What Can I Do to My AVR If Generator Produces High Voltage?

What can I do to my AVR if the generator is producing high voltage?

 

Lots of things might be happening, but assuming this higher voltage is recent and before that the voltage was OK, you have a few options.

 

As my grandfather taught me, when you are troubleshooting, always start with the easiest things first.

 

Try adjusting the Voltage setting of the AVR. If the AVR has lots of adjustments, get the instruction manual out and start over. Get the knee-point, stability, gain, etc all adjusted according to the manual.

 

Sometimes, the capacitors and components inside the AVR just “age-out” of spec. In this case, adjustments can just make things worse. Or better for a while and then worse again. And usually AVR’s are not user-repairable. Replacement is sometimes the only option.

 

A few times (going back a couple of decades) I have had Stamford generators where there was no getting the AVR’s adjusted correctly. Even after replacing the AVR’s with new OEM parts the problem recurred. The solution turned out to be replacing the OEM Stamford AVR’s with Basler SR4 AVR’s. These are built like bricks. Old fashioned but rugged. For reasons I still don’t understand, it worked.