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I have a 5000 watt Coleman generator but it won't run a common 1/2 HP household water pump ? Pump works fine on house hydro and generator will power electric drill but plug pump into generator and nothing happens... wtf ? What am I missing ? I was wanting to use this set up to irrigate my garden from the farm pond.
Thanks in advance !
Perhaps pump is wired for 220 V, as opposed to 110 V?
Does it trip the breaker or just do nothing? Does the engine load up?
Hi ! Pump is wired for 120 volt. Breaker does not trip off and generator motor briefly speeds up and pump tries to pump but then it stops . If I plug pump into house outlet it runs fine. Silly part of this is the first time I hooked up this system everything worked ok but the next day it wouldn't and that's why I'm baffled . I read online that the generator needed to be flashed to put back a magnetic field in the actual windings of unit. I did this using the AC drill with cordless drill method. Generator runs the drill with no problem.
You ran drill backwards ?
Yes ! Cordless drill ran AC drill that was plugged into generator in off mode to excite the magnetic field.
Neighbour down the road has a gas powered one inch water transfer pump he got at Princess Auto for 200 bucks.... maybe a shopping trip is in the near future ?
The generator likely doesn't have the guts to start the motor especially under load (in the water) I've seen it happen trying to run a small compressor with a generator, if you let the pressure out it would start fine but wouldn't restart unless you drain the tank.
A 5000 watt generator shouldn’t have an issue starting a 1/2hp pump ?
not enough amps to run it.
Plug a small light like a desk lamp in to the generator and then try to start the pump..with the light still plugged in and turned on..