My $1,500 pontoon and $600 motor

[Way2slow]

The lowest DB level in a 1,000 watt or so unit was the main thing I was shopping for.  The Honda was supposed to be a few DB quiter but $1,000 vs $400 made me try this HF model. Figure it's not going to be used much and hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me.  I'm not much of a fan of this cheap Harbor Freight junk.

I've got a small 2,500 Watt Honda I could have made to fit back there but when I use it camping I have an additional muffler and a 100' #10 drop cord I use on it to get it away from us so it's not so loud.  Definitely didn't want to listen to that all night in a boat.  My first brain fart was to take one of the pedestal seats out and sit it one the front, but with these newer LED lights, I can get plenty of illumination and not need a power substation to run it.    

Tonight, she only wants to stay until about midnight so I figured this would be a good time to test it.  For no longer than that, I can run on just battery with no problems, so if it doesn't work out, it won't spoil the fishing trip.  Running it about an hour with everything on in the driveway, the charger was getting a little warm in that compartment, so I'm adding a small 12V fan to blow on the MK330, just for a little better cooling of it.

All I have to do now is make sure I don't make the dump mistake of trying to trim the motor up.  The cowling ain't gonna fit in that hole with that generator sitting there.

[Ski213]

Yeah I see what your saying about tilting the motor up too far. My luck I’d forget about it and send it into the generator. 
 

I hear you on the HB stuff. I’ve had some stuff from there that was ok though. One of the electricians I use has one of those he uses when he does a residential service change out to run the customers fridge and such while the service is down. He said he’s had good luck out of it. I’ve been thinking about buying one myself. 

[Way2slow]

I usually don't buy their power tools, actually, any kind of their tools. 

Gave it a trial run last night.  The charger still got way too hot.  That generator puts out a lot of heat, and the charger was mounted in the back and just above the generator to where it was almost touching it.  Even with a small fan, I could only run the generator about 15 - 20 minutes before the charger was getting too hot to hold my hand on it and would have to shut it down.

Today, I relocated the charger to inside the boat in a vented storage compartment in the back.  Got it completely out of the battery area with the generator.  

Now I will see if it's all the heat from the generator making it so hot or using it as a power supply to constantly feed the batteries.  It may just be I'm overworking the charger and might have to rethink things. 

If all else fails, I will just build me a power supply that will do what I want.  

I've already spent a bunch on lights, I would hate to have to turn around and buy 120VAC lights like some of the drop downs or home security lites just to run directly off the generator.  My main concern with that is, water, lot of metal, and 120VAC going all over it, all being blended together don't make for a situation I would be very comfortable with.