Our Winter storm was expensive

[PTmowerMech]

Well mother trucker. Power went out so rolled the generator out of the barn, put fuel in it. Plug it into the transfer switch and it starts on the first pull and no output??????? Worked fine when i put it away a year ago. After testing looks like the AVR died from setting in the barn. Really?

Crank it up, plug in a drill, pull the trigger on the drill and rotate the chuck by hand. I'm not sure which direction. But rotate it pretty fast.
Don't grip to hard cause when the drill starts turning on it's own, it'll be full speed.

I have a customers gen that's only putting out about 35v, so I looked on Donny's Youtube.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

Tried that, didn't work. Did the resistance and voltage tests. AVR gets volts in from exciter coil but no volts out to brushes. If i disconnect AVR and apply 12v to the brushes it puts out 130v. Just kind of amazes me it takes a dump sitting in the barn.

 

[PTmowerMech]

Tried that, didn't work. Did the resistance and voltage tests. AVR gets volts in from exciter coil but no volts out to brushes. If i disconnect AVR and apply 12v to the brushes it puts out 130v. Just kind of amazes me it takes a dump sitting in the barn.

Thanks for the tip. I have one that's only putting out 35. So If I disconnect the AVR, I can test the leads from the windings while it's running?

 

[Hammermechanicman]

On MOST not all generators you can disconnect the AVR from the brushes and while running apply 12v from a battery to the brushes and generator should put out around 70vac. Be sure to watch the polarity. You normally get a couple volts from the exciter coil while running and AVR normally puts out around 10-15vdc to the brushes. Different generators will be different the numbers will be close enough for testing.
Here is a link to a manual that might help

https://onan.xmsi.net/00-Other%20Gensets/86262GS%20BriggsPortable%20Generators%201.pdf

 

[PTmowerMech]

On MOST not all generators you can disconnect the AVR from the brushes and while running apply 12v from a battery to the brushes and generator should put out around 70vac. Be sure to watch the polarity. You normally get a couple volts from the exciter coil while running and AVR normally puts out around 10-15vdc to the brushes. Different generators will be different the numbers will be close enough for testing.
Here is a link to a manual that might help

https://onan.xmsi.net/00-Other%20Gensets/86262GS%20BriggsPortable%20Generators%201.pdf

I have an adjustment screw on this AVR, and have given it several turns in both directions. But the voltage doesn't change.
I'll try that 12 test tomorrow. So what's the purpose of that? To sort of shock it?

 

[PTmowerMech]

WOW, talk about customer service. HF just called and apologized for selling me the wrong wheel kit for the gen I bought that day. Told me to bring the wheel kit back to them (65 miles from me) and they were going to refund the wheel kit, give me the new wheel kit and knock 15% off the price of the generator that I bought.