Over charging?

[CDR]

Seems my generator is over charging for the first 10 minutes of running it will charge at 28 volts then it will eventually shoot up to over 30. Guessing I need a new voltage regulator.... What a pain..

 

[1800 Diesel]

Seems my generator is over charging for the first 10 minutes of running it will charge at 28 volts then it will eventually shoot up to over 30. Guessing I need a new voltage regulator.... What a pain..

My first MEP-003A (bought many years ago) recently started doing the same thing. I disconnected the batteries, cleaned posts & connectors & after restarting it began charging correctly at about 26 1/2 volts. Can't explain what happened but was happy to not have to pull another blower wheel....been there, done that--no fun....had much help from the good folks on this site....

Kevin

 

[Harleyd315]

Check your batteries. I had a gen that did the same thing, guess I had a bad battery as new batteries cured it. Maybe a shorted cell not sure.

 

[DieselGenAC]

Did you check charging voltage with a DMM? I have had very bad luck with the DC voltmeter in your photo.

 

[CDR]

Did you check charging voltage with a DMM? I have had very bad luck with the DC voltmeter in your photo.

Yes it goes over 30volts I saw 31.8

 

[CDR]

I wonder if I should just not worry about it till the battery's die

 

[Rapracing]

I have an 002 doing exactly the same thing. It is fine for a little while but it climbs and when I checked it with my meter is showed 31.8 as well. It has two new batteries on it.

 

[storeman]

I used to have some VR's but don't anymore. 31 volts will boil/kill your batteries over time. Some brands fail faster than others. Warranties might apply but that won't help much if they fail when you need them most.
Jerry

 

[CDR]

I used to have some VR's but don't anymore. 31 volts will boil/kill your batteries over time. Some brands fail faster than others. Warranties might apply but that won't help much if they fail when you need them most.
Jerry

This is true I'm sure they will fail in the storm of the century

 

[SCSG-G4]

Hook up the batteries to a regular charger (one at the time) and use a digital VOM to see what is happening. If the digital shows the voltage rising too high in a battery, you have a bad cell. I've got an old battery out of my DD that I was trying to desulphate, and it would not stay on the pulse. Checked it with the probe-in-the-water method and found a bad cell.

Probe-in-the-water Method. Using a VOM with the proper voltage range on a battery that is not connected to anything do this: 1. Put the neg probe on the neg terminal and the pos probe in the battery acid of the first cell - you should get about half a volt on a good cell. 2. Move the neg probe to the battery acid of the first cell and the positive probe to the acid in the next cell. Zero voltage means a dead short, anything less than one volt is not good at all. 3. repeat step two on all the remaining cells, ending up with the neg probe in the last cell's battery acid and the pos probe on the pos terminal. There should be half a volt or so on this last reading, just like in the first step. Unless you can replace individual cells, the whole battery is junk if one cell is shorted, and will fail shortly if one cell is below one volt. Most of the rest will come back if properly desulphated.

 

[storeman]

I have what may be an interesting battery rescue experiment underway involving 6 totally dry used 6 volt golf cart batteries. If successful, will post a thread on it in the next few days. If unsuccessful, I'll apply for a home equity loan.
Jerry opcorn:

 

[SCSG-G4]

Gee, most golf cart batteries I've seen are eight volt (four cells). Please post pictures, at least of the before - news teams will get the aftermath, and you might not have a camera.

 

[CDR]

Hook up the batteries to a regular charger (one at the time) and use a digital VOM to see what is happening. If the digital shows the voltage rising too high in a battery, you have a bad cell. I've got an old battery out of my DD that I was trying to desulphate, and it would not stay on the pulse. Checked it with the probe-in-the-water method and found a bad cell.

Probe-in-the-water Method. Using a VOM with the proper voltage range on a battery that is not connected to anything do this: 1. Put the neg probe on the neg terminal and the pos probe in the battery acid of the first cell - you should get about half a volt on a good cell. 2. Move the neg probe to the battery acid of the first cell and the positive probe to the acid in the next cell. Zero voltage means a dead short, anything less than one volt is not good at all. 3. repeat step two on all the remaining cells, ending up with the neg probe in the last cell's battery acid and the pos probe on the pos terminal. There should be half a volt or so on this last reading, just like in the first step. Unless you can replace individual cells, the whole battery is junk if one cell is shorted, and will fail shortly if one cell is below one volt. Most of the rest will come back if properly desulphated.

Well thats very good info thank you so much!

 

[storeman]

Gee, most golf cart batteries I've seen are eight volt (four cells). Please post pictures, at least of the before - news teams will get the aftermath, and you might not have a camera.

G-4,
These are 6 volt, 3 cell batteries. At this point am still alive and the 6 together are showing 37.4 volts on DMM. Waiting for a solenoid for the cart to be able to test their durability. I'll take pics before long.
Jerry