Hi and welcome to FixYa, I am Kelly a 1955 model life long electrician.
I don't remember where the capacitor is on this unit. I think it is in the control panel area. I am pretty sure the capacitor is breaking down. It will be either a 25 uF or 31.5 uF capacitor. Look for what appears to be candle wax dirpping out of it or... any signs of swelling. I have had this happen on my own generator 2 times over 10 years. I finally bought oil filled capacitors and the wax leak / eventual failure . overloading problems are gone. Have your capacitor checked. Test across the leads for resistance at R x 1000 and watch that resistance drifts to infinity. Reverse the leads and watch for the same resistance and drift to infinity. Inspect the capacitor wires as far as you can inspect them. Usually there is a disconnect terminal before the stator winding. The connectors somtimes get hot and start cooking off the connectors. Many times I have had to simply cut out the connectors, solder the wires together and cover them with heat shrinkable tubing. The same goes for stator winding wires but not that often. Most of the time it is the capacitor field wires that have problems.
Is this an EU3000, EU3000-I, or EU3000-IS model?
Thanks for choosing FixYa,
Kelly
I wanted to pass on a little more of my experience with inverter type generators.
The rotors are just like the alternator rotors on a car electrically, They use a diode and a varistor to 1 keep the field in the same polarity and 2 the varistor will act like a fuse and open if the rotor winding shorts. I have seen in several occasions where there was only a partial rotor winding short. The unit would produce output voltage but would not handle any loads other than lights and maybe a fan.
When I perform the ROTOR winding resistance checks it usually is substantially different from the norm. When I find that a rotor varistor has opened .... the remedy is an expensive rotor change. Sometime with shipping and depending uppon parts source the rotor and labor to change the rotor can equal the cost of the entire generator unit with engine.
Kelly
I was looking at parts here:
http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/...
To see the rest if the compments click here:
http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/...
I was trying to find the 25 or 31.5 uF capacitor. Maybe I am getting rusty but all I see is a horribly expensive inverter unit that is Item 2 this link:
http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/...
There is a voltage regulator rectifier that are items 7 and 8 this link:
http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/...
For what it is worth....
Kelly
After taking a break I had a keen sense of the obvious. This generator has to have a DC stator and makes AC via the inverter. The key components here would be the stator, voltage regulator and the inverter. I would unplug the connectors of the stator winding one at time checking for corrosion and the terminals on the inverter and the voltage regulator also looking for corrosion. Since the symptom being presented is an overload condition I am thinking that we are dealing with corrosion some where due to winter exposure.
Kelly
Hi John I sent my reply before I got notification you had made any comments and saw the comment after posting. I was a bit perplexed that the problem was marked as solved. My only intention was to help you get your generator working properly and this one has had me thinking for hours. I still think that there is a corrosion problem on some terminals.
Kelly
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Kelly, thanks so much... it is an EU3000is. What I think created the problem, possibly. I had left it in the back of my pickup all winter. So is was out in the rain and covered in snow at times. I had knees surgery, so didn't bother to take it out. And as I read latter it states to keep it out of the weather...duh... So capacitor would make sense. I have some electrical experince to search the problem... I'll let you know how it goes.... again, thanks so much.. I live in Redmond , Ore... so it gets freezing cold as well..... John
Kelly,,, your the man... thanks so much for you concern...
john
Your direction for this problem is greatly appriciated..... your common sense and knowledge in your field is helpfull.... making sense to me... thanks so much again.....
john
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