R Racing
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I could be wrong but I thought mine was green when I had a fault?
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I had one that did that exact same thing. After a lot of troubleshooting it turned out to be a bad governor. You can't get them from the manufacturer. Of 4 MEP831s that I've bought 2 need governors. This is looking to be a weak point in these generators. I'm considering building a replacement from scratch.Mechanical adjustments are going to take a while and I had limited time this morning so I thought I would try a couple of things on my "surger." Realized last night that at least half of the relays that came with my 831's are 120vAC driven rather than the 24vDC called for in the techman. I replaced the suspected relays in my surging genset this morning. Fired it up and same result - uncontrolled surging. I prevented the actuator from returning all the way to the magnet to see if the magnet was pulling it in but not the case - still surged from my stopping point to full throttle. Then I realize the indicator on K12 wasnt lit. Also heard a buzzing sound from K15 - felt it buzzing as well. I'm going to pour over the diagrams to try to see why K15 would have an inconsistent circuit and why K12 isn't being energized (closed). Odd thing is that it looks like K12 is getting consistent power and K15 is showing extremely low (or likely short bursts) of + current.
Video of this morning's experiment below...
https://youtu.be/6uTuYUCtqgM
I have a suggestion for you, but it's a bit radical. I finally gave up on my shut down problem and adjusted the magnet. What I found was that my magnet wasn't tight. I'm not sure if the guy who was trying to wreck my unit loosened the magnet or it was loose from the factory, but it certainly wasn't tight. When adjusting the magnet, this is what I discovered:So I'm continuing to try to find the source of my surging speed. Yesterday I disconnected the signal to the actuator and the engine ran beautifully - so the issue is upstream of there. Then I swapped a known good actuator (stable movement) with the one that is surging. The known good actuator arm did the same thing, so the problem is further upstream. (BTW, both arms showed 10 ohms of resistance - in spec). So I got brave and starting playing with controller dials. First I checked to ensure the controller was getting a steady 24v when in "run." Confirmed. Then I connected to the A and B terminals on the controller. With the engine running, I'm getting fluctuating voltage readings but between 160 and 200 which make sense based on the engine speed. Original paint marks are on the linkage hardware, so I didn't tinker with that. Realizing stability is achieved by turning the knob clockwise until unstable then back a little, I turned the stability knob fully counter clockwise which should presumably stabilize things. No change. Then gain fully counter clockwise. No change. Then I connected the multimeter to the actuator terminals. My multimeter is too slow to really show what's going on, but you can see that it's cycling between 0v and 24v. Video below showing the signal being sent to the actuator (alligator clips slipped off in the video which is why it initially showed 0).
Any thoughts on what the issue could be beyond what I've thus far troubleshot?
https://youtu.be/9clqDLwYnrQ
There is a guy on Ebay right now that is selling some MEP-831a parts. I've contacted him and he's been very helpful and friendly. Gave me a quote for a few parts and they should be here in a few days. I know from talking to the guy that he has several parts units so I'd suggest trying to contact him.I have one with a bad alternator. Finding that at an affordable price isn't going to happen. I can only hope that I can find a company to rewind it.
Overkill, I know this going to sound stupid. BUT I had to once drive 340 klicks, one way, because someone didn't see the GFCI reset button on the side of the GFI housing. Soooooooooo, I will ask a stupid question. You do know its there and have reset it? Also, If you have a Ground fault in the set, it will not reset, while running. The GFI is easy to test. I would remove it from the set. Connect 110 volts to the input side, and press the reset, then see if you have 110 volts on the output. Can't get any simpler then that.My MEP-831A's:
5
54-241g
- Positive battery wire ring is toast from loose connection arcing - Will replace
- No power at convenience outlet, GFI constantly tripped.
- Problem isn't outlet, guessing it's GFI module. Direct replacement is probably stupid expensive. Seems easy enough to replace with a GFI outlet and cover from Lowes. Probably should add a 10 amp breaker. Anyone find the best solution for this?
- Need to determine how to test GFI module.
- AC interrupter light broken
- Gone, snapped off. Is there a common direct replacement?
You're talking to someone who accidentally bought 4 generators. It's safe to assume I may occasionally do stupid things. Yes, I was aware of the reset and test buttons. Thinking the GFI really only detected ground issues on the LOAD side, and assuming that it did that by detecting an imbalance of current flow on the neutral wires, I disconnected the outlet... it still trips once the generator starts. After your email, thinking I was perhaps wrong, I did take the whole module out, wired it in a very unsafe fashion into a broken extension cord, and even with no load it once again trips as soon as power is applied. That means it's bad, right?Overkill, I know this going to sound stupid. BUT I had to once drive 340 klicks, one way, because someone didn't see the GFCI reset button on the side of the GFI housing. Soooooooooo, I will ask a stupid question. You do know its there and have reset it? Also, If you have a Ground fault in the set, it will not reset, while running. The GFI is easy to test. I would remove it from the set. Connect 110 volts to the input side, and press the reset, then see if you have 110 volts on the output. Can't get any simpler then that.
Was hoping it was something I could find on Mouser or equivalent, but I'm not smart enough to know what I'm looking for. This is my first piece of military equipment so if there's a commonly used place for such parts, I don't know where it is!The AC interrupt light socket is a VERY commonly used part. Like on about ten million different types of equipment. I would assume, (in WOCC I learned that assuming will almost always get me into trouble almost every time) it should be very easy to find on the market, or from someone who is scrapping junk equipment.
It's raining here today so I haven't gotten to give that generator a shot, but I don't think my neighbors will be cool with me running that for that long. Curious though, why flip the little door up? Also, your moisture issues... are they dependent on rain, or do you just have issues after the generator has sat for a while, even out of the rain? Curious because when I sell these I want to make sure I'm thoroughly accurate in what to warn the buyer about.Cord said:I've found that if you flip the voltage selector switch open and then run the unit for 1/2 hour that it's enough heat to dry the moisture out. Shut the unit down before closing the cover. My unit seems to pretty sensitive to moisture and I need to do this fairly frequently
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