In my quest to charge batteries with gasoline, I came upon this little problem using a regular Outback inverter/charger. I could charge batteries, but the leftover generator power got routed into the house and looked like this
So I was l,ooking for 24V gas generators and found three of these military 24V 1500W generators on Craigslist last month. Id swapped out parts until I got one up and running! Build date on this one is 1968.
I find it amazing that the thing starts on first or second pull every time. Who needs a recoil starter?
Old school voltage regulation works perfectly. No matter where I set the voltage knob, the thing seems to settle down at about 90% load.
Meter has a little moisture in it but still works!
It's rated at 1.5KW and seems to have no problem running right at that rating for extended periods. I have only run it about 45 minutes so far but it seems happy cranking out 40-50 amps into batteries at 28-30V. There's no muffler and it will deafen you if you stand next to it for too long. I'm going to move this into the power shed and fabricate a muffler here before the days get too short. Now my inverter can continue to put a perfect sine wave into the house and I can charge batteries on dark days with gasoline.
This old military stuff was built pretty well, much easier to work on and more straightforward than many of the new generators you can buy today. I still can't get over the fact that I can rope pull start the thing every time and it is over 40 years old!