Generator Repair - Troubleshooting - Runs But No Power

[Music] okay we're out here taking a look at my generator when I was off grid a few days ago this thing would not produce power and I had to rely on my my Harbor Freight tailgater generator my small two-stroke generator for several days and that made it to where I couldn't run a lot of my big power tools I needed to run like my circular saw and stuff like that so it cost me a lot of extra time and a lot of extra energy to cut everything manually so I have got to get this thing running or I'm like if I can't fix it up I'm gonna have to replace it well I started looking it up on Google and read several forums and these guys were saying that sometimes the I guess there's a magnetic charge inside of here I'm not real sure of what the what to call that I don't think it's a stator I'm not really sure but there's something inside of there that holds a little bit of a magnetic charge and when you let these things sit for too long or if you run them out of gas like at the end of the evening and it's under load and I did not know this so I'm gonna stop doing that I've just been I've kind of made it a habit of doing that I didn't think it would hurt anything but after reading these forums these guys were saying you don't want to do that because it can actually suck the charge out of your out of your unit there and essentially the next time you try to start it it has to have a little bit of an electrical charge so that it can fire up the generator and make it produce power so I'm hoping that that's what I've got going on I plugged in my meter a little while ago and ran it and I was only getting something like to some two point seven volts or something like that out of it so the thing that I read said that you can recharge this unit with a you can either use a power drill and you spin it backwards or a corded power drill or you can use a angle grinder so I'm gonna grab my angle grinder and we're gonna see if this works okay you've got to start the unit up and everything I've seen says you have to run the motor backwards while you hold the trigger down with this with it plugged in to the to the generator so I'm going to go ahead and pull start the unit and get it running and you'll see my meter I'm gonna hook up the grinder and try to spin it backwards on that board right there and see if it'll see if it'll change the change the power output and make this grinder come on if it does I'll try to give you a shot of the meter alright here we go [Applause] [Applause] [Music] no joy this on this repair I'm gonna have to take the panel off and start checking out some of the other electricals and seeing if there's any problems there all right [Applause] I guess now I'll take the side cover off and check the that fuse that I replaced when I was out off-grid and see if that has gone again or see if there's a problem with that [Music] [Music] so I was looking for the AVR automatic voltage regulator in the back of the unit but I couldn't find it so I'm gonna check this side panel to see if it's in there I think I may have just found the problem here it's been melted so I'm thinking hopefully you can see that in there I'm thinking that this unit right here is the AVR and I believe it's melted so I'm gonna try to remove that right quick I hope this is it because I was pricing new generators and I really I'm not ready to buy a new one yet because when I buy a new one I'm gonna buy probably a 10 kW so I'm gonna go get online and get the get the numbers for this unit these numbers off of here and find replacement yeah I'm going to difference on these on these wires I'm gonna pay attention I'll probably mark one of them somehow I'll take a red marker or something and mark on it and just all know and be consistent with the same wire back on that on the other new part but I believe I found my problem so that makes me happy okay guys I'm about 99% certain I found the part here the problem I believe this is the AVR I'm not a hundred percent on that but I guess some of them have them built into the alternator or the generator itself and others must have them mounted externally like this one there we go I get you to focus up but you can clearly see this thing especially this side you can just see where it's melted and it's out a square now it's not so I'm assuming something must must overcooked it there we've been running little heaters on them so who knows maybe that maybe that's too much for it I don't know but anyways guys I'm gonna get the new part on order and what I do I probably see on that side there I put a little yellow mark on that and on the wire some of that paint marker just so that whenever I get the new one I can put it back in the same way that I took it apart so okay we're gonna take a look at this new part I finally got this in ordered it on eBay remember here's the just comparing the two this one's a little bit different size and it was it was actually rated a little higher after I was doing some research on and I found out what you want to find is the that 24 UF you want to match that number up and as long as you match that number up and you go higher than what your voltage is my original one set 400 or if it even matters yours may be completely different but here's the numbers on the original one and here's what I bought and replaced it with it also has this little there's a tab on the side here for screwing the thing on so that's what I'm gonna do okay put the new part on again I'm gonna make sure what that yellow is on the same side here watching for that here's the yellow one that I marked I marked it this way with the faint marker if you remember okay put those two on there make sure they have good solid connection they feel good it's actually getting colder out there now off-grid it's getting later in the season and as that time approaches I'm gonna be using the heaters more and more as I'm out there so I don't have my wood stove hooked up out there yet for a couple of reasons so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay guys that was my problem on this unit was that it's either a capacitor or I can't remember what they call the thing but it's it's basically it's what tells the generator how much voltage to output and you can clearly see from my old one it was melted I got this thing for twenty six bucks on eBay shipped and everything shipping included I believe and so far it's working I'm gonna go and put some heavier loads on it like my grinder my circular saw things like that that I'm going to be using when I go off grid just to make sure [Applause] I'm pretty sure we can button this project up and call this a success so guys hopefully this is this this will help you out if you have to diagnose problems on your generator just kind of recap one of the things that you need to look for is visually use your eyeballs and get in there and look for melted wires and things and in my case I found that that that voltage regulator automatic voltage regulator I think they call it or a capacitor that was melted and of course I tried to call around some local places see if I could put a regular air conditioner type capacitor in there but they said no it's a apparently it's different that 24 UF rating is specific to generators I guess so anyways guys good luck with your generator repair hope this helps you out and if you liked it hit the like button and if you like this kind of content hit the subscribe alright we'll see you next time

Channel: The Hands On Channel

Views: 721,821

Keywords: generator, Troubleshooting, No Power, diy, how to, harbor freight

Id: T1CJcX7kt34

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017