On Thu, 12 Apr 2018 21:53:28 +0000, Marland wrote:

Johnny

I'd been hanging on for over a year awaiting Lidl's next batch of
1.2KVA
(pk) inverter gensets to arrive in their stores when I spotted,
completely out of the blue, a half pallet's worth (4 or 5) at the
bargain price of 99 quid rather than at their more usual 129 quid price
point. That low price was an unexpected bonus, matching the price paid
by another 'jammy' poster to this news group nearly two years back
who'd discovered his 99 quid bargain hidden underneath a pile of
clothing in the "Reduced To Clear" bin in another Lidl store (the lucky
git!). Suffice to say, that was the very first item placed into the
XYL's shopping trolly that Sunday afternoon. :-)

At the time when I read that lucky git's posting, my thought was,
"Yeah,
at that price, even though it's way under-powered for my needs,

As said lucky git I remembered that when I visited a Lidl at opening
time on Sunday Morning and saw a similar pile of generators. Didnt
look too hard as my target purchase was elsewhere but did notice the
boxes looked more rectangular than the one I obtained which was a cube.
Whether the model has been changed much I havent had time to look and
at that price point it doesnt really matter,it will either work for
you or not and not too great a loss if it doesnt. I havent used mine
in anger for running in a power cut yet,the supply has been quite robust
since purchase. Another resident of the village borrowed it for a night
to run a moth trap in a field and it ran ok but it was lightly loaded,
Ive used an electric chainsaw on it on a couple of occasions such
sawing up some fallen branches on a roadside and it coped. Nice and
light to pop in the car for that.

The genset *was* rather a snug fit in the box so unless there was extra
padding in the one you'd bought, it might well be a different model
despite having the same output specification (1KVA cont./1.2KVA peak).


My target on Sunday was the wildlife cameras, normally Im not one of
those who chases bargains to the extent of arriving at store open time
but was glad I did on this occasion as they only seemed to have about 10
on sale, I picked up two and all had gone by 20 mins. I did some other
shopping and then noticed an old chap looking a bit crestfallen at the
empty bin,he had made a visit specially to purchase one and had already
missed out at another store only about 5 miles away, so I let him have
one of the two I had.
I already have a Bushnell and a little acorn so didnt need to be
greedy.


I appreciate the response. :-) As you pointed out, at that price point
(cheapest genset yet!) it's well worth a punt. In my case, even if it
can't handle the freezer startup surge, it's worth it just to prove that
there *is* a way to combine a sub-50KVA genset with a 2KVA UPS. :-)

At the time, the cheapest 3KVA inverter gensets I could track down were
a still considerable 600 quid or so. Even though that was only about a
third of the price of a brand new Honda inverter genset of that rating,
it still represented a sizeable investment so I did my usual and
procrastinated over making such a purchase. You could say that my motto
is "If in doubt, procrastinate!" since this strategy has served me quite
well over the past half century or so. :-)

The last time that Lidl had advertised the sale of these gensets some 6
months or so back, they failed to materialise in any of their stores
apparently, according to one Lidl shop assistant I queried, due to them
being recalled for some unexplained reason. Their appearance this time
round was totally unannounced and it was pure dumb luck that I happened
to accompany my XYL on her shopping trip when I spotted this most
unexpected surprise. Their remarkably low price was just icing on the
cake (I'd have bought one anyway even if they'd been priced at their
previous price of 129 quid).

Even though it's been 4 days (and counting) since I made my purchase,
I've yet to fire it up to test it out. The main reason for the delay
being my basement flooding problems, compounded by my desire to get back
to square one with the UPS setup that I want to test it with. I got a set
of batteries today for the UPS and I now have it set not to cook my new
set of "consumables".

Happily, I already had a half a litre's worth of 10W-40 lube oil to prep
the genset and just need to buy 4 or 5 litres of unleaded to fuel it up.
I can swing by a petrol station tomorrow when I visit MachineMart to pick
up the Hippo water pump that Terry had recommended (I'm still having
water ingress issues in the basement).

With luck, I might be able to say whether it is a functional or a DoA
genset by tomorrow afternoon. It's like the Schroedingers Cat thought
experiment question - right now it's both dead and alive and I won't know
which it is until I take that(or those) first (few) pull(s) on the
starter cord. I don't usually wait more than an hour or two between
purchase and testing but real life rather got in the way and spoilt my
fun. :-(

--
Johnny B Good