Best APU To Buy That Does It All ?

The big strapon APU's are heavy too, yes you can get 400 pound exemptions in some states. figure lugging around that extra 400 pounds all year long takes a little toll on fuel economy that it saves from not idling too. This is one of the cons along with high price and frequent breakdown that turns me off to big strapon APU's.

Little 50 pound generator and 50 pound airconditioner and I can scale just under 46,000 pounds of freight no exemptions needed nor a need to go into the scale house every time to show them the exemption.

 

That's not all they do. They run on diesel from your tank, not on gas that runs out in the middle of the night.

They start and stop when needed depending on the temp setting. Gas ones do not.

They monitor the battery voltage and start and stop when needed charging them with an alternator. A gas one can but with a battery charger that will probably boil your batteries because unlike an alternator they keep on going. You also can't run an AC and battery charger at the same time unless the generator is a larger one.

They are usually twin cylinder liquid cooled so they last 10 times longer then a gas generator

APU's have the control panel inside the truck next to your face in the bunk. Wake up in the morning at 30 degrees and just push a button. Gas generator? Well, nobody wants to see your fat ### walking around in your underwear trying to pull start your generator

My APU uses .2 gallons per hour. You need to dig to find the specs on a gas generator. They tend to post figures at 50% and in ECO mode and not what real life demands.

Nobody has tried to take my 450 pound APU. Bolt cutters gets you a nice Honda generator. I watched that first hand. 3 guys. One in car with trunk open. 1 guy cuts chain and the other throws it in the trunk. It happened so fast I couldn't even tell the cops what kind of car it was. The guy had to be woken up to tell him it was stolen.

 

You def do not want a gas powered APU. Go with a model that has a direct line to your tank. Then you don't wake up in the middle of the night with sweat soaked sheets because your A/C ran out of gas.

i have use all kinds of apus but currently do not have one and im seaching. The new Dynasys running a CAT looks good. I saw them at MATS with a couple different models one with no generator. TKs new unit for this year looks good also.

Anybody use Dynasys or TKs new units yet?

 

How is an $8,000 genset going to pay for itself in 6 months or less?

 

A diesel plumbed with fuel tank would be nice, but FYI the Honda EU3000is runs 10 hours or better on a tank full of gas. What I do is fill two 2 gallon cans, fill up gen. refill before going to bed. never runs out while sleeping and I usually can fit whatever is left in the gen in the morning, leaving me with two empty cans.

The only problem I've ran into from time to time is getting delayed at shippers or receivers where there's no gas and my cans are empty. I do like the fact that it's much quieter, if I stand between my Honda Gen and a ThermoKing, I will hear only the ThermoKing.

The other thing I would point out is this, one of the big selling points for an APU is fuel savings. You simply save more with a Honda gen. A ThermoKing claims to use 3/4 gallon of diesel/hour and a Honda Gen uses 1/3 gallon of gasoline/hour. $2.50/hour for the ThermoKing and under $1/hour for the Honda.

Okay, that being said I am still undecided what I am doing for sure myself, if I was running my regular stuff and getting home a lot there is no way I would spend extra for diesel, but I'm trying something new and if it works out I will be spending a lot more nights in the truck, and possibly parking at customer without access to gasoline. So I may wind up springing for a diesel APU.

 

Pony Pack APU

 

Danny I think your fuel consumption estimate on the diesel is high. The TK claims are 0.2 gph, with an asterisk noting ambient temps and cab insulation variables. So probably a little higher when the unit is running a/c a lot more (under load). Gas gens will do the same.

In the end, I seriously doubt the differences between gas/diesel models will vary enough to really matter at that low end of the scale. You are right on about the noise level on the Hondas. The little 2000 I have is super quiet. As you probably already know, you have to hear it for yourself to believe it. Especially if you've owned cheaper generators. The 6500w gen I have at home for backup power is loud as hell. No way would I put up with that on a truck, even with a smaller generator.

 

What about having a webasto heater and a viesa.ca cooling unit? Its good only for 10 hours, but that will be enough for me, just to get thru the night

 

The CFM that many manufactures do not easily advertise can be very misleading . The 1st time i bought 2 different units from the same manufacture and returned them thinking they were defective because they were not cooling as well as my 6 year old smaller btu units i had.

turned out that manufacture just had very low cFMs with their large BTU ratings.