Is My Generator Possessed?

[Keith K]

We came home from shopping today to find the generator running. Don't know for how long, but in any case, the shore power was fine, and even if there was an outage, the coach doesn't have an automatic start....at least it never has in the past. I've done a search without any results. My wife insists the cat's doing for attention.....anyone had this problem before I call the help desk tomorrow?

[Keith K]

We came home from shopping today to find the generator running. Don't know for how long, but in any case, the shore power was fine, and even if there was an outage, the coach doesn't have an automatic start....at least it never has in the past. I've done a search without any results. My wife insists the cat's doing for attention.....anyone had this problem before I call the help desk tomorrow?

[skigramp]

Keith ...

There was a post on some bulletin board about a genset that was starting mysteriously ... they tracked it down to a cat that was sleeping on top of their genset and somehow starting the genset with the switch on the outside ...

Could your cat be attracting outside cats to your rig?

[Route 66]

Try searching the entire forum.

There have been posts about Onan generators with moisture in the electrical connector causing self starting.

[Jeeperrmartin]

That has happened to us before, more than once. I finally caught the culprit. It was our cat.

He would jump on the dash, and then freeze because there was a squirrel on a light pole close by.

[MaverickBBD]

I would bet it is a cat. She your wife wasn't too far off. When they jump up inside you generator compartment they hit the start. Had this happen to a friend of mine but he didn't discover it until he went through almost half a tank of diesel. Ended up putting in a piece of screening.

[Moder2]

That's funny, Cat's must like Genny's!

Mine has hit the switch inside several times. Thankfully I have always been around. It is partially my fault, I have a computer on my dash for my VMSPC and the mouse cord hangs down in front of that switch, he likes to play with the cord... Now I think he does if I ignore him and he wants to play cause he knows it will get me worked up...

[Keith K]

Thanks everyone - I went out to the generator compartment this morning and sure enough, there was cat hair near the switch. I hadn't realized how little pressure it takes to activate the switch. Looks like one of the campground cats crawled and tried to take a nap....probably got a little too noisy. Amazing, I never would have thought.

[Fakrwee]

I'm still trying to figure out if you guy's are kidding or not.

[skigramp]

Fak ...

We are not kidding ...

On a similiar note, red squirrels cause several vehicles to burn in the north woods of Wisconsin every summer ... the squirrels build nests out of pine needles on top of the manifolds of generally large pickups and full sized vans ... the folks start up the engines and drive a few miles ... generally pulling a camping trailer ... the manifold gets hot ... the pine needles ignite and POOF ... there goes another vehicle ...

Several of the state parks have a sign as you leave the campground ... wife on board, antenna down, check for squirrel nests in engine compartment ...

[Fakrwee]

Thanks gramps for clearing that up, I thought you all had "Bats in the Belfrey"

I've had problems with many animals at home and in the car but not the generator. I guess we can call it a "Caterator false start" and classify it under generator problems and solutions.

Tom