[Rich Biebel]

Yesterday I spent 2-3 hours working on a commercial van with an Onan 7KW gas generator just to make a diagnosis on what was wrong.

I always say there is nothing I haven't seen but yesterday was a new one.

Power in the van would out of nowhere go off or erratically drop.

Generator never gave any indication it was the problem.

Van had a Automatic Transfer Switch and one very common in RV's

AC power in that switch from the generator was never lost going by my Fluke Meter....

The ATS was mounted in a difficult to get at location and after some time I felt like it was the issue...I bypasses it by connecting the generator output straight thru to the load side that fed a breaker panel. Easy to do right in the switch. Would order one and replace it at a later time...

That was the plan....but no....

The problem got worse and now the generator was shutting down and triggering codes.....???

I rechecked my connections and nothing was wrong....

Now I start to think it is the generator itself and that is exactly what was wrong...

The Control board is also the voltage regulator and even though voltage always showed up on my Fluke meter.....once any kind of load was applied AC output would fade.

I swapped in a test Control board and problem was gone. Old board had obvious issues that caused potting material to overheat and melt...

That was the first time I had ever seen a behavior like this one and shows how easy it can be to really chase a problem with a generator in a motorhome/trailer or any vehicle with the added equipment connected down stream from the generator.....