I'm working on a Colman Powermate 2250 watt generator.
Model # PM0541000.01
Serial# 74140851 (appears to be brushless)

It came in with no output. I'm not real familiar with the generator side of things, so I had an electrician friend help me. We removed the cover, checked the circuit breaker (good), checked the diodes (good), checked the capacitor with a capacitor tester (good) and reassembled. We had heard about inducing voltage back into the generator to jump start it. We used a 12v lawn mower battery and did so. We tried a couple of times and saw between 57 and 70 volts, but never 120. Does anyone have some advice on other things to do/check. I'm not sure its worth spending a lot of time on, but would love to learn more about generators too. Thanks for any help given.

Is your engine rpms correct @ 3600 ? you need that to produce the 60 cycles and 120 volts. If your rpms are good, you may have bad windings in the stator. I dont have an exact resistance number for you but you can test the resistance of the windings. Also your capacitor may have tested good but still could be bad. That is the most common item to go bad on these units. hope this helps some......

Sorry, I forgot to add that we checked the rpms and adjusted to 3600. I can get more voltage by speeding it up, but its way out of Briggs running limits.

Am I understanding that a capacitor could test good, but still be bad? I'd rather not throw parts at this if the problem is in the windings. Are you thinking the windings would be obvious if I check them (either open or dead short)?

you may only be getting voltage from one side of the windings. How did you test the capacitor? I use a fluke multi meter set to the uf setting and test the capacitor for its rated uf if its all over the place or never gets to the uf then its bad. Most capacitors have that rating on the side of the outer case and should have a + or - range to go with it . You should be able to find somewhere the correct resistance of the windings and be able to test if its open or shorted. If the diode was bad you would have no voltage at all.

The capacitor was checked at a local electrical shop. I'll pass along the info you gave me to the guy helping me out with this one. All I can tell you is it was a capacitor tester. thanks for the help.

Hotrod I know you tried flashing the generator...but try this link below. I have tried this myself and it works! Provided nothing else is wrong.


http://www.perr.com/tip16.html