Generators for dirt cheap prices

chipmaker

Active Member
Well I had wanted to buy one of those Harbor Freight Gen sets to play with, but my wife putr her foot down. As luck would have it, my friend wanted a small cheap set for carrying in his pickup and bought a HArbor Freight gen set about 2 weeks ago., Its a 2.5 hp 1000 watt with a 4 stroke engine with overhead valves and cam. Motor is so close to looking like a typical honda brand motor if it did not have made in china on it you would htink it wa a honda motor. Its 15 amps and gas capacity is about 1 gal. He give $200 for it. Well from what I seen of it and what he told me, I talked the wife into allowing me to pickupo one as well.....My friend has run his HF gen set for 3 days continuous use with a couple of lights on it and a small portable heater.....With a full draw load it runs approx 11 hours ona gala of gas. When he unpacked it from the box it took 4 pulls to start it up. It now restarts with one or two pulls very easy and its relatively quiet. Well thatb same gen set is now on sale for $179.99 so it makes it even nore of a bargain than a UPS could even dream of.....We seem to think its really under rated as his amperage darw when converted to watts is about 1,200 or so, and it does not have any problems. Now weather or not they are "all" the same is anyones guess but this set is actually better than it is advertised as being.
So the wife finally told me if I wanted one to go get it. As luck would have it, As I was going into town with her, there was a pickup truck with large enclosed trailer on it, with a sign advertising mini motor cyles, mopeds and trikes for kids "Gas Powered" setting on a corner of a mini mart. This vehicle has been there many times, but I have never really paid attention to it, as I was not looking for a gas powered mini bike either. But the wife said why not get the grand child a mini bike that he oculd play with when he comes to visit. Hey we have lots of acerage for him to ride, so we pulled into this lot and took a look. It was then I spotted a stack of gas powered generator sets in the trailer, as well as one the fella had running powering up his sign. I asked him how much they were and he replied regularly $149.99 on speciala now for $129.00......It was rated at 1,500 watts, has a 1.75 gal tank, and a 2.5 hp motor, which is a ohv motor as well. Its made in China, and the motors castings look like a blind man chiseled it out of a block of aluminum. Certainly nothing pretty or super looking about it, but it worked. It has a 1 year warranty. Its brand name is Cheng Seng Electric. Needless to say I picked one up and its been running now since late Saturday morning, and has yet to miss a beat. I put a meter on it, and voltage is fully adjustable. I do not have as much of a load on it as my friends had, but its loaded pretty well and ts gotten approx 13 hours run time to a tank of gas. This gen set started on the 5th pull, and regularly starts on the 1st or 2nd when its shut off. It too is pretty quiet, and has 2 duplex receptilces rated at 15 amps. The guy that sold me it told me the gen set they have in use has ben in operation every weekend and sometimes during the day for close to a year now. So they may not be pretty but they seem to be pretty darn durable, and thats what counts. Hard to have a tank be in jeopardy when yu can buy a gen set for such a low price. I would not be surprised if there are other guys like this fella in other towns peddling those el cheapo gas powered mini bikes / cycles, and odds are they may also have these gen sets for sale.....Even if there is not, everyone has access to harbor freight either in their town or nearby towen or mail order and that 1000watt gen set is a pretty darn nice buy as well. Item number 94678 if yur interested. On top of that if you happen to get their advertisement in the mail or picked up in the store they have a coupon in it worth an additional 15% off so yu can take 15% off that Gen sets sale price as well.
 

renogaw

Active Member
lol could i send you a check and get me one?
i lost power AGAIN friday night for 5 hours. I don't know how many times i can do this. This winter i'm looking at at least 5 power outages from snow (i live in the hills). I may have a new item on my Christmas list...
 

chipmaker

Active Member
Renogaw.I would almost bet that there are lots of these peddlers of import goods around the major towns or even smaller towns this time of year.
Oh, almost forgot. We originally stopped at that trailer slaes lot for a mini cycle. From the road they loked pretty neat,k up close they were crude at best, but functional. We did but the grand kid one, came home and it proved to be one headache to get started. I played with it and played with it, got frustrated, and was ready to carry it back. I pulled the plug and found it was missing the center electrode.......no wonder it would not start...Put in a new plug and it fired right off. Spark plug had NGK on it, but I think it was a clone, like most of everything that comes out of China. But heck it worked thats all that counts.
 

phixer

Active Member
I picked up a couple of electric powered Chinese minibikes about a year ago, cheaply made but they still seem to be operational and my kids love them.
 
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