Overcrank light

[Bobby V]

Hello Kelly
I purchased my generator on 4-11-05. Installed by a local electric contractor and everything was working fine until about a month ago. During my monthly generator check I found an overcrank light. I called around from the list of generac local authorized dealer to find someone who would troubleshoot my problem and I found one in Bradenton,Fl. They came out the first day and billed me 95.00 for a not producing voltage problem. Said they had to come back to isolate what the problem was. The guy came back two working days later and stayed and hour and told me he was not real good at troubleshooting these generators because he only went to a two day class at Generac and had one day in the warehouse. He said he would try to isolate the problem and call Generac for assistance if needed. It took him all of 1 hour and 15 mins to tell me that the control panel was bad. I told him since I am an Aircraft mechanic by trade I would find the part on the internet and replace it myself. This was not the problem, still starts for 20 seconds then shuts down for 7 seconds starts and stops then produces a overcrank light. any other ideas. I did buy the diag manuls from another forum member Bill and he is trying to help me out as well. I guess my question is do all Generac generators come with a three year warrenty on parts?
Thanks Bobby V in Florida.:D

[Kelly Myers]

Sounds like a great technician was out there. :rolleyes:

Ok, lets figure this out. first, I can't tell from your wording if it is actually starting up (as in running) then shutting down, or if its just doing its crank cycle and never running.

I'm guessing its actually running, but no voltage.

FIRST THING! Test the excitation breaker. It looks like a 3" long black block with two terminals atop. Take off those two wires (162/2 I believe), and check for continuity through the breaker itself.

If the E-Breaker is good, and you have one of our dealer manuals, simply do a fixed excitation test. This will tell you your problem in about 20 minutes. This is a test that EVERY dealer should be able to do without a book, because it is so useful.

If you get to a point where you don't understand what the manual is instructing you to do, CALL ME or another tech here at Ziller. Theres a lot to be damaged when you start ripping wires off the voltage regulator and such. Make sure you label these wires.

99.9% of the time when this happens its a faulty voltage regulator. The other .1% it will be a stator/rotor/

Please realize that your starter is not disengaging because the PCB does not know the engine is running because it is not yielding any power.

good luck, and you purchased that genset before guardian increased the warranty to three years :(

[Bill Liedtke]

Bobbie,

I told you Kelly would help you, but patience is what I had to learn. Ziller sells more generators than any authorized dealer PERIOD. End of sentence. Very high volume, high activity level for all employees, lowest margins, and great service knowledge....but the key is they stay busy ALL day and then Kelly maintains this web in his "spare" (!) time of his own doing. He is like 25 or 26 years old with the experience of a field service guy who has seen it all and then was promoted to sales.

That stated, the black circuit breaker for field excitation is about directly under where the exercise switch is when you remove the top cover. Now that we know your warrantee is history, you might as well have at it.

Kelly, do you think he has any grounds to get his money back from the guy in Bradenton who has so far cost him over $300 for a mis-diagnosis? Does Generac intervene? He is a generac dealer-or is listed as such.

Anyway, the black breaker is a one time shot. It is not resetable. Once it opens inside, it is toast and you can not see its condx. from looking at it. It looks like a black ten watt resistor mounted on the shelf with just two tabs. Check it for continuity (should show direct short if good) or simply plug the two wires Kelly mentioned into each other but you won't have protection if there is a short downstream. Best to insert a small 3 amp fuse temporarily between those leads if the breaker is open and you want to check I would consider a regular fuse holder for a minibuss 3 amp glass fuse if that's it.

All Generac wiring has a number on it at least on my 4390. Very hard to see without glasses, but if you are ever in doubt which wire goes where or what a wire is, the number of the wire which corresponds to the schematic is right at the end of the wire at the teminal. You will find it!

I remembered the field exciter, but forgot to mention the breaker because it is not resetable as a normal breaker might be. It is really a fuse.

Good luck- hopefully Kelly can give you advice on the tech. They likely don't and won't refund you money, but I might not send them any more. Send a registered letter to owner, cc: Generac at the bottom, and tell them you will make sure then get the PR they deserve on a generator board. They likely don't even know about this. In your state they could lose substantial money.

Bill

p.s. Bobbie, my wife is FBO at Porter county airport in Indiana for Whitco. Very wealthy man who owns 5 corporate jets. They have two Sabreliners, a Falcon 900, a Falcon 7X on order, and a Falcon 50. He employs 3 F/T mechanics and a detailer. The Falcon 900 has all 24K gold fixtures- even the sink! I think Dean White, the founder of WhiteCo, is worth something like 1.2B as the 175th richest man in the United states or some such. Just think, with that much cash, Kelly would drive down to Florida and fix your unit and it wouldn't even have to be spring break. Speaking of which---got any pictures!!?? We all would like to see!

[Bobby V]

Kelly
the generator will start for 20 seconds shutdown for 7 seconds and then start for 7 and shut down again for about two minutes total. I am going to do the tests from the diag book I got from Bill, but i will have to wait for the weekend(TIME). I would like to know if i do find something else that is bad if I still have the parts warrenty to fall back on? Or do I have to have a licenced dealer diagnose the problem and let them try to get the required parts?

[Kelly Myers]

If you purchased on 4/11/05, there is no warranty.

Any parts you need, I can get to you extremely quickly. I stock hundres upon hundreds of parts.

[Bobby V]

Hello Kelly
Well after I got the book from Bill, I tried to troubleshot my problem ran out of time last weekend and really did not feel comfortable with the digital meter I was using so I decided to use my analog old school meter remeasured everything and the digital meter was correct as well, so I started again with test 8 and then 9. After I checked the brushes it was time for the slip rings. I had no resistance. So I pulled the stator and found the wire from the negative slip ring to be open. If I would have just had this awesome repair manual from the beginning I would have only spent the money for the manual. Fixing the open inside will be free.

[fara macho]

Kelly, et al, The repair manual that Bill keeps refering to; Kelly do you sell this manual for the Quiet Source 16KW, I couldnt find it for sale on your site. It seems like a good book to put on the shelf and have handy. Steve

[Bill Liedtke]

Bobby,

I'm super happy for ya man! Good work. Help me understand what you mean by the "wire from the negative slip ring" being open. Do you mean the negative brush lead or exactly where was this wire you found to be open?

Glad you don't have to pull the rotor. How do the brushes look? How dirty were the slip rings? Use 1500 0r 2000 grit sand paper to clean them up or you can use like carb cleaner and an eraser.

Bill

[Bill Liedtke]

Bob,

Got your message and it certainly sounds like you nailed your problem when you found the wire open leading from one slip ring. This is a little unusual. I wonder why it went open after all this time? If it works, who cares! Yes, it sounds like you could have fixed it yourself with out having a tech come by and send you off on a wild goose chase for a new control board which I thought I was happy to sell and help another guy. The guy who told you that your control board was bad was my brother :-). I believe if you post on this board and maybe on Ebay, you should have no problem getting your money back out of it. A newest revision 8615 board is used on a lot of generators.

Take comfort in the fact that even with the wild goose chase, etc. that you effected a major repair still for not a ton of money and you should take the receipt and my board to the Generac dealer who screwed you over and tell them that you want your service call money back and that they just bought a repair part they will likely need anyway. I don't know if threatening to file a complaint with Generac and the BBB will get you some satisfaction. Have you tried to get anywhere with that dealer? I was surprised that you can do an online BBB complaint against them and the BBB will contact the dealer on your behalf quickly.

Keep me informed when you get it running. You dad is lucky he has you there.

Bill

[Bobby V]

Hey Guys
Bill the wierd part was that the hole to get to the two slip rings is so small that you do not know if you are on the slip rings or not so I crack the case off to relieve my mind that i was testing the right thing. As far as the wire from the slip ring goes one wire comes off of each slip ring with a mechanical crimp for the windings of the stator 1 pos and 1 neg. well the pos wire had about 6 inches missing and when I first started to troubleshoot the generator I found a piece of insulation just laying in the exhaust compartment thought it was wierd to have a funny looking piece of wire with a crimp on it as well. Since I was new at this I decided to keep them just for the unknown factor. Well the insulation was supposed to have wire inside of it and the funny looking wire with crimp was what was holding the copper wires together. I found some old aerial telephone drop wire that is 19 gauge with some insulation on it and a fishing crimp we use when we go shark fishing so I will repair this problem for free.
Let me ask you another question are the mechanical connections there because the heat generated will open a soldiered connection? I am going to make the mech connection, but I was just wondering.

latestly you were not serious about the tech being your brother right?

Thanks Bobby

[Bill Liedtke]

Bobbie,

I was just pulling your chain about the guy being my brother- he did help me sell a control board though :-( That's why I said he was on my side!

As for the wire, solder melts at like 500 degrees and I'm sure the wire insulation would give up the ship long before then, so I doubt the crimp connector is because of heat. The slip rings probably are seperate parts so they just come that way. 19 ga. wire sounds small, but then again I doubt much current flows through them. I would solder or use another good quality crimp connector. The connection must have started to develop resistance and therefore heat, but you said like 6" of the wire itself is missing?? Maybe I misread. The wire was there, but the insulation had melted off in one piece and was laying on the bottom? Anyway, you said two real important things...The wire was open according to your meter and the insulation was burned off which says you had resistance causing a lot of heat- so maybe some decent current does flow there. Use at least the same size copper wire which to me would be 16-18 ga. min. Solder it or use a good tight crimp connector.

Now you know why I said earlier to note which way the brush holder was facing- you can't see the slip rings to know if the brushes are on them or not!

Have you ever put a call in to the owner of the shop that screwed you?

[Bobby V]

Bill
I thought you were pulling my chain about that guy being your brother. The insulation was not burned off it just looks like it was ripped off and I found quite a few pieces of the broken wire laying on the bottom of the case cover. I have no idea if it was an over heat issue or if the manaufacture did not glue it down as they did so of the other wires were. I am going to glue the new pieces down real well. I think the wire is actually 22 gauge wire but i wanted a little overkill so i chose 19 gauge. I think I will do both just to make sure.
I did call the electric company service manager and he said he was sorry and that he would knock the bill down to the first $75 service charge. I still have not payed him and I think I may have my wife call and refuse the bill all together. I will let you know how things go back together after this weekend. I will talk with you soon.

[Bill Liedtke]

Why should you pay anything for an improper diagnosis by an unqualified tech. who caused you to spend $165.00? They should charge you nothing and buy the part. If they are big time techs for Generac they will need that board eventually.

Sounds like the wire came loose due to centrifugal force and the wire hit the stator as it went around tearing the insulation away and eventually hitting the wire causing it to short and as the engine wound down to a stop more damage was done. Good find.

[Bobby V]

Hello
Well I just finished the rotor wire repair on my generator about an hour ago. Everything seems to be working fine again. Bill I did solder that new piece to the little nub that was left by the slip ring and made a mechanical connection at the other end. I also used some epoxy to hold everything back out of the way just like the manufactur but I used high heat stuff instead of glue. I dropped the power to the house and the generator started and seems to be running the house again so that is great. I wanted to thank you for all of your help and after all of this I have dicided to keep that manual so just tell me how much I owe you and I will gladly cut you another check. I really feel with all of your help it made this PROBLEM of mine seem like just a minor inconvience. Course if my local power would have been out I might have made some quicker decisions. But everything I did can be done by anyone with half a clue of an multimeter, and the use of hand tools. Thanks again Bill you should start your own generator help forum.

OH one more thing I ended up missing four lock nuts, and I think that was because I put them on some bolts that did not need them so I will have to buy 4 new ones for the four bolts that come out of the left hand side that secure the two panels to the outside case.

[Bill Liedtke]

Bobbie,

That is really great! I am so happy for you. I can only assume that Generac did not seal that wire tight enough and it worked free, flew outward, and contacted the stator. Generac needs to work on the details of quality control. I have no idea what went wrong with my stator after a year and a half... Anyway, I just paid forward to you, help that was given to me, so you can now tell others about how easy it is if you just buy the repair manual. It is a great manual and well thought and laid out.

Sorry you ended up with a control board you didn't need. I would still pursue paying that outfit nada...nothing...zip. The manual is yours my friend. I hope I never need it again! Least I could do considering you bought the control board. That one is a fairly common board and is the latest revision so keep it as a speare or Ebay it or list it here!

Take care Bobbie. Glad the ending of your story is better than the end of the Bears-Seattle game I'm watching right now :-(

Bill