Westerbeke overspeeding

[earthmover17]

My 20 KW decided to overspeed. Which in turn fried an air unit and the microwave. Has anyone ever experianced this? I know there is an electrical device that regulates the speed attached to the throttle. As soon as it's started it tries RPM suicide.

Jack

 

[missnmountains]

Jack, I am no expert as you know, but isn't there a governor on all generators? I would think that the governor would limit the rpms.

Ken

 

[earthmover17]

Jack, I am no expert as you know, but isn't there a governor on all generators? I would think that the governor would limit the rpms.

Ken

Ken,
Actually there an electronic governor that controls the throttle. As the power need increases it in turn speeds up the engine. My problem is the device that calls for the rpm to change is not working and I need to find it.

Jack

 

[Boulder GT3]

Ken,
Actually there an electronic governor that controls the throttle. As the power need increases it in turn speeds up the engine. My problem is the device that calls for the rpm to change is not working and I need to find it.

Jack

jack,

You've probably been down this path but some of the Westerbeke's have a crankshaft sensor mounted at the flywheel. IIRC, it only controlled the electronic governor so you could lose it and everything else would run, just the engine speed would be erratic. The crank sensor sends it's pulse to a board that then runs a solenoid on the governor linkage. I'd check the solenoid too.

Might not be any help but that's what I ended up sorting out on a large Westerbeke gas gen I had with a similar problem. Tom

 

[earthmover17]

Tom,
That gives me a direction to follow. I wasn't sure how it all worked and haven't had time to check it out but that's good Intell. Thanks.

Jack

 

[Boatingfool]

I have the exact opposite problem with my 20kw Westerbeke. Mine will run well, then randomly power down (drop in rpm and sound) while suddenly smoking slot (like running too rich).

Most of the time it goes away in a minute, every few hours it may stall out. Turn right back on and runs fine. All gauges read normal.

Any ideas?

 

[earthmover17]

I have the exact opposite problem with my 20kw Westerbeke. Mine will run well, then randomly power down (drop in rpm and sound) while suddenly smoking slot (like running too rich).

Most of the time it goes away in a minute, every few hours it may stall out. Turn right back on and runs fine. All gauges read normal.

Any ideas?

That's what mine started doing before the overspeed problem. I haven't had time to dig into my problem yet. I will post when I figure it out.
Have you checked your fuel filters lately? I would make sure (replace Primary and Secondary) filters are good. They are smaller filters and when you run the Genset a lot it's one of those things that are easy to forget to change.

Jack

 

[earthmover17]

Finally got around to looking at the Genset. I appears to have an electrical governor system. This consists of a controller, actuator and sensor. Controller is in the electrical box, actuator is on the accelerator linkage and the sensor is located on the flywheel housing. It's pretty self explanatory. Sensor tells the controllor what speed the Genny's going and in turn the controllor adjusts the actuator to keep the speed correct for the current draw.
All that being said just for kicks I charged the 12v battery and voila everything started working correctly. I need to put some hours on it and that will tell for sure.
I basically said what Tom said so I don't want to take anything away from him.

Jack