# burned out generac ix800 to battery booster



## cmcon=7 (Mar 7, 2010)

My ix 800 burned out the inverter after 80 or so hours of operation charging my batteries through a trace sw2500 @ 500 watts.
the replacement inverter cost is twice what the generator cost new.

So what to do with the almost new motor?
Take it apart and see whats inside!

the generator has 12 pm magnets on the inside of the flywheel
and an 18 pole stator with 1 pole for the ignition, 1 for the 12v output option, 1 not used and the other 15 are series wound three phase wye connected.
I metered the output of the stator before disassembly and it was about 200v at a high idle, I calculated it would put out 15-60v per stator from idle to run.
Each phase uses 5 poles series wound, so I cut the wires at each pole and soldered them in parallel so now I have 3 separate phases that I can put a bridge diode on and get from 15-60v dc from depending on the speed.
I reassembled it and metered the output and got 20 volts ac on each phase
at idle.
I bought three bridge diodes and will wire them up this weekend and see home many amps I get into a 12v bank, I think it will be better suited to 24 or 48v charging as is but if I can get 20 amps @12v I may just use it as is.
I will update next week sometime, I predict I will be removing 40% of the pole turns, or rewiring the whole armature with 14ga magnet wire, should be 20-50 turns times 5 poles for 12v 60 amp output, I will need to count them as I remove them to know for sure.

The throttle control is a stepper motor but I could replace it with a small gear motor or servo hooked to a simple opamp for output voltage control
(under 14.4v-give it more gas, over 14.4-give it less) and then figure out how much fuel to put in the tank to make it run 2 hours.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

I had a customer/friend that I twice had to pull his Trace 4048 and send for servicing....
(back then Trace would not let us field grunts replace circuit boards)
It was more than $500 per time (shipping big part)

He was too bull headed to admit the problem . . . . . . .His two cheapy generators suffered from what ALL the cheapy gens do . . . pee poor voltage regulation.....

That voltage regulation, or lack of, wiped out a circuit board in the inverter.........

I wouldn't dought that thats what happened to you............

Many installers I know will not use gener-reck gennies . . . . .a lot of the cheaper ones have given them a bad reputation.........

And wow, you can't imagine the voltage "regulation" factor when it it gasping for that last teaspoon of fuel.

Bad idea to let a genny run out of fuel . . just to shut it off...........


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## cmcon=7 (Mar 7, 2010)

I have heard that small gens have low voltage, and I have used an auto xformer(battery charger xformer primary and secondary in series) to boost the voltage when using a 1200w champion, but it was limited to 240 watts as large xformers are hard to find cheap.the ix800 is an inverter gen and has perfect 167v peak 60hz output (while it worked anyway).


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## cmcon=7 (Mar 7, 2010)

I got 44 volts from 66 turns of 20ga wire(what it came with), I rewound with 25 turns of 16 ga wire and got 13v at Governor speed (it has some type of governor probably in the ignition module, not throttle connected).
I noticed my voltage per winding dropped from .66 to .48 so I rewound it with 40 16 ga winds and now I get 12amps with 40' 10 ga leads and open circuit v of 19.6, I'm sure I will get more amps if I shorten the leads.
I have a new appreciation for all of those old armature winders from before it was done by machine (this one was probably done by a young Chinese girl)

working with 20 ga wire is easy 16 ga wire wore out my finger tips, it may be a week before I get back to it, 10ga wire may not be possible, I might try 2 or 3 strands of 14ga but I need to buy it first, I may just shorten the leads and be happy with 15-20 amps.


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