likely to corrode over time.
If your time is not valuable, and you won’t lie awake at night questioning your engineering skills, you could try and save a minimal amount putting something together… or you can get a proven, high-quality emergency power source with a warranty, made in North America!
Much like you wouldn’t build your own grill by simply hooking a burner up to a propane tank, building your own backup power system with a cheap inverter and a bunch of wires is both dangerous and impractical. You don’t want to put your expensive vehicle at risk by jury-rigging an ad-hoc solution you cobbled together to save a few dollars. CarGenerator is a beautifully designed and engineered, turn-key solution that solves the problem of providing safe, backup power.
So I should run my diesel engine for two hours to recharge my lithium batteries instead of my much quieter, cleaner, environmentally safer propane generator? Good thing I live in Colorado with its 300 days of sun a year, so my solar panels get sun most days from April – October. Then I snowbird in Arizona where the sun shines on most winter days.
Thanks, no thanks. Of course I will have solar when my conversion is done. I will also have backup to the solar. Not in any specific order, small wind generator, DIY gas generator, be able to charge my batteries while driving, and possibly, last to be sure, something like this CarGenerator. If I run out of gas for my vehicle out in the boondocks I would be SOL. If I run out of gas for a small generator out in the tuff but no biggie – incidentally it is very possible to make a generator very very quiet, IF you do your homework, and few do. By the way, there are alternative fuels that you can use in the generator, some bought, some homemade – again, do your homework. I have been researching my conversion for some time now, and have found out a whole lot of things that can be done easily, and cheaply, so I won’t be buying a lot of things.
So I will have to run my vehicles engine? I have a 6.7L diesel engine in my truck. Running that compared to a 3500w inverter generator does not make sense. What am I missing here?
Friz, did you notice the video above where we show with a diesel SUV and a simple vehicle scanner to see fuel consumption? on a 3 liter diesel it was about 1/3 gallon per hour which is similar to a portable gas generator. Can you try this on your own vehicle and report back what is your fuel consumption rate at idle?
1. Interesting product, good for emergency power, compact, high operating cost, ecologically inefficient Works when the sun isn’t shinning. Consider using a 12V inverter off of the car battery with the car engine running? Several inexpensive units available from HTF.
2. Consider wind turbine paired with solar. Wind blows 24 hr, turbine, though low duty cycle, provides secondary power source to solar.
Friz, did you notice the video above where we show with a diesel SUV and a simple vehicle scanner to see fuel consumption? on a 3 liter diesel it was about 1/3 gallon per hour which is similar to a portable gas generator. Can you try this on your own vehicle and report back what is your fuel consumption rate at idle?
I find this an interesting product. The holy grail of boondocking is to be able to run your air conditioner(s) 24/7. Various influencers in the RV world have some fabulous solar systems that get close to the holy grail. Not only do you have to capture enough energy, you also have to store enough in your battery bank to last overnight and to compensate for cloud days and low sun seasons. Even the $20K+ systems above don’t get to the holy grail with one AC. What about a big 5th wheel that needs 3 ACs running to keep everyone cool?
Therefore, we need supplemental energy.
There is the portable inverter generator solution, including my Champion that runs on either gasoline or propane. We are familiar with the pros and cons of this method. You’ll likely not run multiple ACs and recharge your batteries at the same time unless you get something really big.
Diesel motorhomes often come with the best solution available, a built-in diesel generator that runs automatically when battery voltage gets low. A 12,500 watt diesel generator produces the same electricity as a 50 amp shore power connection. And it can run while driving.
A few 5th wheels have built-in gas or propane generators. While the diesel motorhome’s generator pulls fuel from the RV’s main 100 fuel gallon tanks, the 5th wheel generators require you to regularly store and refuel your gas or propane tanks.
There are 12V DC to DC systems that use your vehicle’s alternator to charge the RV battery bank. Like the Car Generator, you run your vehicle engine to make electricity for your RV. Similarly, you can install a pure sine wave inverter on your tow vehicle to make AC power for the RV. Again, you run your vehicle’s engine to make the power. Also, true sine wave inverters are more expensive than modified sine wave. Get a name brand like Xantrex, not a low quality Chinese unit.
The Car Generator seems like a good alternative to the DC to DC system and the DC to AC power inverter, if only because it looks very simple to set up. There may be cases where you are reluctant, or not allowed, to run your portable inverter generator, so you idle your tow vehicle instead.
For me, I only have one AC in my 30′ travel trailer, no solar, and a single lead acid battery. My Champion inverter generator is good enough most of the time. I want the Car Generator just because it looks super convenient and easy. I’m fine running my 6.2 liter gasoline Ford engine to make electricity. I tend to idle a lot anyway and I think the cost per hour of idling is low. If the Car Generator allows me to run power tools and an air compressor/air tools from my F250, that might be justification to pull the trigger.
So, that’s my take on our various options and how the Car Generator relates to them. If the Car Generator guy wants to send me a unit to review, that would be fine with me!
Living in my trailer, staying in a campground, while working away from home during the winter, there was an ice storm that cutoff power to the campground for 3 days. I was able to directly recharge the trailer battery once a day using my F-250’s 6.0 liter diesel for about 2 hours. This was of course a temporary situation, no AC means no TV or microwave, but I survived comfortably with stove/oven, heat, hot water and refrigerator using 12 VDC and propane.
Lots of RVs have achieved full solar AC for way less than $20k. You can build a 10-15kwh battery bank for $2k-3k, install 2500w of solar for around $3k, and run a high efficiency mini split for under $2k, then add a solar charge controller/charger/inverter for another $1k, and you’ve got a fully sustainable solar HVAC, that can run 20-30hrs+.
hi Jeff, yes we do have a few units in our demonstrator pool and could send you one to check it out and review. Call me at 800-750-4660 to arrange for one. thx.
If you have a vehicle with direct injection the intake valves are already getting carbon buildup excessive idling for long periods is o ly goi g to speed up the need to have the intake valves cleaned before normal time frame