DSF

Hi,

We are looking to start producing phone cases and mugs at a few events this summer, all events are outside and would be looking to get a generator in to power up a 3D heat press, printer and laptop.

Has anyone had any experience in doing a similar setup and would have any suggestions on a generator to safely operate at the this power capacity with ease.

Thanks in advance.

You will need Sine wave 'inverter' generator, or you will risk frying your sensitive electrical equipment. An inverter generator delivers the power at a regulated output. An 'ordinary' generator doesn't have the inverter - just and engine and alternator - and is subject to power spikes. When the thermostat of your heatpress cuts in the engine will race and the power output will increase for a few seconds. Can cause a lot of damage.

Be careful of paying for an electrical connection from the event organiser. They will probably hire a large commercial generator and it is unlikely to have an inverter.

First, make sure the events will let you use a generator, not all do.

Super silenced generator, if you don't want to annoy everyone around you, and actually be able to talk to your customers
decent UPS to run the printer and computer from to protect from outages, spikes and brown outs
Good condition clean earthing rod and big hammer!

Thanks everyone, sounds a tad more complicated than I thought but will be looking into it in due course.

Do a bit of research into photo-electric cells.

There are a number of 24V portable ones on the market now. Not quite as cheap to buy as a generator but nil running costs and no reason for organisers to ban them on the grounds of noise or fire hazard.

Thank you very much! Lots of information to look at. The main thing we were looking into doing is the phone cases at event or markets, so enough power to safely operate a macbook, sublideck and epson printer. Understand it would not be a cheap setup but might be worth while in the long run if put to use.

bubbleimages;132371 wrote:Thank you very much! Lots of information to look at. The main thing we were looking into doing is the phone cases at event or markets, so enough power to safely operate a macbook, sublideck and epson printer. Understand it would not be a cheap setup but might be worth while in the long run if put to use.

I'm not sure how much power the sublideck uses but most modern sine-wave invertors can chug along all day happily at 1000w outputs.

Just add up all the equipment wattage and see what size invertor you will need. If you're plugging in a Mac book I would definately opt for the more expensive pure sine-wave invertors rather than the cheaper ones. You should be able to pick up a decent invertor for about £200 and decent solar panels for about £500 with the output you need.

The heatpress is going to be the sticking point. You could run the printer and Mac on a leisure battery or even a solar panel. Screwfix do some affordable inverter generators, as long as your press needs less than 2.2kw.
https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/genera ... e=inverter

Your problem is the Sublideck which has a max power of 1.1kw. If you'd just needed to run the Macbook and printer then you probably could have run them all day on a caravan leisure battery (110Ah - deep cycle) without draining the battery. It's still an option though if you want to avoid huge power spikes and run only the Sublideck from the genny.