Onan Gen Set 5000 very rough start
I have an Onan Gen Set 5000 generator in my 1994 Winnebago Class A motorhome. We were traveling last night from Michigan to North Carolina. I started the generator when we left home and it ran great ...
Forum Discussion
martolina wrote:
No. . .it will not run at all without me holding the start button
Oh yes, now we are getting somewhere.
If when you hold the start button in & it will run as long as you hold the button in, it is probably the regulator messed up or either the gen part of the genset not producing ac voltage.
The Onan genset, the ac charging part of the genset, has to produce ac voltage before the engine will continue to operate.
The gen part of the genset, where the brushes are located, the amature has two copper rings called slip rings that the two brushes contact & sometimes they can get a little corroded, so good contact between the two slip rings & the brushes can not be made, so then the gen part cant produce ac voltage.
By what you are saying, it sounds like the regulator has gone out, because if it was the slip rings, the engine wouldnt run at all because it would not be producing any ac voltage at all.
When pressing the start button, for the time you have the start button pressed in, you are bypassing the regulator & sending ac voltage directly to the circuit board, which at the time is keeping the engine running.
Neil
