MEP 701A Cycles, Parts?

[abh3]

Started the latest acquisition, an MEP 701A from the Alabama Guard. Fired right up after realizing it's 24v , makes power at the convenience outlets to run a florescent shop light but the cycles are off the scale to the right, 65+, and kinda bouncing around which is odd compared to my 40kw genset where the frequency meter is steady as a rock and completely speed dependent. I've looked around the place for a clock to check the cycles with by running it an hour or so but everything's battery here...

Any keen ideas on checking the cycles with what'cha got around the house and shop? Is there a sender for this frequency meter? Where so as to check connections, corrosion, etc? Any suggestions on locating parts, including this gauge perhaps and the fuel-tank end cover? Onan ($$), someone on the site? Are those little digital frequency meters on Ebay any good?

Thanks for your time, sorry for so many questions.

 

[jbk]

cant answer all your questions, you can get a plug and play digital volts/freq. meter from hardy diesel on eb_ _ about 20.00 very delicate though. or harbor freight has one called (kill a watt) its digital about 20.00 a little more rugged. dont know anything about the 701 but the 002 and 003 use a freq. transducer and a couple of transformers, maybe similar. i had a 002 that had the meter pegged 65+ and it turned out that someone had put the wrong transducer in. the one in it was for was a 50/60 htz. gen. instead of just 60 htz. i would check the manuals if their in the resource section here.

 

[abh3]

The TM I found at http://igor.chudov.com/manuals/OtherGenerators/MEP-016B/062759.pdf doesn't seem to go into detail about testing the frequency gauge or frequency converter so I'm out of luck there...

I hate to just throw money at the problem replacing things. I suppose I could try the converter and gauge on line power, at least I'd know it's not the generator itself!

UPDATE: Attached line power to frequency converter, frequency meter indicates 60 cycles... Played with the governor linkage but reducing rpm enough to bring the cycles to 60 also brings voltage way down, it's clearly too slow rpm and will probably kill the regulator if done much more. What else controls cycles besides RPM?

 

[Isaac-1]

rpm=frequency on a 2 pole generator like this one 60 hz =3600 rpms, on my MEP-701a /016b the frequency meter will swing wildly up start up as it gets to speed. You do know about the throttle knob to set speed under the right side of the control panel?

Ike

p.s. I suggest you get a kill-a-watt to cross check voltage and HZ if you don't have a good multi-meter that shows them, it is a good $20 investment. so is the cute little V/HZ LED meter from Hardy Diesel

 

[abh3]

EUREKA! As mentioned above I've been trying to lower rpm to lower frequency and was at the end of the speed adjustment. The engine had never sounded as frantic as other small gensets so, for lack of other ideas, I tried increasing RPM. Suddenly the frequency meter needle flopped back to the left, a little more turning up rpm and the frequency came into the 60 range!

Looks like there's nothing wrong with this unit except the Al Guard didn't want it any more and I don't know what I'm doing... Who'd have thunk the gauge would show too high frequency when it was actually too low?