- Thread starter carrera
- Start date
If the generator is labouring without a load, there could be a short between turns in the windings. It may not be a direct short, but could be a small gap that is arcing over. The arcing may be visible in teh dark, if the coils are exposed. The other possibility is the field coils are not energising correctly, though this shouldn't impose any real mechanical load on the engine, unless there is a short in that circuit.
Has the circuit breaker become unset?
Has the circuit breaker become unset?
sardine
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- Buckinghamshire
I looked at your manual and instantly saw the problem, its the ubiquitous Chinese nasty 2 stroke geny, they can't maintain any steady rpm and are no good for running sensitive electronics. Forget about getting any kind of 'clean' power out of it.
the snooper
getting older by the day
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Small genies are usually 220 volts especially the dual voltage ones as it's both 110 coils in series
Update from today:
After reading all the comments I decided to go for an easy check first, and took an old inspection light with a 150W incandescent bulb as a test / dumb load. A quick test showed some illumination, varying visibly with RPM.
Took the front cover off and removed all the connections, then crimped all the spades on the 240 plug and capacitor a bit tighter. One of the spades in the connector block for the socket seemed over willing to move about so pushed the retaining tab out to secure it further.
Fired it up again and the bulb stayed at a more constant level of illumination and the engine did not vary in speed so much.
Yep, that's the one
. If the engine is set up right the the revs / voltage can be relatively steady, but it's no Honda inverter genny so no expectations for a pure sine wave from me either. TBH, when I used mine it was clean enough for charging leisure batteries and running a TV. The TV complained visibly and audibly when it was fed a square wave from a simple inverter. 
I then got the meter out and having adjusted to engine speed to what I thought sounded right it was showing 52 Hz and 225-230V.
I would say that's the electrical problem solved, and it looks like the high frequency was in some way related to poor connections, or the provision of the dumb load helped in some way.
Thanks for all the help and advice, you guys are great.
Now I think I need to see if he wants me to look into the rumbly engine
After reading all the comments I decided to go for an easy check first, and took an old inspection light with a 150W incandescent bulb as a test / dumb load. A quick test showed some illumination, varying visibly with RPM.
Took the front cover off and removed all the connections, then crimped all the spades on the 240 plug and capacitor a bit tighter. One of the spades in the connector block for the socket seemed over willing to move about so pushed the retaining tab out to secure it further.
Fired it up again and the bulb stayed at a more constant level of illumination and the engine did not vary in speed so much.
Yep, that's the one
. If the engine is set up right the the revs / voltage can be relatively steady, but it's no Honda inverter genny so no expectations for a pure sine wave from me either. TBH, when I used mine it was clean enough for charging leisure batteries and running a TV. The TV complained visibly and audibly when it was fed a square wave from a simple inverter. I then got the meter out and having adjusted to engine speed to what I thought sounded right it was showing 52 Hz and 225-230V.
I would say that's the electrical problem solved, and it looks like the high frequency was in some way related to poor connections, or the provision of the dumb load helped in some way.
Thanks for all the help and advice, you guys are great.
Now I think I need to see if he wants me to look into the rumbly engine
