MEP 002a Question

[Rapracing]

I have an 002 hooked up to the house. I decided this morning to start it up and run it for an hour or so (it's been about 3 months since the last test). It has been connected for over a year and I have never had the following issue when testing it.

All seems to be fine. I was running it at 20-25%. I decided to put a bigger load on it. First I started the dryer (it ran it before at 105%) with the rest of the basic load. I have a Kill-a-watt meter in the house. HZ dropped from 61.5 to 60.5 but the voltage dropped to 85 volts (in the house but at the generator it was still on 240). I shut the dryer off and then tried the deep well pump. Basically the same result, HZ was good but the voltage dropped.

Is it maybe because there was an unbalanced load on the one leg?

Any other ideas?

Thanks

ETA: The generator didn't seem to mind the load. There was barely a grunt when starting the dryer or pump.

 

[Isaac-1]

If voltage did not drop at the generator check the wiring connection going into the house, this is a symptom of a bad wire / connection which is a fire hazard.

 

[cuad4u]

If voltage did not drop at the generator check the wiring connection going into the house, this is a symptom of a bad wire / connection which is a fire hazard.

Exactly! There is a loose / "bad" wire or connection somewhere between where you measured the voltage at the generator and where you measured the voltage inside the house. That is the only reason something like this will happen.

 

[leedawg]

Did everything keep working in the house?

What typically causes this type of problem is a loose connection to the L0 terminal or the neutral wire. If you lose the neutral wire the two legs of the 120 will become unbalanced and you will get something like the 85 volts on one leg and the other will go up well beyond the 120 volts which can be bad for certain appliances electronics etc when they get like 160volt spike from the generator. SO I would go investigate the neutral lead and make sure it has a real good connection. Good luck.

Lee

 

[Rapracing]

Did everything keep working in the house?

What typically causes this type of problem is a loose connection to the L0 terminal or the neutral wire. If you lose the neutral wire the two legs of the 120 will become unbalanced and you will get something like the 85 volts on one leg and the other will go up well beyond the 120 volts which can be bad for certain appliances electronics etc when they get like 160volt spike from the generator. SO I would go investigate the neutral lead and make sure it has a real good connection. Good luck.


Lee

When the voltage dropped I had a brown out occur in the house. I threw the transfer switch right away to go back to grid power. I checked all the connections at the generator and all are clean and tight. This unit sits about 100 ft from the house. I have 100 amp wire coming from it under ground to the house. If there is line loss it never showed up before. I checked grid voltage through that wire and there is a .7 volt loss between the two boxes. Just seems really strange that it happens after a years time. I am going to check it tomorrow in the day light and see if I can find anything.

The generator motor did not seem to even grunt when the load was put on it. I am going to verify tomorrow that there is no drop at the generator.

Just curious. If the voltage is dropping at the generator what does that mean?

 

[Isaac-1]

If voltage is dropping at the generator and frequency is not dropping then it is most likely a problem with the voltage regulator board or one of its associated parts

 

[jamawieb]

If it's happening at the generator, then I agree with Isaac-1 that it would be the VR board. It's purpose is to regulate the voltage.

 

[Rapracing]

Okay! Just checked and found a couple of connections that I got a little bit of a turn on. That didn't solve the problem so I had the wife start the dryer while standing at the generator. Not much of a grunt in the engine but the voltage dropped from 240 to 185 when she started it.

I have a new VR board. Do I need to replace it or is there something that can be done with/on the existing board?

 

[leedawg]

Okay! Just checked and found a couple of connections that I got a little bit of a turn on. That didn't solve the problem so I had the wife start the dryer while standing at the generator. Not much of a grunt in the engine but the voltage dropped from 240 to 185 when she started it.

I have a new VR board. Do I need to replace it or is there something that can be done with/on the existing board?

SO what your saying is the voltage at the generator does not stay at 240v now as you mentioned it did in the original post? If so and you already have another VR board I would just change it out and retest to rule out symptoms. Sure sounds like the Voltage regulator to me as others here have mentioned. On a side note if it is indeed the VR from what I have read here over the years it is supposed to be a fairly simple procedure to fix the old VR by just replacing some of the components on the board that have failed. I do not recall which ones off the top of my head but others here know far more about this than I do and have seen them talk about it from time to time. Good luck.

 

[Rapracing]

SO what your saying is the voltage at the generator does not stay at 240v now as you mentioned it did in the original post? If so and you already have another VR board I would just change it out and retest to rule out symptoms. Sure sounds like the Voltage regulator to me as others here have mentioned. On a side note if it is indeed the VR from what I have read here over the years it is supposed to be a fairly simple procedure to fix the old VR by just replacing some of the components on the board that have failed. I do not recall which ones off the top of my head but others here know far more about this than I do and have seen them talk about it from time to time. Good luck.

Yes! I was wrong about the voltage drop at the generator. It is dropping. I had watched it with the microwave but had not done so with the dryer or pump. As stated it dropped from 240 to 185 when the dryer started.

 

[Isaac-1]

Since you have one I too would swap out the AVR board, while the problem may be something else, I would consider the AVR board to be likely and an easy swap.

 

[Rapracing]

I have one of Triple Jim's here that I bought and never used so I'll swap it out this evening and see what happens

 

[Rapracing]

It rained last night and I got in after dark tonight so I haven't changed the AVR board out yet.

While messing around the other day I decided to start the 003 up as well. I just put a small load on it through the convenience plug . I put 1500w on each plug. I had connected a kill-a-watt before doing so. It was at 60.5hz and 120.1 (240 on the control panel)volts on it. When I started the heater it dropped to 113.7volts. Hz remained the same. Seems to be the same problem that I am having with the 002.

I did check on the terminals and only seemed to have about a volt loss there. Is the convenience plug serviced by a different feed than the main terminals? I don't understand why the difference.

 

[leedawg]

Nope it all comes from the same gen head and wingdings. Hook up the heater to the main lugs and see what happens. Sounds like you have two voltage regulators that are misbehaving.

 

[Isaac-1]

The front panel outlet is not designed to pull 3000 watts, you may have been seeing voltage drop due to wiring size