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Hi,
I've sent Gene Harper two emails, but he might be in the country fighting forest fires so I thought I'd post the problem here in case someone else has seen it.
I installed Gene's solid state regulator on my Indian 439 with distributor ignition. I've just removed the gen and double checked all the wiring, even rung them out to confirm the A and F wires. I motored the generator to assure it was properly polarized. I put a DMM across the generator leads with no regulator in place, spun the gen shaft CCW and got postive voltage on the DMM.
Here's the problem:
With the regulator installed, Gene recommends testing the operation by putting a DMM across the battery terminals and running the engine. I did that. I measure about 6.54VDC with the engine off. With the engine running and with and without lights on, I see + amps on my dash mounted ammeter, but the display on my DMM is going nuts. Numbers are all over the place. That is on a cheapo, Harbor Freight DMM. I put my good DMM on the battery and rather than a continuously changine display, it goes off scale, even when set on 1000 VDC. So, something is not right here and I have no idea if it is my generator or Gene Murphy's Law is in play and Gene'w new regulator was faulty from the start.
Has anyone seen this? Anyone have an idea what the problem might be?
My next thought if I don't hear from someone here or from Gene is to bring the generator to my local auto electric shop and have them test it. Although I suspect it is fine since it motored smoothly (did not spin very fast) and generates when spun by hand.
Thanks and regards,
Rob
I've sent Gene Harper two emails, but he might be in the country fighting forest fires so I thought I'd post the problem here in case someone else has seen it.
I installed Gene's solid state regulator on my Indian 439 with distributor ignition. I've just removed the gen and double checked all the wiring, even rung them out to confirm the A and F wires. I motored the generator to assure it was properly polarized. I put a DMM across the generator leads with no regulator in place, spun the gen shaft CCW and got postive voltage on the DMM.
Here's the problem:
With the regulator installed, Gene recommends testing the operation by putting a DMM across the battery terminals and running the engine. I did that. I measure about 6.54VDC with the engine off. With the engine running and with and without lights on, I see + amps on my dash mounted ammeter, but the display on my DMM is going nuts. Numbers are all over the place. That is on a cheapo, Harbor Freight DMM. I put my good DMM on the battery and rather than a continuously changine display, it goes off scale, even when set on 1000 VDC. So, something is not right here and I have no idea if it is my generator or Gene Murphy's Law is in play and Gene'w new regulator was faulty from the start.
Has anyone seen this? Anyone have an idea what the problem might be?
My next thought if I don't hear from someone here or from Gene is to bring the generator to my local auto electric shop and have them test it. Although I suspect it is fine since it motored smoothly (did not spin very fast) and generates when spun by hand.
Thanks and regards,
Rob
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