generater will not shut off

[johnjem]

hey guys will a dead battery's cause my gen to not shut off ?from my remote panel i have the pre heat start and stop botton= controlling a kobata diesel 15kw  how does the stop button work ?does it need juice to stop<or does it just ground itself,or fuel shut off?? inorder to shut off i have to turn inverter on then it will alow me to stop the motor? thanks john

[Sean]

The way the Kubota engine shuts down is by closing the fuel valve, which is a rocker lever on the side, just above and to the right of the fuel pump.  Most generators use an electromechanical solenoid to close this valve.

Really good generator designs use a power-to-open, spring-return type solenoid, so shutting the engine down involves removing power from this solenoid.  That being said, some manufacturers cut corners, and use a momentary power-to-close solenoid to implement the shutdown.  My own Kubota came to me with this arrangement, and I changed it because I wanted a fail-safe shutdown.

If you have the power-to-close variety, and it sounds like you might, then a low battery may provide insufficient power to operate the solenoid.  But most Kubota's have small automotive-type alternators on them to charge the starting battery, so I would wonder why your arrangement is not wired this way.

Generator make and model, and/or some photos of the solenoid, would help us diagnose your problem further.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[Ncbob]

Not having the model of the generator and who assembled it to the Kubota engine makes it very difficult to help you with your problem.  But a few years ago Kubota did have some problems with not only the fuel shut-down solenoids but moisture getting into the pump shutoff and making the shaft difficult to move as well.

It's never a good idea to allow a generator to stand dormant without running for a long period of time.
Check to see if there is a long round solenoid with a rod to a lever.  That should be the fuel cutoff. If you can manually move that lever (be sure you don't grab the wrong one and overspeed the engine) and shut it down...chances are you have a bad shutdown solenoid or the relay which asks for the shutdown.

For me, if I found that situation I'd simply opt to manually shut down the generator by hand rather than feed money continually to the folks aho are making cheap solenoids in MX or CH.  But then that's my way.

Bob