Overload built-in Onan gen. without popping a breaker?

[joebedford]

I was testing my gas-powered Onan 5500 the other day. I was running both air conditioners and the water heater. It seemed to be handling the load well but after 20 minutes, it just stopped - no sputtering or anything - just spun down suddenly.

I was able to restart it and it worked OK but I'm wondering what would cause it to stop like that. There's plenty of oil (in fact maybe a bit too much oil).

No breakers were popped.

[RLS7201]

joebedford wrote:
But if the generator overheats, wouldn't it give you an error flash? I didn't get that.

Note, I posted my generator is a NHM. My signature says 95. No error codes back then.

Richard

[joebedford]

But if the generator overheats, wouldn't it give you an error flash? I didn't get that.

[RLS7201]

I encountered about the same issue with my 7K NHM Onan. It shut down suddenly under heave load. I was running my 2 air conditioners and my neighbor was running his air conditioner off of my generator. My shut down was because the generator over heated.

Richard

[wa8yxm]

joebedford wrote:
My Onan 5500 has a 30A breaker and a 20A breaker.

50 amp at 120 volt is 6,000 watts. and the generator is a 5500 watt unit. Still possible to overload.

[joebedford]

My Onan 5500 has a 30A breaker and a 20A breaker.

[wa8yxm]

My Onon was a 5500 Two 30 amp breakers. 30 amps times 120 volts is 3600 times two (Two breakers) is 7200 A bit more than a 5500 can output.

[greenno]

Run it again with less load and see if the problem persists.

[dougrainer]

joebedford wrote:
There were no fault codes.

I didn't monitor the voltage because it seemed to be fine until it wasn't.

I'll check the voltage next time I run it under load.

When you say "kill" do you mean make it stop or break it?

Bad choice of words. Yes, it may stop running if too much oil. It can cause the LOPKO(oil pressure switch) to not see the pressure. Doug

[joebedford]

There were no fault codes.

I didn't monitor the voltage because it seemed to be fine until it wasn't.

I'll check the voltage next time I run it under load.

When you say "kill" do you mean make it stop or break it?

[pianotuna]

Hi joebedford,

Did you monitor the voltage?

Some generators will run overloaded for a while-and then shut down. I don't recommend doing this.

[dougrainer]

too much oil will kill a Onan Gas genset. Doug

[CA_Traveler]

Did it blink a fault code?