Battery charger and generator don't play together

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Hatch- First thing is is to turn down the governor a bit to get 60hz with a normal ship's load. Right now the numbers indicate engine rpm is too high. And volts will be high too, as there is no voltage regulator on that machine.

Fair chance if you dial the rpm down, charger will be happy. Do that first.

Capacitor excited units like this don't have perfect wave forms, but should be good enough.
 
I'm seconding EngNate's comment that the charger is sensing voltage from the gen-set's alternator...
 
Hmm... Capacitor regulation is the cheapest, crappiest and least reliable method. A faulty capacitor - breaking down under voltage, would cause issues. It sounds like there are harmonics (frequency multiples) in the output and the multimeter has trouble settling on the predominant frequency. The Kill a Watt likely has a filtered range so doesn't have the issue. The engine speed is a bit too high and the no/low load voltage should come down when adjusted - 61.5 Hz no load, check that it is over 59 at 100% load.
 
as i said in an earlier post, we had the same promariner charger and nextgen 3.5. no charger on genset, turned down rpms to get voltage below 130.

btw, nextgen has no alternator.

follow ski's advice
 
The Nextgen 3.5 has no battery charging alternator. Only thing belt driven is the sea water pump (and main AC alternator). It could have a batt charging circuit imbedded in the main AC alternator as other units do, but I doubt it.

Adjust speed down.
 
The 3.5 Nextgen has no battery charging circuit imbedded. Must use an external charger to keep battery charged.
 
So I had a little time this morning to try removing the positive lead from the charger to the generator starting battery. That made sense to me and I had high hopes. But (drum roll!) it didn't make any difference. Still no charging! When I adjusted the throttle down on the motor to 60 Hz that didn't make any difference either, still no charge until I turned on the air conditioner. The AC and the water heater both drop the voltage about the same amount and they also reduce the frequency but only the AC allows the charger to run. Thanks again for your suggestions!
 
Bummer.

When you turned the speed down to get 60hz, what were AC volts no load? What are AC volts with AC on?

Might be worth trying a new gen excitation capacitor. But usually when these act up unit won't make power or volts are way out of whack. Can get a cap from electrical/industrial/hvac/motor supply house for like 10-15 bucks.
 
I still think an excitation cap is likely to fix the problem. I don't know next gens, but I just can't imagine making a unit so bad that a decent charger rejects it.

Having said that, if that doesn't work, you might /possibly/ be able to retrofit Flight Systems Model 480/Delco H3500 regulator onto it. It costs about $250.00. Ifbut comes to this, calling them would be the best bet. I don't know the gebset enough to guess
-- https://www.flightsystems.com/stand...sal-voltage-regulator-onan-kohler-basler.html

But, first check to make sure nothing is broken, i.e.check waveform with a scope, check or replace that cap, and tune to 60Hz under mid load or 62 Hz no load or whatever the manual says.

Just a thought.
 
That regulator won't work on the Nextgen, it is capacitor regulated with no external regulator. The regulator will work on ones with exciter stator/rotor combos, or brush exciters.

The Nextgen uses an industry std alternator from an industrial vendor, can't remember which. Would surprise me if it had a crappy waveform.

Post volts your are getting now.
 
Now, that is a super-stumper, and there's two here reporting the same issue with the same combination. The AC compressor, an inductive load, causes distortion of the waveform, they all do. The water heater, a resistive load, does not. When applied together the resistive load will reduce distortion caused by the inductive load. Symptoms look like there is also a capacitive load. These also distort the waveform, and capacitive and inductive reactances cancel one another. The only common things that are capacitive loads are HID ballasts in lighting systems. We do have these on fishing and commercial boats but seldom pleasure. A high power metal halide lamp would cause distortion that would be cancelled out by an AC compressor. A look at the waveform is in order now. I'm thinking the NextGen's power quality, though it may not be great, is within acceptable limits and the issue is in the charger design. I still don't want to suggest a $500 purchase to solve the problem, but have a hunch the Pro Nautic will work fine. Out of curiosity, maybe Joe can post the brand name on the capacitor in the set - see if it is from a reputable maker or a cheapie.

Anyway, you get credit for bringing in a stumper!
 
Ski,

I know it is a capacitor exciter. I'm just not sure if that rules out adding an external regulator. Personally, I've never seen one of these units and feel like I'd have to see the generators schematic, the regulator's schematic or manual, etc to know.

And, rather than that, I'd try to find a service manual or schematic, or measure across the brushes or whatever and call flight systems with whatever I could find.

The answer might be a no way....maybe more than likely it is...but I'd let them sort that. They are experts and answer the phone and sort these things for free. I'd rather get the genset to perform well than swap chargers, microwaves, etc.

(But, still suspect a cap...just because it really shouldn't be that bad by design...gulp.)
 
Final update! I know a lot of you have strongly recommended Pro Mariner but they have not been very helpful to me. On my second call to Pro Mariner the gentleman said that the problem was simply that my generator producing 137 volts was "confusing" the Pro Mariner 1230iPlus charger because it didn't know whether it was operating on 110 VAC or 220 VAC. I said that was strange since the product manual said it would work on 90-240 VAC. He insisted that all I had to do was to reduce the voltage of the generator to less than 130 VAC and it would work fine. So I adjusted the throttle linkage to reduce the voltage to 125-127 VAC which also reduced the frequency to 60.9 HZ. And there was no change! The charger works fine on shore power and works fine with the generator when the air conditioner is running but will not work with only the generator or the generator and hot water heater running.

So I call Pro Mariner back. It took them 5 days to get back to me over the holidays. The person I spoke with this time put me on hold and went to "check something". When he came back he basically said that the charger I have it too old to worry about. He couldn't offer any more suggestions to remedy the situation. I asked him if one of the newer Pro Nautic chargers would work and he said "probably so" but the Pro Nautic is an older 2010 design. I asked if I could return a unit if it didn't work with my generator and he said that was up to the store where I bought the unit. Maybe it just wasn't one of his better days but so far my impression of the Pro Mariner service line is not positive beyond they fact that they do call back. So I guess that whatever charger I buy will have to come from a dealer that promises to refund my money if the charger doesn't work.

Thanks to everyone for you thoughtful suggestions!
 
A new capacitor may be a cheaper first try than a new charger. Most stores allow returns, including Defender, Amazon, West Marine, etc.
 
I did ask Next Gen about a new capacitor and was told that if there was anything wrong with the capacitor I wouldn't get any AC output so I dropped the idea at that time. Of course my generator could be the exception. A problem is the way the generator was shoehorned in to the bilge. Getting the capacitor out will be a major effort. Right now I think I will live with running the air conditioner to start the charger.
 
I have 3 different chargers onboard
1-Pro mariner 20 bow thruster
1-quest 10 amp stern thruster
1-20 amp house batteries

They all 2 years old and work with my 3.5 Next-gen
 
we have 2 boats and 2 chargers, 1) victron 12 years old used 6 month live aboard every year, anchor out about 60 nites/year 2) magnum 10 years old used about 30 nites/year. i would highly reco either brand, both product and support.
 
A load like a ac unit could nock down small spikes in generator power output. Meaning it may smooth out the wave. I think this is what is happening and can probably be seen on an oscilloscope
 
to the electrical guys out there: are there devices which could smooth out/eliminate the spikes?
 
There are "power line filters". Basically, ideal electrical power should have only one component, 60Hz (in the US). These filters significantly reduce components with higher frequencies (and maybe lower). They are used for everything from sensitive electronic devices to medical equipment.

Places like Mouser and Newark sell them, among others.

But, we really don't know if we have a stability or noise problem. I'd much rather see an oscilloscope output, a spectrum analyzer output, or something from one of the specialized tools to measure noise, than guess.

Without really knowing that the issue is noise, and what the noise components are, I can only guess and say, "Buy an modestly expensive one for single phase 60Hz AC rated for at least the same current, i.e. amps, as the genset."

Some of these can leak current to earth, so could potentially pop ELCIs and other RCDs, so you'd want to make sure the installation is after the generator and before the source selection vs after the source selection
 
Deleted post as my comments were already well covered.

Jim
 
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FWIW, I spent some time last year chasing similar symptoms that just ended up being the way the previous owner had wired things. Anyway, I bought a Hantek 2D72 hand held oscilloscope/DVM/function generator for 190 bucks that is compact and excellent. Seems like you have a great excuse to get a new toy...
 
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