"SQLit" wrote in message
...

"Pop" wrote in message
...
Hi,

It's never happened to me and I've never seen it
discussed, but every generator manual I've seen has
instructions on what to do if the magnets in it
beome
weak or reversed. Grab a lantern battery, back
charge
it, turn it on and go sort of things.

I hope Ive made it understandable to know what I
mean.

1. What causes the loss of magnetic field?
2. Is there a preventive method to avoid it?
3. Is there a sort of "in between" state where the
mags are just weakened? What do you do then?
4. When you exercise a generator periodically,
should
you load BOTH poles or is one at a time OK to do?
Should you use a light, moderate or heavy load?

Why am I asking? I haven't gotten the transfer
switch
installed yet. Probably won't until this fall.
Money
issues. It's a 5,000 Watt Koleman unit wiht a 10 HP
B&S motor, interestingly enough, Industrial grade,
not
residential. It's kept us from freezing twice so
far -
THIS year that switch goes in!

Thanks for any knowledge that might be here

Pop

1.Loosing the field exciter is rare in my experience.
They break
If you bought a Coleman it would be easier to get a
spare set of parts for
your genset. I used to work on them. Not an
commercial unit by any means.

2. With the Coleman none that I am aware of

3. Not to my knowledge,

4. Exercise is sort of a personal thing. I have seen
gensets exercised
weekly and fail when they were needed. I have seen
exercising monthly and
work fine.
As to the load I would use at least 80% of the rated
output for 15 minutes,
do not forget the cool down time.
What does Coleman recommend?



They recommend 20 minutes of run time per week, but the
manual says nothing about what sort of load is best or
anything else. I do allow for cool down etc, but the
manual doesn't even mention it. It's pretty minimal
for actual information, actually. The run time's
really only necessary to keep the battery up and the
fuel lines open and clean, I think. But I've always
wondered how much load should be used. Nowadays I just
toss a 1500 watt electric heater on it for 5 minutes or
so.

I've found that about two weeks is a good cycle as long
as the battery's in good shape and the garage doesn't
get too cold. I keep it indoors and roll it out by the
grounding rod when it's actually put into use, which
fortunately isn't too often.
It was a real Godsend, and only three months old,
when the "Ice Storm of '98" hit us here in the
northeast. That's also where I learned how to use clip
leads & to unfasten the gas line so I could get gas out
my car's tank; for four of those days no one was
allowed on the roads except emergency vehicles.
Wouldn't have done any good to go out anyway; none of
the gas stations had generators either so they couldn't
pump the gas they had! The national guard brought in
hundreds of generators for the farmers in the area.
Now I lay-in a safely stored supply of 30 gallons
of gas now each year, soon's they switch to the
"winter" gas. Haven't needed it all yet, but I don't
intend to be using my car to pump gas again! I
couldn't believe there was no way to get a siphon hose
into the tank!!

Thanks for the memories,

Pop