No power since 8am now 3:30pm PoCo thinks they'll have it back on by tomorrow at 3pm.  So it's on to the generator for keeping the business running.  Never mind we're in the middle of a town of 50k and everyone else has power<sigh>.

It is an obnoxious 5kW Briggs&Stratton thats howling away.  Now the noise is bad enough but it is doing this bop.. bop... bopbop..bopbopbop thing with its exhaust note.  It is extremely annoying.  Does anyone know what causes this?  Each bop is accompanied by a power disturbance.  These things happen about 20-40times a minute.  They completely block every ones ability to "tune out" the generator.  They decrease with load.

Is this an engine problem, or a governor hunting problem, or?filter

It could be 'missing'.  This may be caused by several problems, but on little gas-powered generators, it's often the result of the generator trying to maintain proper RPM at low loads.  I've actually added load to generators used for test power in the field, finding that the generator will run more smoothly and with better regulation when loaded around 50%.  A resistance space heater or a set of halogen work lights worked well for me in this application.

Those other problems?  Bad fuel.  dirty carburetor.  Old or fouled spark plug.  Etc.

Incidentally, Honda generators didn't seem to have this problem.

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