So here I am, typing in the dark using a battery backup for the computer, but tonight we are not sweating like crazy and wishing we were dead. We are basking in the coolness of a nice powerful fan…with the aweful drone of a generator running full throttle in the background.
That’s right, a generator! We found an old dilapidated generator with an unknown origin and history that was owned by NTMA some time back. I dug it out and cleaned it up with the hopes that we could use it until our loaner generator arrives. It had no muffler, leaked fuel like crazy and wouldn’t run, until tonight!
All it took was a fan and cheap, local-brand waffle maker! The generator only runs at full throttle because I think the governor springs are mismatched. I would be “shooting in the dark” (sorry) to try and find the proper springs, so I made due with what we had. The waffle maker is the highest powered electrical device I could run and have turned on constantly, however once it heats up it turns off until its cool enough to cycle again. The generator runs like a three legged cat until the waffle maker cools and then turns back on.
So I opened the waffle maker, turned a fan toward it and it keeps it cool enough that it never turns off due to the fact that it is of absolutely-embarassingly-terrible quality that it can never warm up properly. That leaves the generator with only a couple hundred spare watts so we are running a fan tonight to stay cool. We are so spoiled!
I wonder what will happen when it starts to rain on the waffle iron… I guess this isn’t a sustainable method for getting power, but tonight we feel pretty blessed!
[…] ran outside and started up the dilapidated generator, waffle iron and fan. I ran back inside, plugged in a voltage regulator and my uninterruptible power supply with the […]