[marshallf3]

400W continuous / 800W peak inverter for $20 with free shipping. Modified sine wave so it would probably pull 36A at full load but at that price it would be nice to stash in your car for emergencies or grab an extra battery for camping. Lightly loaded you could even run it off your bike battery for a while.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882021068



When I go camping there's just far too much stuff involved to take a bike and I can pick up virtually new tested good car batteries for $10 at a local salvage yard. My guess is a lot of them end up there because the PO bought a battery hoping that would fix the car but when it didn't and they really found out what the problem was it ended up as salvage. The yard gets so many of them in every day that if the battery tests out OK as far as voltage and cranking amps they get pulled and put out for sale.

 

[marshallf3]

UPS was late or it would have been here Friday but it came today. It seems they've corrected the problems a few have complained about in the past about the binding posts. Came with two sets of cables, one with some really nice battery clips on them and of course a cig lighter plug cord but you could never power more than 100 or so watts from a cig lighter plug.



A lot smaller than I expected, you could almost hide one of these on your bike so long as you kept the rain away from it. I'd actually recommend having one just to pop in your luggage box on an outing or tossing it into your backpack to take along on a trip in case you ever run into the need for 120V power on occasion.

 

[CXSarnia]

That is a good price - just ordered one myself.

400 watts - not so bad. It'll be nice to have a 120v socket

on the Sailboat this summer... If only to recharge the

laptop. Perhaps I should order a couple!

 

[nippongreen]

Cheers for the info Marshal

I may just order a couple of those gizzmo's, with the idea of re-charging our "additional" Group FRS radios on the base charger, while on tour

All The Best.......Keith........

...........

 

[nippongreen]

That is a good price - just ordered one myself.

400 watts - not so bad. It'll be nice to have a 120v socket

on the Sailboat this summer... If only to recharge the

laptop. Perhaps I should order a couple!

Hope you keep the coast guard informed of yer travels....

 

[marshallf3]

Yea, the free shipping alone makes the deal even sweeter but I don't know if that applied to you being a bit North of what should really be one country anyway. "Free Trade" agreements my tail, if we could ever get Felipe Calderón to admit to the fact that half of his country sneaks over the border to work here, holds PO boxes on the US side just to be able to get reliable mail and would ease up on their extremely tight restrictions as far as immigration to their country goes we could just be North America yet still keep the individual governments in place.



On the North side it doesn't seem to matter, it's been an almost totally open border for ages as far as I remember.



One thing that's also always bothered me has involved Cuba. I realize that their allegiance to Russia upset JFK during the cold war but enough has been enough and it seems that almost half of Florida is now Cuban.



As Ronald Reagan once said: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"



http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-tear-down.htm

 

[marshallf3]

I may just order a couple of those gizzmo's, with the idea of re-charging our "additional" Group FRS radios on the base charger, while on tour

No doubt few will be carrying anything like this around so you'll have another advantage. If you notice I originally posted about a week ago so I haven't a clue how long the sale or supply will last at this price. The company that manufactures then even has an 800# support line and the more I look at it the more I'm amazed at what you can occasionally buy that isn't junk. I won't go into the technology they used to make these here as it would be wasted on all but a very few so I'll just leave it as I was incredibly impressed compared to others I've seen out there at over twice the price.

 

[CXSarnia]

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find the same 'free shipping' to Canada. I had to be logged onto "http://Newegg.ca" . The only difference, was they added our damndable HST to bring the price up to $22.59. Still quite good considering.

 

[marshallf3]

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find the same 'free shipping' to Canada. I had to be logged onto "http://Newegg.ca" . The only difference, was they added our damndable HST to bring the price up to $22.59. Still quite good considering.

You know what they say, the only two things you can't escape in life is death and taxes.



Being an Interstate deal I had no tax. In theory we're supposed to report all things we but online and pay tax on them but it's not a rule that's ever observed on a small basis item, I've probably spent well over $10,000 both in business and personal purchases from NewEgg last year alone yet our state has decided it's much easier to tax us in other ways than to bother with trying to bother with internet stuff. Same thing with all the "Safety and Pollution" inspections on the cars, too many inspection stations ripping people off and most of the cars are either well within what you'd consider compliance or eventually get repaired. (or junked) If of course pays to keep eyes on everything yourself, if a headlight goes out there's reason they can pull you over even if you only get a verbal warning. They make plenty of money getting drunk &/or unlicensed/suspended drivers and those not carrying simple liability insurance off the street. We may be considered to be a backwards state at times but occasionally they make the right decisions.



I sure wish the guy that almost totalled my numbered, limited edition Pace Car had insurance as I had just recently dropped the $30K agreed value collision policy of mine off due to financial difficulties at the time. (read: old girlfriend)



Used to be pretty easy to ship up to you but you tightened your Customs ports from us down to two and on occasion stuff gets tossed in the corner. Sometimes if I ship something to a friend up there it's 4 days max, sometimes it ends up being three weeks and the holdup is always your Customs regardless of how a package is marked with all the proper documentation included both outside and inside.



I'm too old to start a "Tear down this wall" campaign between our two countries but I'd sure like to see it done over time. I've got some good local contacts and a few in DC so one of these days I might get tempted to write and see what I can get back on a personal (not aide written) level.



What are your opinions on this? You aren't going to get away from the tax although if you moved to Alberta it would be less.

 

[CXSarnia]

That is a good price - just ordered one myself.

400 watts - not so bad. It'll be nice to have a 120v socket

on the Sailboat this summer... If only to recharge the

laptop. Perhaps I should order a couple!

Holy Crap - Incredible service. Received yesterday at about 5pm.

January 3rd to Jan 5th and no delivery charge. That's one for the books.

Bookmark Newegg.com for US (or newegg.ca in Canada) for your Electronics.

 

[CXSarnia]

You know what they say, the only two things you can't escape in life is death and taxes.



I'm too old to start a "Tear down this wall" campaign between our two countries but I'd sure like to see it done over time. I've got some good local contacts and a few in DC so one of these days I might get tempted to write and see what I can get back on a personal (not aide written) level.



What are your opinions on this? You aren't going to get away from the tax although if you moved to Alberta it would be less.

Actually, the way most Canadians see it (not serious - just kidding - don't take this as real!!! ) the United states is just a buffer zone between us and the sunshine. Something we must pass through in the winter to get where we want to go. Mexico, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, etc, etc (okay okay, and Florida!!) The only place we can mostly fly directly to is Cuba. [

]

But seriously, the customs became part of "Canada Revenue Agency" a number of years ago. They only recently began carrying guns - if only for their own protection. From those I've talked with they would rather not consider themselves as "tax collectors' but essentially, that is the most part of their job. That and stopping contraband - whether it be cigarettes, drugs, or firearms.

 

[Gene McCall]

Well, apparently, that $20 price is gone! Went to the site, its now listed at $39.95, not worth it to me! Oh well, I didn't win the lottery either!

Gene

 

[marshallf3]

Holy Crap - Incredible service. Received yesterday at about 5pm.

January 3rd to Jan 5th and no delivery charge. That's one for the books.

Bookmark Newegg.com for US (or newegg.ca in Canada) for your Electronics.

Gene, it'll go on sale again, subscribe to their newsletters and they won't spam you, just point you out to the discounts and often "subscriber only" codes are given that will save you even more.



I've bought stuff from a number of suppliers over the years, you might occasionally find a deal on http://www.mwave.com but NewEgg has received almost every bit of my business (both personal and business) over the past year or so. Seems I spent around $10K with them last year alone but that doesn't have any effect on their customer service, same as Mouser they deal with everyone as if they were their biggest customer. Hard to find that anymore.

 

[marshallf3]

Actually, the way most Canadians see it (not serious - just kidding - don't take this as real!!! ) the United states is just a buffer zone between us and the sunshine. Something we must pass through in the winter to get where we want to go. Mexico, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, etc, etc (okay okay, and Florida!!) The only place we can mostly fly directly to is Cuba. [

]

But seriously, the customs became part of "Canada Revenue Agency" a number of years ago. They only recently began carrying guns - if only for their own protection. From those I've talked with they would rather not consider themselves as "tax collectors' but essentially, that is the most part of their job. That and stopping contraband - whether it be cigarettes, drugs, or firearms.

I suppose there has to be some sort of control but on occasion a package I send up there, no matter how well I fill out the forms and include a detailed description inside the box, gets hung up for weeks and it didn't used to be the case. Worst thing I ever had happen was on a package I sent to Australia. It just contained an old microwave tube but was eventually returned to me as "description insufficient" so I bombed them with forms & data both inside and outside the box and it went through just fine. Totally harmless experimenter's item but whoever looked at it must have rejected it because they didn't know what it was.



I haven't a clue if we can fly to Cuba yet, last I heard it was a no go unless you waded through a ton of paperwork and upon your return you can expect to be thoroughly searched. How the "families" up in NYC get all the true Cuban cigars over here is also a question but they do it all the time.



One thing I learned when I was in NYC is you never use the words "Mob" or "Mafia" and I'm sure the same applies to Chicago.

 

[RAGBrian]

These small inverters are nice to have in the car, especially for use as a source for charging other devices. So one doesn't have to pay an arm and a leg for the 12 volt version of the same charger. Though I will give credit to any manufacturer who see fit to include a cable that will charge their device off of a USB port (mp3 players and latest cell phones come to mind. I got lots of USB ports and specific chargers that work well with those devices!

Another thing is that I have used CFL (compact florescent) in clamp lamp fixtures running off of these inverters for light. Since you get a lot of light for small wattage one can use these for camp sites or areas where it's easier to drag out a gel cell sealed lead acid battery and hook it up. Great for power outages. I salvaged 2 dozen 7A SLA batteries from a computer room UPS and play with them. Thinking I might use them for a couple of moto projects (extra battery capacity or feed the electric vest.)