This video contains first impressions of the champion mighty atom generator as sold in the UK.
Looking for a small suitcase type generator for occasional home use even though power cuts are pretty rare in the UK?
At least where I am the way things are going it seemed prudent to have at least the option for a bit of power if needed it.
I saw some reviews of other Champion generators and they seem to be pretty well made with good features people seem to like them they’re certainly a lot cheaper than the Japanese options. The reviews for the Champion Generators seem to indicate that they don’t fall apart five minutes after the warranty runs out. So that sounds pretty good to me.
So you’ve got the side cover here which is again fairly typical of this sort of generator but the first thing I found is there’s nothing to hold on to take the cover off very easily.
So you’ve got a couple of screws here and the technique that seemed to work best for me was to partially back the screws out and then just grab them to pull the cover off.
I see some models have thumbscrews here which means you don’t need any tools to get the cover off. It would be nice but it’s no big deal really. The plastic feels flexible but pretty tough so feels like it would take a few knocks without splitting or breaking.
Though I am wary of these two tabs when putting the cover back on they’re quite thin some bit just a bit careful when I slot them back in to not risk breaking them off so it’s pretty compact in here.
Similar to a lot of these things one of the first things I noticed is there’s a drain screw on the carburettor and actually getting to it is a bit of a pain.
There’s this is the HT lead for the spark plug so it’s fairly stiff the access to get to that screw is a little bit awkward if they just rotate it around slightly life will be a lot easier. You can get a spanner on it which works, in fact, that’s what I did the first time I drained the carburettor. But I’m quite wary of over torquing it which would be easy to do with a spanner. So just something to be aware of.
This is the air filter cover and this is just a clip there are no tools required to take that cover off which is nice I think you can see this is the filler plug and there’s this little sort of drain pan area so when you’re draining oil it directs it away from the case.
One thing I did notice is underneath the oil filler there’s a very subtle lip in the casting that you can see here just about. I think that’s there so that any little drips if there’s a leak, or you’ve not put the cover back on properly, or not put the plug back on properly or if you’re filling it and spill a bit of oil the drips are going to go into this little pan here and outside the generator, they’re not going to run back down and inside the case. So I think that’s quite a nice little touch.
I found the air filter was completely dry so I did actually oil it with some proper air filter oil that I just happen to have to hang around. You don’t need to use that you can use engine oil but if you’re running this in a dusty environment you may want to check that before you start using it to see whether it needs any oil in it.
Talking of oil the run-in period for this generator is five hours in the manual, that’s five hours and less than fifty per cent load.
I’ve recently changed the oil and what came out was pretty manky so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on the oil level and oil condition.
The 10 W30 they recommend is not easy to get in the usual high street locations here in the UK or at least not where I live.
To be honest the engine will probably be fine with almost any oil of a similar viscosity fuel fillers here on the side rather than on the front. I quite like this because if you are a bit messy and spill some fuel it’s not going to drip all over the front panel. It’s going to come down the side I think that’s quite a neat feature.
So this is the UK model the 92001-i UK, marketed as The Champion Mighty Atom. It can run on E5 and E10 fuel which is handy because that’s basically all we have in the UK now.
I use E5 petrol and the vague assumption that it’s probably better for it in the long run.
So you always get a few accessories with machines like this not a huge amount in the case of Champion. There’s a battery lead for the 12-volt connection, which we’ll talk about later, there’s also a USB like a car USB charger I’ve not even opened this container.
You get an oil funnel and there was a bottle of oil which I’ve used when I first filled it up. There are no tools included.
I know some of them do come with a spark plug wrench and so on but the manual does give you the sizes needed for things like that.
Having a brief look at some of the controls, you’ve got your main switch. I initially thought this was fuel only because the manual does say turn the fuel off and let the generator run until it’s starved to fuel, but actually, there is a microswitch that you may or may not hear, so this is actually a run switch as well.
I did try turning it almost all the way off but it still seems to run fine like that so I had to find some other
methods of draining the fuel. So what I do is I use a small siphon just to get any remaining fuel out of the fuel tank. Then I restart the generator and let it run until the fuels run out. you need to do something like that if you’re going to store it for any length of time.
There are so many similar champion generators that look like this with slightly different control layouts. Many of them have the choke up here it’s actually on the side next to the pull start handle on this model.
There are no USB charging ports built-in, I thought
about this and I decided that’s I’m not interested in that because I’m not gonna sit next to this generator when it’s running and plug my phone into the charger.
If I need to do that I’ll plug it into a charger attached to the extension lead wherever I happen to be which won’t be right next to the generator. So I don’t think having USB ports on here is particularly useful for my use.
Your mileage may vary as a 12-volt socket as they often do. You’ve got your usual breakers for in this case 230 volts and 12 volts.
I quite like the fact they’re covered in little evil radiation suit helmets or doctors now if you’re a bit older. It’s got the usual parallel connectors which again are really common on this sort of generator.
There’s like a grounding connector there seems to be a lot of conflicting information out there on grounding these little generators.
The Champion manual says it must be grounded I checked with the place I bought it from and they said it didn’t need to be grounded.
To be honest I don’t think anyone bothers grounding these little generators. I guess as long as you are not plugging it into mains electricity or anything like that I am purely running things off extension leads because this is the UK model we’ve got our two 13 amp plugs 240 volts or 230 volts and they’ve got quite nice sprung plastic covers.
I’ve noticed a lot of the USA and European sockets just have like a rubber flap so these are quite nice. However, it does mean if you’ve got a real old-school power adapter something like an old drill charger with this particular type of socket you can’t plug that in directly because that flap will get in the way. Again it’s not a huge problem you just plug in an extension lead but something to bear in mind.
Now the manual contradicts itself here, at the top of the page it says you can use this with other 12-volt dc plugs but then further down the same page it says only to use it with the supplied battery charging lead. So something to be aware of.
It also says you can’t use 12 volts and 230 volts at the same time and if you are using 12 volts you shouldn’t be using eco mode and you definitely can’t jump-start a car off 12 volts so bear all that in mind.
Talking of the eco mode when you start this generator it actually starts up in eco mode. A lot of the other ones I’ve seen when I was looking for reviews online to buy say you have to start them in normal mode and then switch them to eco mode. I quite like this way of doing it because to my mind it seems to be a lot less wear and tear on the unit if it’s starting at a lower rev range than if it’s running flat out as soon as you start it.
Like most generators of this style if you’re running heavy loads you should switch that eco mode off.
There’s a three-year limited warranty I haven’t bothered reading the finer details of it there’s always loads of get-out clauses but this is really designed for domestic use so if you’re running this in your commercial space don’t expect Champion to honour warranties if this thing’s running flat out 24 hours a day. It’s really designed for sort of domestic use camping that sort of thing.
So one of my final conclusions:
I wouldn’t expect the same durability as a Honda for example, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t last a decent amount of time if it’s looked after.
If I was expecting to be using it regularly for large amounts of time and relying on it then maybe I’d consider spending more and getting a Honda or Yamaha or something like that, but given this is less than half the price of one of those and I’m not expecting to be using it that often I’m happy to take the risk either way.
So far so good I’ve been very happy with the Champion Mighty Atom and hopefully it will give me many years of service. Hopefully, I won’t actually need it very much, but it’s nice to know it’s there if I do