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Originally posted by tintin11 I'm setting up an small outdoor party in the woods and was wondering if anyone could help me out choosing the right generator. Is it necessary to have clean AC sine power for the laptop, mixer and speakers? I've read that traditional power tool generators won't do the trick and that you need an inverter generator, is this true?? Any help would be appreciated.

I've done a little work with Generators. Generally, it depends how serious you want to get. If it's you and a couple of mates then I wouldn't stress about it, but if it's anything more you're going to have to power condition a basic generator. Bear in mind though, most powertool Generators are not your standard mains outputs, they can be three or even 5 phase, and double the voltage, so you may need an invertor or at least a transformer.

It's not that hard though if you can find a small generator that puts out mains standard power - then any of the furman conditioners will do it for the DJ kit but you have to factor in the amperage you need as PA's can draw some serious juice.

Let me know the specifics and I'll try to help....

Nice, good to know... it's nothing serious, 20 people max.

I'm planning two 500 watt PA's, a mixer, a laptop, and a couple lights.

Was thinking a 2500 watt generator would be sufficient... Not sure how much 'headroom' to leave for the generator and how would you setup the power conditioner? Complete noob with this lol

hell yeah man generator party! i've always wanted to do that

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DJ/Producer

Just a few things to bear in mind....

I always go by commercial installation guidelines and use a 20% headroom as a minimum so if you're calcs look like drawing 1500w then you need a 2000w generator etc.

Now bear in mind, you have to make sure the amplifier wattage is either peak or RMS as you can't do an accurate calc unless you know this.

Also, you're going to need lights, and in a lot of circumstances, these can actually pull more than a small sized pa so figure that in as well.

The DJ equipment (and other peripheral devices) really should not pull more than 100W combined but just be wary that people don't bring things to plug in themselves.

Also make sure you try to get a generator with a breaker interface otherwise you could end up with problems if you short it out or pull too much.

Finally make an area where no one from the party can get to and put the generator there, preferably on a pallett, off the ground. Make sure no one else has access to the power bars or extension leads.

btw, this is just hypothetical info and I take no responsibility if you fry yourself doing any of this in real life.