Motor starting surge on a generator?

Birken Vogt said:
What would really help is a video with sound showing the genset and the lights together. Maybe tach or line voltage also. Then we can see the sequence of things.
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I agree.
I also think including an incandescent lamp connected to an LED lighting circuit could provide additional insight into what's going on.
It's conceivable that a higher frequency transient, for example when a starting capacitor is disconnected, could interfere with electronics in LED lights but would have minimal impact on an incandescent bulb.
 
qcroanoke said:
I've heard you guys say many times "add some incandescent bulbs to the led load"
Could that help?
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It looks like we brought up incandescent bulbs within a minute of each other.

I was thinking of an incandescent bulb more as a diagnostic tool rather than a fix for flickering LED problems. If there are dimmers driving the LED lamps, then I think an incandescent load placed on the dimmer output could possibly help. I think it's less likely that putting an incandescent load directly on the AC supply powering the LED lights would help, but it doesn't hurt to try.
 
If there is a long cable with the generator at one end and the ice cream machine and the LED's at the other, the fix may not be at the generator. Maybe you need to separate the feeds.

If you stand by the generator while someone pours a cone, do you hear the generator grunt?
 
If the ice cream machine motors are single phase, perhaps the starting capacitors are degraded and causing an eccessive starting current. If a meter has not been used to measure the peak current in "inrush" mode, doing so could be helpful to determine whether the starring current is reasonable or excessive.
 
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