That is exactly what I will do. My friend’s friend who maintains and works on BIG generators here on the gulf coast will come by and test it for me. I just need to open it up and make it easily accessible. Thank You!
Update: The generator is repaired. I had my new friend come to and meg the generator and armature. Even though it internally arced internally, it tested very well. So look for the problem.
1. The problem was the voltage regulator which provided the tickler voltage to the exciter windings on the armature. It was sending 185 volts to the armature, not 10 or 12. So the generator was producing over 2000 volts which defeated the insulation and caused the arc.
2. disconnected the two "tickler" wires from TB8 which run to the generator and installed a generic voltage regulator. Fed it with a wire from the neutral terminal and a hot terminal of the terminal board TB1, just zip tied in in place for now. The magnetism in the armature was enough to tickle the coils and start the process. so no power source was needed for the regulator. Left all the other parts, including the defective regulator in place and connected.
3. This unit is about 10 years old and had 9.5 hours on it, not 95 as I previously thought. Putting on my reading glasses fixed that. I am pretty sure there are other units out there with the same problem. On the 208 setting it shut down over voltage immediately. On 416 it built voltage and began arcing and they just let it go until the armature was toast.
4. I bought a used head off eBay and drove to Nebraska and picked it up. I paid 1000 for the head and it looked good. I have no idea how old it is, and I did arc it one time on the initial install and apparently it was not hurt, much to my amazement.
5. Connected its up to a load tester and ran it for an hour and a half. 104v per leg, throwing 85 amps per leg, 50 Kv. Ran great.
I am still having trouble with my CIM, not being able to control the on screen pointer. I will dig into that later.
Thank You for your advice and guidance!
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