The Beast

We had The Beast running again this weekend. It is a bit tricky to get it running. The first time we started it, (a few weeks ago), we forgot to turn on the fuel. That didn’t work very well. The second time, (last week) we forgot to turn on the ignition switch. Duh. The third time (yesterday) we forgot to choke it first.

That’s about all the mistakes that one can make I suppose, which is pretty frustrating…. especially after you realize that the instructions for starting it are displayed right on the front panel:

Directions… in pictures…. right where we were standing when we tried to start it.

Oops.

But we are learning as we go, and we did get it started and checked out end to end all the way from the pull cord to a light bulb.

End to EndThis may seem like a trivial test to do, but we do not want to wait until the blizzard to find out that something doesn’t work right… and we did have to return one $70 cable to the store because it did not work properly.

Nice rat’s nest, huh? I had to procure the triangular converter box in order to do this test. That is the black box on the left in the photo below.

RatsIt converts the large cable with the 240 Volt L14-30P Twist Lock outlet to a set of 4 standard 120 Volt 5-20 outlets so that I can test it with the lamp ( aren’t you glad you asked? ) .

The converter box was difficult to find, and I finally had to order one through a local hardware store. It cost me $39.95, and really is just a box with some wires and outlets in it. It is rugged and well built, but still, it is just a box with some wires and outlets in it for $39.95.

I was somewhat disturbed by the cost of the converter until last night when we got take-out food at the local eatery and the bill for some subs came to $29.61. Yikes.

I feel a little better about the cost of the converter box now, but not so good about the cost of subs.

The next test will require shutting down the entire house and trying to run some of it from the generator. That ought to be interesting!

Slow blog day. Are you still there?

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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