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- Efland, NC
I picked up the generator from GL at Fort Bragg today. Physically it looks to be in great shape. All the parts were there.
I put a splash of fuel in it and filled the crankcase with oil. It has great compression. The battery was totally flat. I decided to do a "manual" start so I put some fuel in the supply line and gave it a few yanks. It took some effort but it did fire up and run for a few seconds. It wouldn't stay running because there was no DC power on the control panel so once the fuel in the line was gone that was it. I was relieved there didn't seem to be an engine problem.
Let the troubleshooting begin. I parked it next to the MEP-003a so I could jump 24v to the battery leads. A quick look at the schematic and I started measuring voltages. On the inside of the control panel I checked TP30 (TB3-1) and had 15v. It should have been full battery voltage. I checked the AUX DC input connector on the side and had the correct battery voltage so that let me know the power from the input cables was making it OK. I unplugged the bulkhead connector (J7) and checked pin 17 of and had good BATT on the female side. I cut all the wire ties off the harness in the control panel so I could get a better look at everything on that side. A bit of wiggling the wires on the back of J7 flickered the voltage on TP30 so it looks like the bulkhead connector needs some work. I'm going to pull it out tomorrow and give it a good look. None of the pins are burned. I suspect its not fully seating.
Just to get things going I decided to jumper B+ across the connector. I put a jumper in place from the B+ lead to TP-30 and connected the jumper cables from the MEP-003a to the BATT cables on the 831. I clicked the main switch to RUN and we had control power. The fuel pump started up. Once the fuel system was fully primed I did a manual start and it fired right up and ran. It didn't run well but it did run. The speed control was TOTALLY out of whack with severe hunting but I was relieved it was running. I locked out the speed control and let the engine run against the mechanical governor for a bit to make sure it was sound and it ran perfectly.
Electrically it makes good power voltage and freq wise but I did have some intermittent cutouts of the AC from the inverter. It looks like the AC feedback from the inverter to the speed controller is also flaky. I could wiggle the wires on the back of J7 and see the voltage cutout relay go nuts. All of that should be resolved tomorrow when I pull J7 out and fix it. After I have the connection problems fixed I'll go through the procedures to set the speed controller up.
Someone at the maintenance depot tried to fix it but I think they gave up pretty quickly. Almost nothing inside was disturbed. It looks like they were concentrating on the mechanical speed control which was certainly acting up but it was due to the poor connections in J7.
So to summarize the unit is in great shape. It looks like its malfunction it is going to be straight forward to correct. I'll grab some images tomorrow while I work through the fix.
I paid more for it that I budgeted but if it really has under 100hrs on it I should be good to go for a very long time.
I put a splash of fuel in it and filled the crankcase with oil. It has great compression. The battery was totally flat. I decided to do a "manual" start so I put some fuel in the supply line and gave it a few yanks. It took some effort but it did fire up and run for a few seconds. It wouldn't stay running because there was no DC power on the control panel so once the fuel in the line was gone that was it. I was relieved there didn't seem to be an engine problem.
Let the troubleshooting begin. I parked it next to the MEP-003a so I could jump 24v to the battery leads. A quick look at the schematic and I started measuring voltages. On the inside of the control panel I checked TP30 (TB3-1) and had 15v. It should have been full battery voltage. I checked the AUX DC input connector on the side and had the correct battery voltage so that let me know the power from the input cables was making it OK. I unplugged the bulkhead connector (J7) and checked pin 17 of and had good BATT on the female side. I cut all the wire ties off the harness in the control panel so I could get a better look at everything on that side. A bit of wiggling the wires on the back of J7 flickered the voltage on TP30 so it looks like the bulkhead connector needs some work. I'm going to pull it out tomorrow and give it a good look. None of the pins are burned. I suspect its not fully seating.
Just to get things going I decided to jumper B+ across the connector. I put a jumper in place from the B+ lead to TP-30 and connected the jumper cables from the MEP-003a to the BATT cables on the 831. I clicked the main switch to RUN and we had control power. The fuel pump started up. Once the fuel system was fully primed I did a manual start and it fired right up and ran. It didn't run well but it did run. The speed control was TOTALLY out of whack with severe hunting but I was relieved it was running. I locked out the speed control and let the engine run against the mechanical governor for a bit to make sure it was sound and it ran perfectly.
Electrically it makes good power voltage and freq wise but I did have some intermittent cutouts of the AC from the inverter. It looks like the AC feedback from the inverter to the speed controller is also flaky. I could wiggle the wires on the back of J7 and see the voltage cutout relay go nuts. All of that should be resolved tomorrow when I pull J7 out and fix it. After I have the connection problems fixed I'll go through the procedures to set the speed controller up.
Someone at the maintenance depot tried to fix it but I think they gave up pretty quickly. Almost nothing inside was disturbed. It looks like they were concentrating on the mechanical speed control which was certainly acting up but it was due to the poor connections in J7.
So to summarize the unit is in great shape. It looks like its malfunction it is going to be straight forward to correct. I'll grab some images tomorrow while I work through the fix.
I paid more for it that I budgeted but if it really has under 100hrs on it I should be good to go for a very long time.
