whiteknight001 wrote:
Griff,
Sounds like you have some time in as a "bomb technician" too!
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I've either stupidly done things you have warned about, or nearly did. And I survived! The only thing I can say is Jesus must love me...
all my best and keep it coming!
Mark "whiteknight001"
Griff in Fairbanks wrote:
Very important caveat to the current discussion:
(If you hear me say, "Oops," try to run faster than I am.)
Very important caveat to the current discussion:
(If you hear me say, "Oops," try to run faster than I am.)
Griff,
Sounds like you have some time in as a "bomb technician" too!
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I've either stupidly done things you have warned about, or nearly did. And I survived! The only thing I can say is Jesus must love me...
all my best and keep it coming!
Mark "whiteknight001"
Yes. I am a "bomb technician," in a manner of speaking.
I've been a computer programmer for 45 years, starting with my last three years of high school and two years of college before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. Throughout my entire 20+ years in the service, my official specialty was computer programmer.
I had the skill and experience to be very successful. Unfortunately, my occasional failures tended to especially spectacular. In one case, my mild dyslexia caused a COBOL compiler to crash, in the process killing the operating system and bringing the entire Burroughs B3500 mainframe to a screeching halt.
That, combined with a police report around the same time listing me as both drivers in a minor two car accident, earned me the nickname "Crash."
In high school, I had a reputation as an ingenious practical joker. One of the stunts that came close to getting me in serious trouble was when a slight miscalculation created a large (and loud) explosion on the high school chemistry teacher's desk, causing everything in his desk to go flying and significant damage to his textbook. (I heard, years later, someone kept the textbook and gave it to him in a framed shadowbox at his retirement ceremony.)
What saved me was the same chemistry teacher speaking very strongly in my defense ... after getting my assurances I wouldn't try anything like that again.
I can also tell you what happens to all the lights and electronics in a house when you accidentally sent 240VAC though all the 120VAC circuits. (The owner said it was the best his furnace had ever worked ... for all of two minutes.)
So, yes, it's a good idea to pay attention when I say, "Oops."
1970 Explorer Class A on a 1969 Dodge M300 chassis with 318 cu. in. (split year)
1972 Executive Class A on a Dodge M375 chassis with 413 cu. in.
1973 Explorer Class A on a Dodge RM350 (R4) chassis with 318 engine & tranny from 1970 Explorer Class A
goreds2 wrote:
Thanks for the great tips.
Thanks for the great tips.
To expand a little bit, most hidden body clips used on door panels are soft plastic doodads, typically with button heads that connect to the door panel and a barbed protrusion on the other end that is pushed into holes in the door's interior.
Some door panels will come off the body clips if the panel is pushed in a specific direction. Unfortunately, I usually discover which direction after I've pried the panel off the door, damaging some (most ... all?) the body clips.
However, in many cases, the body clips are intended to be single-use fasteners. In those cases, I seriously consider replacing them with carefully spaced decorative sheet metal screws. (Done carefully, with forethought, these can be made to look an OEM product.)
Griff in Fairbanks wrote:
To expand a little bit, most hidden body clips used on door panels are soft plastic doodads, typically with button heads that connect to the door panel and a barbed protrusion on the other end that is pushed into holes in the door's interior.
Some door panels will come off the body clips if the panel is pushed in a specific direction. Unfortunately, I usually discover which direction after I've pried the panel off the door, damaging some (most ... all?) the body clips.
However, in many cases, the body clips are intended to be single-use fasteners. In those cases, I seriously consider replacing them with carefully spaced decorative sheet metal screws. (Done carefully, with forethought, these can be made to look an OEM product.)
goreds2 wrote:
Thanks for the great tips.
Thanks for the great tips.
To expand a little bit, most hidden body clips used on door panels are soft plastic doodads, typically with button heads that connect to the door panel and a barbed protrusion on the other end that is pushed into holes in the door's interior.
Some door panels will come off the body clips if the panel is pushed in a specific direction. Unfortunately, I usually discover which direction after I've pried the panel off the door, damaging some (most ... all?) the body clips.
However, in many cases, the body clips are intended to be single-use fasteners. In those cases, I seriously consider replacing them with carefully spaced decorative sheet metal screws. (Done carefully, with forethought, these can be made to look an OEM product.)
As a side-note, you MIGHT be able to get replacement clips at your friendly neighborhood parts store, usually in what's loosely called the "Help!" section. When I worked at AutoZone, that ("Help!) was precisely the name of the product, and they carried things ranging from vacuum caps to door handles to replacement hood-latch cables. I've also found them through LMC Truck ( https://www.lmctruck.com/ ).
Griff, you crashed a 3500?? I was an FE/S at Altus AFB, and just missed out on babysitting one. The 3700 we had was a rock - at least until they tried running it with a thrown processor belt. Good times!!
My favorite T shirt says EOD on the front.
On the back it says.... if you see me running... Try to keep up. LMAO
Hoppe
2011 Dodge 1500 C'boy Caddy
2000 Jayco C 28' Ford chassis w V-10 E450
Doghouse 36' or so Trophy Classic TT
Everyone out there has had, or knows someone who has had, a generator that worked fine when it's put into storage but mysteriously refuses to produce any electricity when it's brought out of storage. The engine starts and runs smoothly but nothing happens when you plug things into the outlets.
The electricity producing end of the generator is essentially a more powerful version of automotive alternators. It doesn't have a rectifier, unless it also has a 12VDC connector, and outputs more amps at a higher voltage in native AC instead of rectified DC.
Otherwise, with one minor but significant difference, it is physically and functionally identical to our vehicle alternators.
That minor difference is the key to why generators mysteriously quit producing electricity. On automobile alternators, the voltage regulator sends a small electrical current from the battery to alternator's field coils to start the process of producing electricity. (Yes, a little bit of input produces a lot of output.)
On pull-start generators, there's no battery to provide this small initial charge. Instead, a residual magnetic field is used to "kick-start" the generator's alternator. This produces a small current that's fed back into the field in a bootstrap cycle that allows the alternator to ramp up to full output.
The problem is this residual magnetic field dissipates over time. After an extended period of inactivity, this field is reduce to the point where there is little or no magnetism left to start the bootstrap cycle and the alternator just spins without doing anything.
When this happens, the solution is simple -- provided you know what to do. What you need to do is introduce a small electrical current to recreate the magnetic field, a process know as "exciting" the generator. In the absence of a manufacturer's directions, a AAA dry cell might be enough but to be sure, I'd use a 9 volt dry cell or a 12 volt lead/acid battery.
Where to connect the battery varies among manufacturers and models. If you still have the operators manual, it should have a small section (or paragraph), typically towards the back, that describes exactly where to connect the battery. If you're like most people, contact the manufacturer with your model number or look it up on the manufacturers website.
In general, the battery's negative terminal will be connected to bare metal on the alternator's case or frame and the positive terminal connected to a point that can be hard to recognize. The positive connection is usually a small, well insulated bolt, stud, or screw. (Finding the positive connection is the reason you need the manual.)
Once you've "excited" the generator and it ramps up to full operation, it should continue operating normally until the next time it's left inactive for a long period of time.
As with all general descriptions, there are exceptions.
Electric start generators have batteries and therefore should use a current from the battery to energize the field. However, a few manufacturers, to save a few pennies, omit the battery to field connection. (And, I wouldn't buy anything from those manufacturers.)
A few generators use a capacitor to store a charge instead of relying on residual magnetism. While the charge will last longer than a residual field, it too will eventually dissipate. In this case, I wouldn't proceed without clear guidance from the manufacturer.
There's no reason to fret if you've run into this problem. I have a 4800 watt generator sitting in my yard with this problem. Unfortunately, old gasoline has also gummed up the engine so I need to get the engine started before exciting the alternator.
As a final nitpicking note, "generator" is a misnomer. A more appropriate term would be "gasoline alternator." (However, acting as language police is an exercise in self-frustration.)
Wolf_n_Kat wrote:
Griff, you crashed a 3500??
Griff, you crashed a 3500??
Yes, and that's only one example. At another point in my career, I brought a (relatively) small supercomputer to its knees, causing it to run like an under-clocked 286.
At another point in my career, the section I headed up was one of the few places in the Air Force authorized, within certain constraints, to engage in hacking and writing viruses.
As head of a Security Test and Evaluation (ST&E) team, my official duties included breaking and entry. (My team managed to make it into a secret-high facility and spent several hours engaging in various minor hijinks ... including slapping evidence tags on the facility's security manager's coffee cup and Wild Weasel desk set and turning them over to the OSI. BTW, the security manager was a Lt Colonel.)
I also developed and taught the Air Force's first small computer course for non-computer types, with around a hundred graduates. At the same time, I ghost-wrote many of AFCC's small computer regulation and guidance. (No, I wasn't at AFCC ... it was a strange back-channel effort.)
One of my best accomplishments was designing the conceptual architecture for a command and control system that was used to manage the Exxon Valdez cleanup.
My CV would run 20-30 pages and I could write a book about my adventures ... and misadventures.
Griff in Fairbanks wrote:
I can also tell you what happens to all the lights and electronics in a house when you accidentally sent 240VAC though all the 120VAC circuits. (The owner said it was the best his furnace had ever worked ... for all of two minutes.
I can also tell you what happens to all the lights and electronics in a house when you accidentally sent 240VAC though all the 120VAC circuits. (The owner said it was the best his furnace had ever worked ... for all of two minutes.
I can, too. A friend of my parents wired up their new generator for them (my uncle couldn't come up for a few months). He hooked both outputs on the Coleman 4kW generator to the input he wired up to the house.
Every light in the house got really, really bright...and then everything blew. Had to get a furnace repairman out at 9pm to fix it since it was 20° outside. Good thing the president of the company was their best friend.
'73 Concord 20' Class A w/Dodge 440 - see profile for photo
At this point in our discussion, you should realize the alternator is the primary source of a vehicle's electricity, almost to the point of being the sole source. Once the engine starts, the battery only provides the small charge used to energize the field coils when the regulator "turns on" the alternator.
So, the battery is essentially parasitic weight during most of it's time in a vehicle. It's possible to eliminate the battery by using a capacitor to store and release the current needed to excite the field coils. Some race cars do exactly this, using another vehicle to push start or external terminals to jump start the engine. They then rely on a capacitor to keep the engine running during the race. (In general, less weight means more speed.)
Leeann: Does your husband use this technique in his boat or does he know people who do?
Most people think the phrase "charging system" refers to recharging the battery to replace the energy used to start the engine. This is only true during the first few minutes of engine operation. The rest of the time, it's more appropriate to think of "charging system" as referring to charging the vehicle's ignition and the rest of the electrical system.
So far, we've identified four things that can cause charging system issues: Alternator bearings, brushes, and rectifier as well as the voltage regulator. Now, we'll add two things to round out the things-to-check list when chasing charging system problems, these being the drive belt and the vehicle's wiring and connections.
V-belts cause a lot of charging system issues. Obviously, broken belts cause the charging system to stop working. Less obvious is the effect belt tension has on the system.
V-belts that are too tight cause stress on the alternator's shaft, leading to premature bearing failure. Conversely, belts that are too loose can affect the amount of current produced.
Alternators require a fair amount of horsepower, transmitted from the engine via the belt, to produce electricity. Larger alternators and electrical loads require more horsepower, possibly causing the belt to slip around the pulley instead of turning the pulley.
Roughly twenty years ago, I made a "shade tree" 12VDC generator for recharging deep cycle batteries off the grid. I used a 3-1/2 hp Briggs engine, a V-belt, pulleys, and the alternator and regulator from a mid-60s Dodge. Initially, deeply discharged batteries caused the alternator to break pulleys and belts. Once the belt and pulley issues were worked out, the huge load on alternator would stall the engine. As a result, I had to use a switch to nurse the alternator field just before the engine stalled until the batteries got enough of a charge to allow the generator run on its own.
A too loose belt isn't readily obvious from the driver's seat because the belt usually doesn't "squeal" like power steering belts. Instead, the vehicle uses the battery to supplement or replace the alternator's output. This continues until the battery is drained enough to kill the engine's ignition. In addition to typically happening in the most inconvenient places, this severely shortens the battery's life. (With headlights and heater fan on, my 1990 Ford van could go at most, 40 miles on a fully charged battery.)
This is the reason I prefer serpentine belt systems. In addition to added "grip" surface of the belts, the spring tensioner makes sure the belt has the right tension. I've looked into adding belt tensioners to V-belt systems but this requires custom engineering. Alternately, I seriously consider replacing the V-belts with a serpentine. However, most replacement systems use manufacturer-unique parts that could cause being stranded for weeks or months in Alaska's many remote areas while I wait for replacement parts.
Note: This general description of issues applies to OEM cars and light trucks. Additional loads such as high-intensity lights and megawatt stereos sometimes exceed the alternator's maximum output and cause symptoms identical to those caused by a too loose belt. This is a self-inflicted injury. (A buddy's megawatt stereo forced him to add extra batteries, and recharge them every night, just to make the 15 mile trip to work.)
The last most likely cause if electrical issues is the vehicle's wiring and wiring connections. The wire in OEM electrical systems are sized to handle anticipated loads. Wires are over-sized and fused to protect from unusual overloads. In some case, for whatever reason, I've seen people use smaller wires to replace OEM wires or add circuits.
Worse yet is the occasional use of solid wires instead of stranded wires. One primary reasons for using stranded wires in vehicle systems is they are better at handling stresses caused by vibration. Inadequately anchored solid wire can develop stress cracks and breaks due to vibration. (Yes, this is a potential issue with your motorhome's 120VAC system.)
Older stranded wire can develop stress cracks and breaks, usually due to thermal cycling, but this far less common. Usually, the insulation on the wires in older vehicles breaks down, allowing shorts that aren't necessarily caught by fuses/circuit breakers.
Most often, dirty/corroded/loose/greasy connections cause the most issues. Any of these conditions cause less-than-ideal connections that causes increased resistance (and heat) in the circuit, causing increased demand on the vehicle's electrical system.
Enough for now ...
Pretty sure it's a go-kart thing outboard racers modified for their own use.
EDIT: yep, it's a Coleman go-kart starter much like this one (he bought it used, though)
Coleman Starter | eBay
Leeann wrote:
For a long time, he used the standard Mercury starter (heavy) with a small Optima battery. He has since gone to an external starter, based around a jump starter battery, that simply spins the flywheel nut via the correct sized socket (11/16, I think). He has a racing flywheel that weighs almost nothing.
Pretty sure it's a go-kart thing outboard racers modified for their own use.
EDIT: yep, it's a Coleman go-kart starter much like this one (he bought it used, though)
Coleman Starter | eBay
For a long time, he used the standard Mercury starter (heavy) with a small Optima battery. He has since gone to an external starter, based around a jump starter battery, that simply spins the flywheel nut via the correct sized socket (11/16, I think). He has a racing flywheel that weighs almost nothing.
Pretty sure it's a go-kart thing outboard racers modified for their own use.
EDIT: yep, it's a Coleman go-kart starter much like this one (he bought it used, though)
Coleman Starter | eBay
I thought so. Most likely, his alternator has a capacitor or relies on residual magnetism when the engine is running.