amish_hooligan wrote:What about having a little stereo system to broadcast music? Might drown out some generator noise and attract people.

Adding music to a noisy environment just makes it more noisy. Folks will add it to their filters, or it will begin to grate on them. If the generator us just at the edge of conversational levels, and you add music enough to hide it (*minimum*, 3dB above the gennie), you'll have more than doubled the noise floor.

Construct a sheet metal box with some heat-resistant glass fiber matting on the inside, and dynamat on the outside, and that'll take care of the mechanical noise of the gennie. Pipe the exhaust up and away from the van with a decent muffler, and that takes care of the exhaust and the noise from the exhaust. Make sure that the gennie has some way to cool itself.

To update the status of the van....I have been helping a local arts high school raise money for a prom. We park the van in front of the school at 7am and sell lattes, mochas, caps, Americanos, hot chocolate, muffins, etc to the students and faculty. I'm having a group of students rotate each morning and hoping they will get a taste of showing up early for work, counting cash, taking orders, cleaning,etc. So far it seems to be working. Not making much money, but it is another chance to actually iron out logistics for another venue. I'm still not happy with the noise. We are parked in a residential area and in 3 weeks have not had any complaints, but the interior is a bit noisy. I just need to spend the time. Thanks for the good suggestions in this thread on fixing that issue.
Bernie

bernie wrote:I'm still not happy with the noise.

I thought of your comment today while sampling the espresso at Raleigh Coffee Shaw:





The espresso machine's boiler is heated by propane and the grinder is powered by an RV battery with power inverter. It has an autofill circuit to keep the boiler topped off and built-in driptray drainage into a hidden 5 gallon bucket. Despite the blustery wind conditions, he pulled a very respectable double espresso. His mobile kiosk was right next to the main downtown rickshaw stop; thanks to the propane heater and lever espresso machine, the grinder is the only noise. The coffee was roasted by Joe Van Gogh; the blend was simple chocolates and roast notes. I bet it would make a killer cappuccino, but when I went back a few hours later, he was gone.

That coffee rickshaw is pretty awesome, wonder how far he's gotta pedal from his home base.

I didn't ask, but I assume he's storing it downtown with the other Raleigh Rickshaw equipment. While I was there, a customer did ask how hard it was to pedal: "It's really heavy" was the owner's only comment. Fortunately the central downtown area is fairly flat.

HB wrote:Despite the blustery wind conditions, he pulled a very respectable double espresso.

When Gwilym Davies won the 2009 WBC, I learned not to sell cart operators short.