Before I get the raspberries, let me explain. This is not a portable generator "on" a boat question. This has to do with winter layup projects and illustrates my electrical ignorance.

The scenario goes like this. I come to the boat to do a winter project. The boat is equipped with a 2000 watt heart inverter/charger that does a great job all season long. I want to charge my batteries while I'm there and might even use the coffee maker or TV/VCR. If I were to plug my 1000 watt Honda generator into my shore power outlet, thus running through the inverter, what is the result?

Will this do any damage to the inverter or battery bank?

Running the generator to charge the batteries would be a big help over the winter, but I don't want to cause any damage to either my inverter or battery bank. Type slowly please, I am an electrical novice.

Thanks, Scott

Assuming you have the digital control, for the inverter, I'd make sure that the "Power Share" setting is set to about 5, at the most. Likely, the batteries will be discharged and looking for maximum power to recharge. By lowering this value, you will limit the current in-rush, so you can use your other outlets. That little generator isn't going to have much room to spare.

You may even have to turn off the charging, if you plan on using any decent load.

I talked to some inverter "experts" and they indicated the question is much more complex that it seems. They indicated the most efficient way to accomplish charging the batteries is to use the charger function on the generator and not run through the inverter. The answer had to do with inductive vs resistance load loss and got pretty far into the weeds for my understanding. Thanks for the responses!

Scott

And don't open the throttle to "tune the carb" with a load on it or it'll blow out all kinds of stuff! (Ah-hem.)

Jeff