Out with the old in with the new (ish)

You may recall I blogged about the donk surviving its open heart surgery, well to keep the metaphors in line the generator has had a heart attack and died on me !!

As I now have an amp counter I was going to see how the 8.3 amp DC outlet on the Trent Power generator worked but literally as I fired up the genny there was a puff of white smoke then it started to rev despite the econ switch being 'on'. I tried plugging something into the 240v outlet but nothing there.

Long story short it is the inverter module failed - common on these cheapish gennys but as its a solid unit with all components in a resin bonded type heatsink it's not repairable and they are over £200 to replace  - if you can get them ! So as Richard the engineer had advised using a genny to charge the batteries rather than the big old donk, on the premise its easier to service and repair a genny than a 3 litre engine (plus a cheaper on fuel option) I needed a new genny.

First concern was do I still need a 2kw (heavy) model. As I will be using it for battery charging and Dysoning I needed to check if a 1kw genny would run my Dyson... enter left my good neighbour Mandy from NB Don't Panic who has a 1kw Clark model. She fired it up and we tested the Dyson and it spun up and sucked ok so a result. I use it also for the lawn mover and  know Mandy uses the genny with the little flymo I passed to her a while ago so thats also covered. I did use to use it with the chainsaw but as I don't burn wood much any more on the boat of at home that will get sold so a 1kw jobbie is all that is needed - that'll help my back and my wallet.

Now second hand or new  Clark/Hyundai or a Honda - new at over £800 quid was out of the question so if I went Honda it would have to be second hand. The sage advice was go for a Honda based on performance, build quality and longevity. I decided that a good second hand Honda would still be worth a few hundred quid if looked after down the boat owing line whereas a cheap Clark or Hyundai would be worth not a lot and more than likely would have failed with the similar problem  as I have just experienced.

So I got on the hunt for a second hand Honda EU10i, a few about but these things don't normally get posted so I had to be realistic on collection and I wanted a good one. Some were obviously well used (did you know the Honda flashed its green electric light on start up to advise on the number of hours its been used for ?) Once again to cut a long story short I got a less than forty hours model, like new condition at a cost a bit more than a new Hyundai.

Let's hope it lives up to the hype... it certainly is a joy to move about compared to my old model and it's soooo easy to start.

Here is the comparison....

The other positive was it was purchased from a place north east of Sheffield so I had a great drive over to collect it.

That white dish centre left I think is Jodrell Bank !