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Boom Truck Blues for Your Amusement


rockmeupto125

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I'm guessing the rig would have originally been equipped with an automatic on board battery charger.  It might be hidden somewhere, or might explain some of the mystery wires.  If you find a set of AC and DC wires near eachother somewhere, that's where the charger used to live.  The DC side might be + and - wires, or just a + and they used chassis ground for the -.

 

In a normal work crew scenario I assume they'd have the gen running the whole time they're working so it just needed a small charger to keep up with the small running demands.  For intermittent start/stop use there's no telling how big of a charger you'd need without knowing the run times and battery capability.  Assuming the emergency start solenoid works and you start a job with both batteries charged up, running an emergency start lead to the bucket is the cheapest solution to avoid being stuck in the air.  If you don't plan to run power tools from the bucket cut the AC power wires off.  Or just make sure they're not damaged/monkey rigged to turn the bucket into your electric chair.  Upside is you'd be closer to heaven, but that might not be your path 🙂

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Boring safety tips.  Never go up without someone on the ground or available to call, assuming you carry your phone and have service where you're working.  There might be an emergency release valve to let the boom down, learn where it is so you can tell your rescuer.  If it doesn't have one, figure out which fitting to loosen to let the boom down and keep a wrench for it in the truck.

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I guess the wires coming out of the top of the control box would be the generator output.  Why are they cut off?  Did something happen to the generator?  If so, why not just leave them connected?  I guess this could  be a replacement unit, but seems like that would be a lot of work to adapt something unless it was the exact same unit as original.   I'll have to look for a schematic before I start poking a voltmeter in there.

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You asked about this thing.  It's almost definitely for rotating the vertical steel beam which I assume is the boom shaft letting you spin around in circles....yeeehaaw!  Assuming the van doesn't have outriggers and there's someone with a high gravitational potential in the bucket it could be a fun ride.  It might be limited to just a small side to side movement as a safety to not flop the van over.  Roll video when you test out it's capabilities.

 

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11 minutes ago, rockmeupto125 said:

I guess the wires coming out of the top of the control box would be the generator output.  Why are they cut off?  Did something happen to the generator?  If so, why not just leave them connected?  I guess this could  be a replacement unit, but seems like that would be a lot of work to adapt something unless it was the exact same unit as original.   I'll have to look for a schematic before I start poking a voltmeter in there.

Pretty sure they are and they'd exit through a small hole on the right.  Why cut...maybe it was a replacement unit and they didn't need power so didn't bother connecting them.  Maybe there's a short somewhere and they didn't need power so it was the easy cure.  Maybe some totally dumb reason.

 

The choke heater wire comes from the control box and I think I saw it laying towards the cylinder head under the intake manifold.  It'll be energized any time the engine is running.

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The metal conduit at upper right is the power out going to the junction box at far left, from there it goes to the rig's panel.  The red switch at the lower right of the box is my add-on fuel pump control switch.

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The replacement Facet pump.  The mounting holes lined up, I re-used the inlet fitting from the original, added the outlet fitting to match the original feed tube to the carb.  The thick red wire was an add-on to feed power to the trailer connector, tapping into the generator feed was the easiest source.

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I don't know a lot about AC electricity- I would start with a voltmeter, one lead to the metal of the machine (assuming it's the ground to the circuit) and then probe each wire.  My guess, if it's working, is that you'll find 3 that show 120ish volts.  Two of the 'hot' leads will be the 240 and the third will be the 120 hot, the dead one will be the 120 neutral.  I think you could take any of the hot leads to get 120, along with the neutral, but to get 240 I think it has to be two 120 leads that are out of phase with eachother and I don't know how you'd figure that part out.  I guess you could start grabbing pairs of wires and see which pair herts twice as much 🙂

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Re-thinking this, there might only be two hots, a neutral, and a ground for your 4 leads.  Crappy that they made all 4 of them white.  If you don't figure it out and don't find a schematic let me know and I'll open the junction box on mine to see what's there.  It won't be the same since I don't have 240, but I'll at least be able to see if there's a ground or just hot and neutral to help narrow down yours.

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6 hours ago, superhawk996 said:

After another sip of rum my brain reactivated.  Probing the wires with both voltmeter leads should show one pair as 240...I think.

Yes, 120 and 120 180 degrees out-of-phase adds up to 240.

 

 

Edited.... 110V, 115V and 120V are all basically the same in AC.

Edited by XXitanium
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5 hours ago, superhawk996 said:

Re-thinking this, there might only be two hots, a neutral, and a ground for your 4 leads.  Crappy that they made all 4 of them white.  If you don't figure it out and don't find a schematic let me know and I'll open the junction box on mine to see what's there.  It won't be the same since I don't have 240, but I'll at least be able to see if there's a ground or just hot and neutral to help narrow down yours.

My post above, screen-shot, I was thinking that the cut wires might be control wires? Control wiring and automotive wiring color coding always seemed live voodoo to me. Are they light, or heavy gauge wires I'm wondering?

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@superhawk996 , do you use your generator for emergency power to your house during power outages?

 

For illustration, The power company 240V circuit uses the whole side of the served side of the winding. The 120V circuits are tapped of the middle of the transformer winding.

 

It looks like they make the 120V circuits out-of-phase by the direction they wire the [stator?] for each side? 

 

 

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Joe, I been drinking tonight and you may be very unhappy with what I am about to tell you.

Carlos has provided you with a PDF file. You need to look on pg 6-16 dwg# 611-1143  rev C

This shows how it should have come from the factory. This shows that it did have DC voltage for 

excitation and charge voltage. I have an Onan 4.0 and it charges the battery. Bummer for you.

The previous owner gave up on the generator and cut the wires. Makeshift drive to the hyd pump.

I was wrong and missed your second post showing the caveman belt drive.

That is why I suggested earlier to concentrate on the generator. So sorry.

Fly me out there and I can fix it for you. 

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You might be really angry when I suggest you buy a Honda powered hyd pump and give up on the Gen-set. Battery powered tools for any application.

Edited by CALCXX
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2 minutes ago, CALCXX said:

I have an Onan 4.0 and it charges the battery.

Is it an RV generator and how have you determined that it charges?  If it's a portable generator with electric start then it needs to have a battery charging circuit.

 

I have a nearly identical unit as Joe's in my motorhome and I'm pretty sure it doesn't charge.  Pretty sure my previous MH (older kohler) didn't either.  Neither did my friend's much newer Onan.  It's possibly that they all had low amperage charging circuits so I never noticed it.  I never thought to check because in an RV it doesn't need it so I just assumed it wouldn't have it.  I imagine that if it had a charging circuit it would be fused, but maybe they didn't think that was necessary.

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