On Monday, September 23, 2013 5:21:53 PM UTC-4, jamesgang wrote:
On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 4:44:01 PM UTC-4, Julio Rey wrote:

We purchased a new Generac Stand-by liquid cooled generator, got installed



by same certified electrician that did my neighbor's generator. The unit



worked fine during testing, but failed to perform the weekly self-start.



Upon inspection the panel, it was also blank - no power.



We returned the NEW battery, got a NEW replacement, and the unit started



right away.



I inspected the panel a few days later, and it was emitting a "Check



Battery" message.



Called Generac South (a servicing dealer for our area), the technician



came, but could not find the problem - claimed that it probably was a



"vapor lock" that stopped the alternator from charging the battery.



Does anyone else is experience this problem?



Hondo







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I would think that the house power is charging the battery while the unit is not in use.

There is. Which is why the statement from the tech that "vapor lock
prevented the generator from charging the battery is really dumb.


There may be electronics that is being powered by the battery as well and the charger is not recognizing when the battery gets low and needs charging.

The battery should never really get low, because the charging circuit
provides DC power to the generator electronics when house AC is up.
The battery only supplies power when the AC voltages goes away.

The tech should be able to fix it, you paid a lot for that setup.


And if that tech/company can't give satisfaction, then I'd be
all over Generac to get me to another dealer for the warranty work.
But given what I've seem from most of the reviews of Generac
whole house generators, there are a lot of very unhappy customers
out there with systems that are ****ed off at Generac.

Even for this guy here, what an experience. You pay $$$$ for a
system that is supposed to be there in emergencies. Yet, it's
dead on it's own in a week. Even if they fix it, doesn't leave
you with a lot of faith in how reliable it will be when you need it.





Or if you've given up on the tech go to lowes and get a small battery charge maintainer. I keep one on my boat and they do work well.


I would not put a bandaid on a brand new standby generator that
cost him thousands of dollars. Once you start bandaiding it, what do
you think the company involved is going to say when there is a further
problem, like maybe the main control board blows up?
Very easy to then try to blame it on the customer modification
and deny the warranty claim. Plus, a battery tender raises it's
own problems, like extension cord to somewhere to plug it in, etc.
This most likely is just a bad module that needs to be replaced.

You would think just hooking up an ammeter in series with the
battery would be a quick test to see what's happening. If it's
working properly, you should see no current flow out of the
battery, maybe a small current flowing in. If it's broken like
we all seem to agree it is, then you'd see a small current flowing out
which is powering the generator electronics and draining the battery
over time. Also if there is no charge ever going into the battery,
each time it starts, which is typically weekly to do a short test
run, it's also draining the battery.