Brushless Honda generator questions

[Volvo farmer]

Got a free Honda EX1000 and finally got it running. This is the older, regular generator model, not the inverter model.

Anyway, the generator has no output. What is odd, is if I hook up an electric drill and an incandescent bulb (in parallel), the bulb will light when I run the drill, then dim and go out when I let off the trigger. I thought maybe the field windings had lost their magnetism. I tried two different methods of re-energizing the field windings. One involved a double male cheater cord with two 60W lamps in series on the hot wire, and plugged into a wall outlet. The other was hooking a 12V car battery across the main winding at the outlet, pulling the spark plug wire and pulling the start cord a few times. Neither worked.

I have a copy of the manual here in PDF

Owners Manual

On page 36 it shows a condenser winding and a condenser. Does this have anything to do with maintaining a magnetic field on the field windings?

I'm in a little above my head here, but does it sound like I have diagnosed this right? and any ideas how to get output out of this thing, or what to check next?

Thanks.

 

[bob g]

iirc, and it has been some time ago, but

i read somewhere that the capacitor gets out of spec

from age, and then the excitation reliability goes away.

you might look into replacing the cap and see what that does for you,

even putting in one of close to the right value might give an indication

if this is the case?

bob g

[Flux]

That is one of those Nonaka capacitor excited brushless machines.

Three things to check, first the engine speed, it must not be below nominal for the frequency. Then check the capacitor (condenser) which may have lost capacitance and if still no luck the diodes may have failed on the rotor.

If the capacitor has partly failed you might induce it to build up at increased speed. If it does then you can be fairly sure it is the capacitor and not the diodes.

You may also find a varistor across the diodes and this could fail, you can disconnect it for a check.

Flux

[richard]

 Is there 12 volt out put at the dc therm. Using a volt meter on the ac output what is the no load voltage? Also check for dc voltage at the ac therm.

Richard

[Volvo farmer]

HaHa!

Flux, you da man! Engine RPM was too low. 1.5 turns on the governor brought the speed up enough to bring it to life. Thanks so much for all the help you've brought to this forum over the years. I had a feeling someone was going to give me the exact solution to this if I posted here. I really appreciate the help!

I'd like to find a little 15-20A 24V battery charger to hook to this thing and keep  my batteries up during cloudy spells. My 6500W generator works great for stuff like equalizing but it sure drinks the fuel!

[willib]

Volvo farmer I noticed in the manual that it has 12V output .

Would it be out of the question to charge one battery at a time?

Or half of your 24 V system

[Airstream]

None of the consumer grade generators have a beefy DC output. The 12VDC side is low wattage meant for battery maintenance 12VDC while the 120VAC is demanded - it requires full RPM and fuel usage just to get 80 or 100 watts output so better to use primary 120VAC through a higher efficiency charger (with built-in controller)...

[97fishmt]

Hi Volvo farmer nice score! Free!

But really you would be better off building a lawn mower

engine - alternator arrangement.

You can find 24 volt alternators.  I use a real nice G.E. 48 volt

alternator belted to a horizontal shaft honda 5.5hp at a slower

rpm. Slow rpm less noise hardly any fuel.  

[mojojojo]

I think you need to replace the capacitor.

[dnix71]

I had the same thing happen on a cheap Chinese genset I've had for years. I fired it up to test with a washing machine and it wouldn't put out anything at first. Then I realized the choke was still on. Backed off on the choke, the rpm came up and suddenly it worked. I guess it's a fail-safe.