Bench test a generator

[Skoal82]

I'm putting a clone in a 92 caryall and I need to add a generator. I have one lying on the shelf, not exactly sure what from though. Does anyone know which wires to hook up to the battery to see if it works. If it helps I could post some pics of the generator.
Thanks for any help

[meimk]

Not knowing what its off of makes it hard to guess what the wiring might be. Yes pictures might help.

[DannyAbear]

Generators also require a voltage regulator

[Skoal82]

First I looked in stickys club car gas at wire diagrams. Should have done this first! Then I found another generator laying around the shop looked the same. I hooked some wires to the battery and it spun also the correct way.
Then hooked up the one in question and it growled and spun real slow.

[sho305]

Its easy to put brushes in most of them and check or grease the bearings in there. Just keep the parts in order and marked together (and for rotation) when you take it apart. It should work like a starter, if you spin it faster and apply power to the field it will generate. But some have power some have ground to the field, yamaha has both not wired internal, so you have to look that up. The VR just regulates the power to the field to charge when it needs to. The start solenoid powers it to start but it also stays on the whole time it is running, that is why you can't use a car/truck momentary solenoid. Once it runs above the rpm it runs at (about 400 engine cranking rpm or whatever) it can charge if the field is energized, and it wont take power to run long as rpm is higher than cranking speed.