Kaixin Pumps

[pete57]

I ordered mine for uk delivery and again opted for cheapest delivery. jack contacted me and suggested he changed carrier to ups. the pump had originally cost £42 with delivery. However there was a duty charge of £3.55 but ups pay this then add £11 surcharge for doing so. So total cost for pump delivered was £53.
From what i understand if you order goods other than alcohol, tobacco,perfume and toilet water from outside the EU you do not pay excise duty.
you may have to pay customs duty on goods worth more than £135.
you will pay import vat on goods that exceeds £15.
by my reckoning if you could prepay the vat you would pay £39.20 each if you ordered 6. any more and you would pay customs duty also. I,M no expert so check prices yourself and be aware of these facts.

[darkonnis]

Aye seems he'd sold out of most of these which is a bugger! SO i guess I'll be waiting for some more to come in stock now. Not t worry

[Fil]

Fingers crossed that these prove to be upto the job.. I hope you guys who have shown interest will get an email when a second batch is produced, and will then let the rest of us know here.. hopefully we will have had glowing reports of boiling wort being pumped from the trail blaizers..

[Wolfy]

Fingers crossed that these prove to be upto the job.. I hope you guys who have shown interest will get an email when a second batch is produced, and will then let the rest of us know here.. hopefully we will have had glowing reports of boiling wort being pumped from the trail blaizers..

Several batches of beer later and I've had no issue with the non-100deg pumps pumping boiling wort into the plate chiller after the boil - of course that is a bit different to whirlpool and immersion chiller scenario, but it would be worth a try.

[stevetk189]

Mine arrived yesterday but not had the chance to fire one up. They certainly look up to the job. Unforetunately I got stuffed with a 35 Euro customs charge that I had to pay when the UPS truck turned up. Not sure why, I got some STC1000 temp controllers from Hong Kong a few weeks ago and there was no charges with them. So, not quite as cheap as they began.

[darkonnis]

I wonder exactly how they calculate import tax. I've been hit with a few £20 charges on thins that where £70, which is approaching 30% of the price. This was a while ago but still.

[themadhippy]

Its not the tax thats the problem,you can easily work that out,its the rip off extortionate handling charge that the carriers pile on top for collecting the tax

[stevetk189]

darkonnis & madhippy - No idea how they work it out, I've had several things delivered some with nowt to pay others with a bit, this is the dearest yet and yes it's annoying to say the least. My charges today were not far off what I paid for the pumps so there's no way it's just vat etc Grrr

Still, mustn't grumble, they look like bloody good bits of kit. Actually... yes I will bloody grumble! grumble mutter... mutter, mutter {wanders off into the distance grumbling, waving fists and shouting at passers by}

[darkonnis]

I'd grumble. I hate hidden fees, to me its bad service. If I have to pay import tax then inform me prior to shipping, or atleast inform me that there will be a charge of X unless i go out of my way to pay it myself.
Realistically, whilst I get import tax, if there was a manufacturer of magnetic drive pumps in the UK I'd happily buy from them, but there are few and the ones that are in business want alot for something not all too expensive.

[Waffty]

Don't forget, import duty is determined against the total cost of the transaction, including the cost of delivery. They would also take the insured value, as the actual value of the item.

Gift items are also subject to import duty, if they're over £40 and importantly if they're not sent by a private person, to a private person. So if there's the slightest hint that it's from a company, you'll have to pay the tax.

In fact the only way to avoid import duty, is on a repaired item, I once sent a high valued item to the US to be repaired and it didn't cost a bean.

Carriers such as UPS, FEDEX, will always charge you a handling fee but in their defence, they have to pay the UK customs up front, to release any items, then take the risk that the customer will actually pay up when they attempt delivery. Royal Mail, are a little lapse but I suspect that's down sheer volume. Royal Mail handling fees are quite high but then I suspect they end up being out of pocket more than most.

My rule of thumb when buying anything from outside the EU is, expect to pay VAT, DUTY and around £10 in a handling fee and if the price is still ok, then youwon't be disappointed when you get it VAT, DUTY free

[stevetk189]

Fair comment but I'd still like to rant a while longer! It helps to vent other stuff and stops me flipping tables. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

{insert string of rants and grumbles here}

[Waffty]

Trust me, I'm deffo on your wave length. I've lost the will trying to understand some of the import bills I've had. When the pound was nigh on $2, I bought loads of stuff from the US, sometimes I'd get charged what I expected but the majority of the time it was nothing or a figure that appeared to be pulled out of the air.

I once bought some small car spares from the US that Royal Mail charged me £10 handling fee plus the tax and duty, then I bought a crate odd similar parts from Oz that FedEx charged me next to nothing to handle plus the tax and duty.

So like I said, add the max costs you can think of then anything else will be a bonus.

The shipper can help by listing the item as less than it should be on the customs declaration but they need to make sure they don't put any docs, such as an invoice in the box and/or insure it for more than the customs declaration, as HM customs are more than happy to open boxes and search the net for real prices.

Don't forget, this is a revenue stream for the government, as such, they'll attempt to get every pound they think they can.

[greenxpaddy]

Not sure why you have had trouble with the solar pumps at rolling boil. I haven't.

For sure I am guessing your positioning of the pump in relation to your tap is correct.

[Kev888]

For what its worth, mine were set up correctly and run within spec. They were fine for quite some time and i still think they're great little pumps, but eventually the electronics started failing when recirculating boiling wort on hot brew days this summer.

The one I always use for the HLT (which rarely goes above 80c) is still running sweetly, and one of those that started failing would only cause trouble if the wort was hot. So its not conclusive, but I too suspect temperature probably played a part (in my case these were the higher powered ones, perhaps the extra umph also means extra heat too).

The retailer seems very obliging so I'm sure he would have seen me right if I'd asked. By then I'd decided to shell out on something a bit beefier and easier to disassemble though, so to be fair I should point out that I never actually asked him.

Cheers
Kev

[Highlander]

One of my solar pumps is a little tempremental. Can cut out if running at full throtle with boiling wort. I've found if I run it at about 80% it runs fine.
I'm not sure if the fact I have it mounted vertically, i.e. motor end highest causes the heat to rise into the motor section rather than giving it the best of the ambient.
Either way I want to give these pumps ago once the 100C versions come out.

What is the best way of controlling the flow? is it just a case of plugging them into the mains and putting a valve on the outlet to control it?