Airbags for genset mounts

[uniquify]

@uniquify
what are your thoughts then for mounting the generator?

If the tire is old or bad, I'd be tempted to drill through both sidewalls. Then bolt the bottom down to the deck and the top sidewall to the rails on the generator. Probably wouldn't need to bolt it down at all for the proof of concept.

 

[sassriverrat]

If the tire is old or bad, I'd be tempted to drill through both sidewalls. Then bolt the bottom down to the deck and the top sidewall to the rails on the generator. Probably wouldn't need to bolt it down at all for the proof of concept.

And if it worked just leave the tire as the permanent mount?

 

[Chainbreaker]

Yeah, I would also recommend a proof-of-concept trial run first with genset sitting in place unbolted, then if that works stage 2 is bolt it down. You should even consider putting an inner tube in it and voila...there's your air bag system. You could play with air pressure to see where sound is best attenuated and genset rides best.

As a permanent mount, you could air it up for road travel to prevent any genset bouncing and then deflate to best sound attenuation level when parked & running.

 

[chucky]

Good Evening,

I've tried bolting down with soft motor mounts, welding down, and double motor mounting an MEP-831 generator without much success in reducing noise.....the frame of my 11,000lb (empty weight) trailer is still making a racket. I hoping someone had an idea or access to small airbags (cheap) or a source for them to direct me to!

Thanks

Dont know if you've figured out a way to dampen your generator vibration but if not we used a sliding frame with little firestone air bags on all 4 corners on our generators in the bays of bus's/motor home and the air bags were a little bigger than your fist .And where your mounting it on the 989 you could build really quite box for it to slide out of to service or whatever so you fix sound and vibration . goodyear makes some small bags for belt tensioners on prevost that would be the exact sise female thread on one side male bolt on other side hollow to feed air hose to each bag or tie them all togeather with one valve stem but air bags generators were the only generators in the buses that didnt feel them running we could park in front of hotels in downtown cities and you could stand beside the bay the generator was in and not hear a thing . Cities like new york would give us a fit if they heard a generator when the outside tempature was above 32 degrees they would write us tickets so we had to make them silent maybe this will help

 

[Coug]

Sorry for the delay on this:

I can't stick it to one size or the other.....I wish I could, but the trailer tows incredibly well with the current tongue, but the current tongue is so short that with tight turns, the sides of the platform can actually go under the edges of the bed on the truck. Therefore, anything on the corners of the platform would get crushed unfortunately.

You guys have some really good ideas here, some of which I've already tried and some I hadn't thought about, but I haven't had any success and I figure airbags are the next approach. My current issue is just that I haven't found airbags that seem appropriately small enough.....
My plan with the bags was merely to have two valves and a gauge- one valve filled the bags off trailer air and the other dumped the pressure. The gauge was in between so I could see the pressure in the bags. Simple enough.

To touch on this, I was just as someone's house a couple weeks ago with one of these trailers he towed with a 5 ton. He showed me the tire that had been on the front corner that had tread chunks ripped out from coming into contact with the 5 ton.
His solution to that was to have a longer section of tongue made to make the distance between trailer and truck longer. At the same time he replaced the tow chains with longer and I believe the air lines as well.
Had to use ratchet straps to lift the tongue when unhooking due to the weight, but no more truck/trailer contact.

 

[Mr4btTahoe]

Lord Hydraulic mounts are amazing at reducing vibrations and such. May be the ticket. They are simple round mounts.. 2 studs on bottom, one large stud on top. They can be hard to find though.

 

[maniatopoulosg]

One suggestion if you haven't tried it yet and if it will work with your front end plans, would be to move the generator location to one side and not in the center and see if that helps. Also as suggested by others, using wood mounting with stall mat isolation along with location change might help.

That should help the generator sitting on the chassis probably acts like a tuning fork


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[maniatopoulosg]

And if it worked just leave the tire as the permanent mount?

If the noise is coming between the generator and the trailer the tire and solve that problem


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ATXKMM]

Old thread but what was the outcome?

If this wasn't solved already, and you're still looking for a solution, you might consider turning the genset 90 degrees or at an off-square angle. I am guessing that this issue is basically a sympathetic vibration problem and the phase of the wavelength might change completely by rotating the genset either clockwise or counter-clockwise. You basically have a passive speaker box with your container...
This suggestion *could also make the issue worse but it would prove the theory I guess.
(This is a technique used in amplifier construction- you change the output transformer to power transformer orientation to prevent coupling).

Hope this helps- would like to know what the end result is because I plan on using a Conex box for an off-grid cabin and an 803a for power so I may see this exact issue crop up.

ATXKMM