input needed heavy duty starter alternator bench tester

[crustychief]

I am looking for a source for a 24 volt heavy duty starter / alternator test bench. would like load test capability for both starter and alternator. This will be used to help my technicians troubleshoot Cummins Marine electrical issues. My building only has 110/220 VAC. The manufacturing company has to have a CAGE code so I can purchase. ( GOVT) I have been searching for the last couple of days so I thought I would ask the brain trust to help me out. TIA

[T77911S]

I use to rebuild the 24v starters when I worked for an auto electric shop back in the early 90's. they are very easy to do. we also use to test and rebuild alternators.
the alternator guy had some kind of magnetic thing on his bench. he could put the rotor on there then had a saw blade connected to it and he would lay it across the rotor to test it.
don't remember too much about the alt setup but I don't think it was much.

we had a large stone parts washer to clean them up, then paint.

[asphaltgambler]

Are the starters / alternator you deal with still on the engines? If so I've always found the best bench testers are the engine and related environment they are attached to. Starters: fail in one of 3 ways - the main drive motor drawing too many amps, the band is failing by not engaging the flywheel or the solenoid contacts / plunger fails.

The 1st you test with a good inductive amp meter, the other 2 are mechanically obvious.

Alternators fail is 2 areas. 1 is not producing enough amperage under load the other is the rectifier bridge diodes fail and start bleed AC voltage into the system which will wreck havoc on electronics.

Again a good multimeter like Fluke and a good technician can pinpoint it without a lot of fuss. Also you can check main power feed and ground for high resistance on the vehicle by using voltage drop method.

[crustychief]

These are on twin engine Cummins QSB 5.9 power boats. The starters are no longer available new so we have rebuilds in the stock system. We get about 1 out of three bad out of the box. A bench tester would save a lot of manhours, considering the difficulty of replacing the starters / alternators especially on the port engines. I found a nicce bench that would meet our power requirements and testing needs but I cannot purchase it because it is made in France and the company has no Cage code.

[asphaltgambler]

I've personally never seen a bench tester for starters that loaded the gear drive fully to simulate load, only free spinning units. A 5.9 is a very common engine, what is special about this setup where a truck application wouldn't work as a substitute?

1/3 failure rate on replacement starters seems out of orbit - even for the crappiest 3rd tier rebuilder