Followup on non-charging genny

A few days ago I posted about a generator that motors OK but doesn't charge when the field is grounded. I gave up on it and got a rebuilt. That burned commutator block worried me too much. The rebuilt genny came from Wilson. I've heard about them before but don't know much about the outfit. Anyway, I got the new genny home and there were no holes to bolt the regulator down, so I used a hose clamp to hold the regulator and ran a separate ground wire from the regulator to ground. I am not going to wait another three business days for another genny to come. I had bought a new regulator previously thinking that was the problem and I decided to use it instead of the old one. I bolted everything together, polarized it and started up the tractor. The ammeter went to big discharge , then it went to charging but the needle was bouncing around so I shut it down. When I shut it down the ammeter went to full discharge so I pulled the battery cable, removed the new regulator, put the old regulator on, polarized it and now all is fine. The new regulator I took off was hot, not burning hot, but hot and yes it was hooked up right, I double checked it.

The new regulator cost a twitch under $100, the rebuilt genny cost $250 through a parts house. That's $300 just to get an old tractor charging again. I haven't bought a rebuilt genny for a good 10 years or maybe longer , I have always been able to fix the old one, so I was a little surprised with the cost. When I found out what that thing cost I was about 'this' close to leaving the generator on the counter and going to a junk yard for an alternator but the purist in me kicked in too strong. What ever happened to the days when we went to the dealer or parts house, picked up a generator and or regulator for fairly cheap and put it on and took off without a bunch of trouble?

Anyway, the defective regulator is going back. $100 is a big incentive to not just throw it in the trash and call it a bad deal.

THat full discharge upon shut down sounds like the Cutout Relay stuck closed and since there's a high current draw during such time things heat up. If the genny is polarized incorrectly that can harm a VR, but you stated you polarized. Some parts houses don't take electronic components back.

John T

Yeah, I'm a little dubious about what the outcome will be at the parts house. I'm a long-time customer there but that probably doesn't mean anything.

Your finding out why I have switched everything over to an alternator. If a generator was so good/great then we would still be using them on new vehicles/equipment. You can buy a brand new 10SI one wire 65 amp alternator for $57 delivered to your door steep. No core charge. Just bought two this week. J&N electric.