WHISPER GEN

[Guest]

I AM LOOKING TO INSTALL A GENERATOR IN MY CATAMARAN. I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THERE IS A GENERATOR ON THE MARKET CALLED WHISPER GEN. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON THIS PARTICULAR ONE. ALTERNATIVELY CAN ANYONE SUGGEST WHAT DIESEL RUN GENIE IS SUITABLE WHICH IS QUIET.

 

[steve_cronin]

MASE make on enclosed in a soundproof case.

Look at http://www.yanmar.com.au/mase/maserange.htm

Steve Cronin

 

[simonjinks]

The Whisper gen is marketed through On board Power in the Hamble (i think).

 

[Guest]

On Board Power's website is onboardpower.com. Whispergen sounds wonderful if it works as promised. Very expensive though (about £10,000 fitted I think) and a bit heavy ar 45kg.

 

[pvb]

Whisper Gen sounds brilliant until...

Sounds brilliant until you look at what it actually produces - a measly 750W of DC power (ie about the same as a 50amp alternator!) But it also produces a hell of a lot of heat - 6000W!! - which presumably has to be got rid of somehow unless you need it for heating the boat.

 

[HaraldS]

Re: Whisper Gen sounds brilliant until...

I think the measly 750 Watts isn't the main problem. If you read the whitepaper at Victron's (the dutch manufacturer) site, the make a very good argument that on average a ship that woud normally be equiped with a 6kW Genset, would still consume less than 750W on average, so that the duty cycle of the Whispergen would more likley be 50%.
Off course you will need powerful inverters, if you want to run things like dive compressors and washing machines. They sell those too, and you can run theirs in parallel to get any power you want.
It will be expensive though and you be testdriving something that isn't quite proven yet.
The good news is that you need less battery capacity and the batteries are kept quite full, so you don't need deep cycle batteries.
I had just got a 6.5kW Fisher Panda generator, when the Whispergen hit the market, and thought I might have got one if it was out earlier. But it is so new, it probably calls for trouble.
I have seen no feedback on it, except from a guy on previous years ARC who had problems, not beeing able to get read of the huge amount of by product heat. It will be great for the calorifier, but then you need a lot of cooling water.
The efficiency on the fuel is lower than with a good diesel generator, they quote 13%, a good genset can be 22%. The genset however isn't so good when it doesn't run at its full work load and you can't power charge the batteries above 85%, and then charging with the generator gets quite inefficient.
So I think from the data, convenience and noise, the Whispergen would win.
I'm following with interest how it will work out.

 

[ccscott49]

I have the new fresh water cooled 4 kw fisher panda, a nice quiet powerful little genny. In northern climes, the whisper gen would probably be ok, but a bit low on electrical output for its physical size, but great for heat, in the med or tropics, I'm not sure all that heat is needed. I will stick with mine.

 

[Guest]

I've heard lots of bad reports about Fisher Panda gennies being unreliable and continually breaking down.
What's your experience and do you use it a lot? I'm thinking of doing the ARC and want to buy a generator
but reliability will be very important for battery charging and watermaking. On that score I'm also interested
in fast battery charging and reliable watermakers. Do you have any experience of these?

Chris Evans