ser·en·dip·i·ty
ˌserənˈdipədē/
Noun: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”
| synonyms: | (happy) chance, (happy) accident, fluke; luck, good luck, good fortune,fortuity, providence; happy coincidence”the consequence of serendipity is sometimes a brilliant discovery” |
I first discovered the concept of earth sheltering serendipitously while looking for something else on the web. I don’t even recall what, but it was something unrelated. I ended up stumbling across Peter Vetsch. Maybe others will stumble across my site? Why do I care? I would eventually like to put a book together and traffic to this site may help a publisher agree that there is a market for it…
Anyway, speaking of unrelated tangents… My generator has been causing slowdowns lately by shutting down for no apparent reasn. Anyway, last weekend, I got tired of walking back and forth to restart it and decided the problem had to do with the RPM setting being too low. My generator doesn’t have a nice little screw to adjust the throttle, instead, I needed to loosen and reposition the whole throttle arm.
For one second, I ran the RPM up too high. I quickly shut it off to avoid damaging the engine, made the adjustments and got the RPM where I wanted it. The original problem was actually solved simply by topping up the oil because it was just low enough that as the oil went up into the engine it was tripping the low oil sensor to shut things down… But then I noticed that I wasn’t getting any power out of the plugs…
I didn’t have my multi-tester out at the property with me, so I ended up bringing the whole generator home… I worked it out and then decided to make a video to show how. More people search the web for info on fixing generators than looking for earth sheltered homes, maybe this will introduce some serendipity to their lives.
This was the same idea behind posting that timelapse camera comparison video a couple weeks before.
The Video
The Capacitor
Brushless alternators use a capacitor to introduce a charge into the windings. This gets them excited so the alternator will produce electricity. When my engine RPM surged, it surged the alternator and the capacitor blew to protect all the electronics downstream…
If the alternator is working, it produces a ~5 volt difference (plus or minus a volt or 2) across the capacitor. So, I just had to check the AC Voltage with my multimeter. It turned out the voltage was OK. By process of elimination, I decided to order a new capacitor.
My original was covered with a layer of rust, so I couldn’t read the specifics. I checked the internet to find the right one for my generator, a 40µF, 370VAC generator capacitor. The genuine PorterCable part costs 60$. Now that I knew the specific properties, I was able to search based on that and found a Genteq knockoff that only cost 16$ with delivery. It claimed to be just as long lasting (60,000 hours), and like the much more expensive OEM product, it is also “self-extinguishing” so I won’t die in a terrifying fireball if it fails.
Its physical dimensions are a little different, but it fit. And more importantly, my generator works again.
Now my generator can do its job and give me electricity on my jobsite.