Generator Not Charging

T

tefergy

Junior Member
Hi everyone, thought in would pass on my experience that I had today with finding out why my generator wasn't charging. I purchased a supposedly reconditioned generator complete with cut out from eBay. After having it sit around for about 2 years I got around to fitting it up and to my dismay no charge. I fiddled around with things and I tried to manually activate the cut out contact, it latched down and immediately drew 30amps on my amp meter and blew the safety fuse. After a lot of checking and scratching my head I decided I better strip down the generator and look inside. I found that someone had screwed the generator output post as they fitted the cut out, and this allowed the inside wire to make contact with the long screw, thus shorting the generator output. When I manually activated the cut out contact power flowed from the battery to ground via the dead short inside the generator, rather then as I assumed initially that the power had come out of the generator and for some reason was generating 30amps. I didn't see if the current was positive or negative, as it all happened so quick.

Anyway, half a day of stuffing around, with a successful outcome :)
 
Don't mean to steal your post but I have a question about generators and thought this may be a good place to get some information and maybe pass some on to other people.

I just "rebuilt" a spare generator that I purchased on EBay. When I say "rebuilt" this is to say I did it not knowing what I was doing and thus it may or may not be "rebuilt".

But I did get it to "motor". If it does motor, is this a good indication that it will work as a generator? Do I need to "activate" the cutout somehow"? I did put a new cutout on it purchased from Bratton's.

As you can see, I know very little about generators and need all the help I can get. Thanks.
 
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