I have a Generac GP7500E and it seems that the battery used for electric start is not getting charged. The generator is only a year old. I have read elswhere that it does not charge the battery. Is that true? Seems rather odd that it wouldn't. I don't run the generator every hour of the day during a storm so I do frequent starts.
??
-AR
I believe there is a plug that charges the battery. There should be a spot for it on the front
see here last bullet item...
http://www.generac.com/SpecSheets/01..._5978_5943.pdf
The gen itself does not charge the battery, I am sure when the gen is running you can plug that adapter to the gen outlet.
I think it should charge the battery araczek but I think it is very low in amps and voltage. Take a volt/ohm meter and select 12 votls DC and check it when it is running,,if it shows going over 12 volts then I would say it is charging. After shutting it down ceck voltage. Some do some don't,,pretty stupid if it didn't. Good luck.
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It's not uncommon that a portable generator WILL NOT charge the battery.
Most require you to have a trickle charger plugged into mains power.
This way the battery is always fully charged when the power goes out.
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That model does not charge the battery while running. Stupid, huh?
Stupid wasn't quite the word that I was thinking of.
A generator that doesn't charge it's own battery,,carry your battery charger with you to charge the battery, run generator and plug in the battery charger????? HMMMMM
carry your battery charger with you to charge the battery, run generator and plug in the battery charger
I am sure when the gen is running you can plug that adapter to the gen outlet.
Hey thats what I said....LOL
YEP,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I think we are all saying the same thing!
How much would it cost them [us] for them to put a couple more coils on the stator plate, come on, a generator that cant charge it's own battery? I mean the engine should be self contained, If it has electric start, it should charge it's own battery, wouldn't you think. Althouhg, two weeks ago they could have sold a generator powered by horses.
Sid
why wouldn't the engine have a charging stator like a riding mower?
Because the gen batt would die from lack of use. Easier to keep it charged when you have power IMO.
What happens to the riding mower batt when you try to start it in the summer?
IMO plug it into the gen when its running as we stated....
I never had a gen with a battery and wonder how long the batt will last in a no power situation after fully charged. I assume that would be a good question, no? 1 week? 2 weeks?
...wonder how long the batt will last in a no power situation after fully charged.
Mine will last for months.
if you have a generator that you don't start at least monthly and let it run awhile then you'll have one that won't run when you need it because the carb will be all gummed up
Just seems like if they are going to have the cost of a battery, cables, solenoid, starter, switch, and ring gear, they could at least put a tiny coil out by the flywheel magnet to charge the battery like the small battery crank push mower engines have. Might have cost an additional $3.00.
Didn't a battery charging cable come with the genset? And that cable plugs into the battery charger jack on the control panel of the machine.
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My brand new 10KW generator came with a 120 volt automatic trickle charger.
There is a dedicated jack on the control panel.....it's plugged in all the time.
It guarantees it's ready to go upon power failure.....but is not charged from the engine.
During a long extended outage.....I could plug the charger into the 120 volt generator outlet.
Then there would be no issue of a dead battery after multiple re-starts for fueling.
I guess the worst would be that I would have to pull start it like a cave man.....
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I honestly don't know if my Yamaha inverter generator recharges the starting battery when running. The manual doesn't say one way or the other although it does say that if the battery needs to be charged it is necessary to use a constant voltage charger for sealed batteries. Looking at the wiring schematic it appears that there is a rectifier off of the ignition magneto that should charge the battery. Using the battery charging cable and receptacle would be difficult since the battery is enclosed in the shrouding and requires a fair amount of disassembly to get to the terminals.
No matter as I installed an automobile cigarette lighter receptacle in the control panel wired to the battery. I can plug in a battery maintainer/trickle charger or even a set of jumper cables if the internal battery goes dead.
Halton,
I repaired medical equipment in the USAF for 25 yrs. We had a lot of MASH type field equipment, which sat on aircraft-deployable pallets for long periods waiting for the call... A lot of it, as well as our in use medical equipment, utilized the type of charger you displayed in the picture of your generator.
Us BMETs (biomedical equipment repair technicians) don't call those battery chargers, we call them battery friers. If we let out medical equipment with those type of charges left plugged in, come the six month check most batteries would be dead - from overcharging.
See, as you mentioned yours is a trickle charger, but what is missing is the word constant. It will constantly trickle charge the battery, typically at about 10-20 times what the battery would self discharge. As such, if it is left plugged in, over time it will overcharge you battery, more or less ruining it. The charge is a trickle, or lower amount, than say a 1, 2, 6, or 10A charger would provide (1-2 is a good charger, 6-10 is a fast charger, so it needs to be charged less time).
The best type of charger is a smart charger, one that charges if needed then goes to a float charge, which is much less than a trickle. A float is usually about 20mA, whereas a trickle is about 120mA. Although 120 mA is not a lot, all that extra difference (from 20ma) has to go somewhere, and it is at the expense of the battery.
I have also ridden motorcycles for 30 yrs, and have had the problems from a battery sitting over the winter. There are 3 tricks you can use with that charger you have to prevent having a dead battery when you need it...
1 after you charge it up, hook it to a timer, and have it kick on for say, 15 minutes each day. That will more than maintain it.
2 some hook it to an outlet controlled by the light on your garage door opener. Whenever the light is on (what, twice a day on average?), the charger is charging.
3 set your phone to put in on the charger, overnight, once a month. I do this now since I have a septic, where my phone reminds me to add bacteria... I also charge all my batteries that sit (my portable 12v charger/jumper cables box, any sitting 12 volt batteries, my lawnmower, motorcycles, etc during the winter)
If you plug it in and let it go on and on, odds are you'll have a dead battery when you need it.
A smart one can be had for about $25. I prefer Deltran of Battery Doc, but avoid Black and Decker. Deltran now comes with the universal 2 wire trailer type waterproof pin connectors, so you can get more and have the connector to all your batteries (although it typically comes with a set of alligators to use, too. The connectors are for the harder to access batteries). If you kill one battery prematurely, the charger pays for itself. Especially in a power outage when you need it to work.
Nice thing about 12 volts is you can use your car battery to get'r running, and odds are it (or some car) is nearby.
Mark
All in all, in case you all are unaware or skip the step - your generator is NOT grounded. As such, neither is anything you plug in. If anything goes wrong, electricity will find a ground by the least resistive means - which is often a person. Saw many of my fellow BMETs get their knocked into the dirt when they touched an un-grounded generator that had a power problem. One got a nasty burn, but the other 3 or so I recall recoiled pretty hard. Fortunately they were able to. Depending on the amount of current going through you - and it is the current that will kill you, not the voltage (220 tingles compared to a 110v bite), your muscles can be paralyzed to where you can't pull away from it.
We made sure the medical technicians were very aware - if a BMET is acting funny or down, ascertain they are NOT touching any equipment or wires before touching us, as they could become a part of the same shock/electrocution circuit.
Folks, ground them, and invest the $20 in a battery operated CO monitor to put into the house the generator is connected to. We had Sandy nail us here and had several CO issues even though the generators were outside. Cheap insurance for something you can't see, smell, taste etc.
My ground wire is bolted on, about 25 feet long, and has a good alligator on it. Anyone I loan it to gets shown connect it (and some options of where to), check the oil, fill it, fire it up, etc.
Mark
Halton,
I repaired medical equipment......A lot of it......utilized the type of charger you displayed in the picture of your generator......we call them battery friers.....those type of charges left plugged in, come the six month check most batteries would be dead - from overcharging.
The best type of charger is a smart charger, one that charges if needed then goes to a float charge
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It's all good..... .....see below (copied from my generator manual)
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Most Generac wiring schematics I've seen actually charge the battery from the Generator Head via an auxiliary winding. The winding is center-tap ground full-wave rectified and sent to the battery. It is NOT filtered and NOT regulated, thus it's current into the battery depends on the voltage generated by the winding, which, in turn, is governed by the speed of the engine (usually 3600RPM).
The float-charging input ties to the battery-rectifier junction.
One would normally expect an electric-start engine to have its own self-contained charging system located under the flywheel as usual, but for generators, apparently that is not the case. However, this is not to mean that the user couldn't retro-integrate a charging system into the engine and separate the battery from the gen-head.
Just my 2/100ths of a dollar.
-Steve
Tags: generac, generator, 7500, does, charge, starter, battery, charge battery, battery charger, when running
