Silencing a gererator
 

I'm currently running a 10 hp 5K unit. And it's loud. I've thought about a different muffler or even building a small enclosure for it. I always run it outside of course so it does tend to bug the neighbors. A weather / sound proofed enclosure would probably be best but I'd like to hear the groups thoughts.

Make a pit enclosure.

Make sure that there is adequate ventilation for the exhaust from the engine. When the enclosure gets older and the wood dries out, too much heat inside could cause problems. My mom's house had a whole house generator that backfired and the wood enclosure started to burn. :eek:

I'm not a generator expert, but why not install a car muffler?

Your question is moot, all gererators run silent.
They simply produce unlimited power without any fuel requirements.

Tinkering with the design will simply add parasitic drag and will render the generator useless.

Click this thread for the detailed info

One would think that would work. But I put a Civic muffler on my generator and I swear it acted as an echo chamber and made it louder. I suspect it needed more airflow to work properly.

The real answer is to get a water cooled generator. I believe the high end RV on-board generators are water cooled. Honda make a good two cylinder engine for that.

I have an 8 HP 4400 watt generator that I will run inside the basment of my shop if the weather is real bad. I made up a 1 3/4" flex pipe for the exhaust. This bolts on in place of the stock muffler. I then past the pipe out through a hole in my garage door and have a old muffler I picked out of a dumpster at the muffler shop, slipped on the end of the flex pipe. It is very quiet, and I can't even hear it running in the house. The generator makes a lot of noise anyway being air cooled. So I think the exhaust is only a small part of it. When it is running in the shop you need hearing protection when in the basement.

I have to deal with this kind of stuff at work from time to time:

Three obvious souces of noise from an internal combustion engine.
1) Exhaust: put a better muffler and resonator on it.
2) intake, put a good sound baffle on it to quiet the intake noise, or rout the intake to a place where it would be baffled.
3) mechanical noise from gears, bearings, etc. Not much you can do about that except to build a sound deadening enclosure, but proper cooling and breathing is counter-productive to sound deadening.
You can put insulated walls around it and keep it open on the top, that would allow noise to go vertically but not horizontally. Gotta let it breath tho.

McMaster carr has some sound deadening products, not sure if they'll meet your needs but it's worth a look:
McMaster-Carr

there is a man who invented and sells a clamp on muffler for ATV's. his product is targeted for lazy hunters who want to ride up to their unsuspecting animals.

lemme see if i can find it.

http://www.atvsilencer.com/index.php

A few other options

http://jacksmallengine.com/strap5s.cfm

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Onan+resonator&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=14538707447994694934&sa=X&ei=eNSuTo 8NofHSAdLe_a0P&ved=0CFkQ8wIwAA

good stuff gang , lots to consider ...many thanks

Are there any devices available for active noise cancelation? (Where you play the sound you want to eliminate at 180* phase shift from that sound coming from the generator.) With such a steady noise it seems a good application for it.

Yes, but it takes two gererators to run one ;)

j/k

The only neighbors who are offended by generator noise right now are those folks who don't have a generator. Everyone else is using them to power their homes around here and so they can't hear their neighbor's generators over the noise of their own generator.

Actually my post was prompted by a complaint from a neighbor who lives on a part of the grid that didn't go down. Yeah he's a bit of a richard.