So I thought you might enjoy my fiasco today!
Electric goes off at 7am. Can't shower for work, can't make oatmeal. So think, this is a great opportunity to test my new fangled INVERTER GENERATOR! 3kw/4kw peak. Turn off 220v main to house from street.
Go to workshop, fire it up, try to plug it into my welder outlet and find it is wrong 220v plug..... OK, no problem, I will move it around to side of garage and plug it into the GMC motor home outlet instead. That works!
So it starts up and starts oscillating up and down in speed, little red light on it say overload on and off about once a second as speed goes up and down... Hmmmm not good. So figure ok, will run into the house and look at what it is doing. WOW! lights going up and down once a second. Vickie says she just shut off the 4 ceiling fans as they were going like 27,000 rpm and she thought they were going to launch themselves! Run back out to shut it off, but hear it shut itself off on overload.
OK, well THAT didn't work....
Go into garage/office, smell burnt electrical stuff... OH OH....
same in garage.....
same in house, kitchen specifically....
IN the end, I find I toasted:
Our 20 year old above stovetop built in GE 900 watt microwave
The toaster oven seems to have thrown off its internal MOVs - there is black soot under it on the counter top and it smells too - but it still works fine.
The GOOD automatic smart golf cart battery charger in the garage
A couple X10 noise filters in the garage/office
A few X10 appliance modules, at least one RF xcvr unit
A plug in rodent noise maker box melted its top case plastic, it is black, and it stinks now - I think flames came out there
ALL 5 cool remote control X10 fancy light switches around garage and office
my workshop computer power supply is dead
Not sure what else I will find, but I DID learn a nifty lesson: TURN OFF BREAKER TO HOT TUB AND WATER HEATER BEFORE TURNING ON GENERATOR.
I THINK that was my overload. But can't be sure until I try it next time..... Needless to say, I am writing a nice instruction sheet to attach with a string to the generator, with the notes of what to turn off before plugging in the generator, next time.
Until then, bye