LPW3 starts and stops

[Chris2sox]

Hiya. I´m a newbie to this forum and hoping that I may get some advice re my genny starting but then stopping.
I have lived off-grid in southern Spain for 15 years with my current solar set-up with the generator providing back-up triggered through the inverter.
Although I´m fairly practical, I´m not an electrician although I can test obvious things with a multimeter.
Three weeks ago I started to get this problem whereby it starts, runs for 10 secs and then stops. It will do this 3 times before shutting down. I´ve measured the input to the AVR and it shows 5V which I guess means there is a problem on the windings. I´ve dismantled the alternator (yanan) but with visual inspection cannot see any signs of burning/wear.. It is all back together again with the same problem. I´ve taken the control panel apart but nothing obvious there.
I would appreciate any guidance. Nothing much available around here in terms of technicians - they do not know the make and are unwilling to come out to my place in the sticks.

Chris2sox

[Diesel Engineering]

It sounds as if you have an automatic control panel. These type of panels can be set up to register various fault conditions and shut the engine down if any fault occurs. Normally they would be high engine temperature, low oil pressure. There could also be under and over voltage, under and overspeed plus anything else the manufacturer decides to fit. Normally the panel would be showing a light to let you know the reason for the shut down. Just a total guess but could it be low oil pressure. I say this because you say it runs for 10 seconds, and the oil pressure has a delay built into it.

[Chris2sox]

Thanks for the reply.
It is an automatic control panel and it has specific warnings for temperature and oil pressure. The error condition icon, which comes up after 3 attempts to start, is a generic error so doesn´t indicate anything more than an error.
I have read in an earlier post that the control panel can become faulty. It would be a guess to replace it.
As I mentioned earlier, there is only 5V input from the excitor to the AVR on the initial start up. I do not know whether this is normal or not. When I dismantled the alternator I couldn´t see anything wrong with the stator or rotor.
An additional point is that this generator is only a back-up to the solar system and due to restraints at the inverter, only ever runs at about 1/4 load so no undue stresses.
Chris