Renting an electric generator?

[jpsheets]

Hi all,

I'm needing to rent a generator of some sort for my shoot for a couple of days. Is any old generator okay? Like one from Home Depot? Anyone have experience on this?

thanks in advance!
Jon

[Dick Campbell]

the power rating is the limiting factor depending on what you intend to use it for. add up the power consumption of everything you intend to plug in to it, and then add 20%, and get a generator that can carry that load. also plan on needing a lot of extension cord since they make noise that would interfere with your sound, and you want to get as far away from the mic as you can.

[Marlon Ladd]

The generators at Home Depot will work fine depending on how much lighting you need. They have 3 sizes, I believe and the smallest is a 3000w. You will need extension cords, because these generators make noise and you'll need to position them away from the scene you're shooting. They have some film type generators, but they're much more expensive.

[Sprocketboy]

Don't put them inside a house to dampen the sound. The CO2 build up will kill you. Some gens have an exhaust tube you can trail out into the open allowing you to keep the Gen inside a noise dampening enclosure. They are a pain.

[jpsheets]

Thanks guys!

[dariomik]

To try and reduce the noise significantly, you might want to try a car/truck power inverter - I've seen them in up to 3000W, I think. What you would do then is hook it up directly to your car battery through the heavy duty wire they come with and it will invert your 12V DC into 110V AC.

I haven't used it this for lighting yet (only truck accessories like a microwave) but I think it should work and the car engine should be much less noisy than the generator motor. They run a few hundred bucks but might be worth it. I'm planning to try it out myself.

[zakart]

if you get a generator from home depot, it will work but........
your lights will flicker.
i think that you need a generator that has crystal sync something or other. im not sure on what it is called but ultimately it makes it so that you are getting a constant amount of power out of the generator instead of the wattage changing and making your lights change color temp. and brightness.

[DJDecay]

FYI. Most states have regulations as to how much reserve fuel a generator can have near it and how big of a tank a generator may have.

In order to avoid flicker you'll need to give up some of the genrator power to a harmonizer/conditioner/sinusoidal power/battery buffer device.
Some of those devices though they can be cheap, can be very dangerous outdoors where you would use a generator, due to their inherent indoor design.

[jpsheets]

Well, I rented a Honda 3000w generator but it was still way too loud, and we ended up not using it. Luckily we we were able to steal electricty from Zilker Park!