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Reddy Generator

First post. Hope I can find some help. I have a Reddy Professional Series 7000 Watt Generator with a Honda motor. It has about 12 hours of use on it. The Honda motor runs fine. All breakers are closed and the unit will not put out any power. Take my next comments with a grain of salt, beacuse I know very little about electricity.

In asking around town here is what ai was told to do. Has something to do with 'waking up' or 'exciting' the fields in the windings.

1. Cut the female end off an extension cord.
2. Warm up the Honda motor.
3. Plug the extension cord into the generator control panel.
4. Touch the open leads of the extension cord to a 12 volt auto battery.

I was warned that this will most likely be quite the scare, but little to no risk. Apparently, sending the 12v charge back throught the system excites the winding field in the generator.

Thoughts?

Eric

30yearTech

I have seen this procedure described many different ways. I have only ever done it with a 110 volt drill myself.

If you search on "generator field flashing" you will find many different procedures for accomplishing this task.

You can look at these and see what you think:
AlltheWeb.com: Web results for "generator field flashing"

cheese

I wouldn't use the "bare ends of a wire" method. As soon as the field excites, there will be 120 volts at those bare ends of the wire, which isn't safe. Try the drill method, or if you do it with a battery, be careful!

flopshot

the only way i was told to flash one was 12 volts applied to the brush holders, not the AC output curcuit. i'm told the drill method works but never tried it.