Hi All, I have an old generator from my Father in law that I got running, but I'm not sure the speed is set right, so I'm afraid to plug anything into it. It's a 4000W "Maxa" which I think is made by Coleman, although it doesn't say it anywhere on it. The motor is a Tecumseh HM80. It seems to be running at an average speed, but when I tested the frequency with a multimeter, the reading I got was out of whack: 2.5khz or something like that:shocked: I assume it must have been a bad reading, or something's wrong with the meter.
When it's running, the throttle "flap" inside the carb (not the choke) is all the way closed. If I manually open it a crack, the motor speeds up. Supposedly, to slow it down you loosen the bolt attached to the spring (the circle on the left in the pic), but since the throttle's closed all the way, it doesn't seem like I can slow the motor down any more. The circle on the right shows the post on the throttle that is resting against the carb body so it can't be closed any more. I must be missing something, right? Should I assume it's set at a fixed speed and so it should be putting out 60hz? Is it safe to plug stuff into it? What should the voltage be unloaded? Thanks all for your help!
On many generators, the throttle butterfly (flap) "will" be closed "UNTIL" you put a load on the engine by running something electrical off of the generator. This saves fuel and noise while nothing is drawing power from the generator. If you wick the engine up, plug an electric drill in, and as you trigger the drill, the engine will/should speed up.
Question, does your unit have a kick down solenoid? This is a solenoid which pulls the throttle down to idle, when no load is called for. It will release when a load is applied.
You need to set two things. Voltage at either 110 or 120.
Hertz at either 50 or 60
There should be a spec. tag on the unit will will tell you voltage and hertz for your unit. If it looks the same as the one on this website it should be 120 and 60.
Voltage can vary from 115-122, Hertz can vary from 58.5-61.
Both these readings must be taken and adjusted while the unit is under load. I like to first use a large wattage utility light, which is cheaper to replace than an electric drill, when I do initial set-ups, then fine time with a large 1/2" drive drill.
