@zmonkey,

Sorry, I didn't see this thread previously. I looks to me as if the ICE part of this
was overheated. The most likely condition is the engine was run low on lube oil.
I saw that this is 2cycle ICE engine. A 2cycle *must* have extra speacilty oil
added to fuel stream by user as well as oil in the crankcase.
Notice the blackening *and* rust on the cooling fins of the cylinder...this is improper
and that is indicative of excessive overheating. The overheating may have made it's
way all the way to the electrical generator part or not. I would use a ohmmeter to
check if all the gen. coil windings are (approx.)  intact, not shorted or open. Do the
same check for the ignition magneto coil winding - see if there is more then one
winding there as the spark will be 30KV as the flywheel magnet spins by.

The components built into the gen. rotor is the Voltage regulator (at least) make sure
those electronic components are still good with your ohmmeter. The question is:
is there any electrical coupling between the engine's ignition coil, next to the
flywheel and the generator windings? That coil will generate HV spark voltage from
a magnet in the flywheel, but could also serve as the gen. exciter voltage for the
field winding of generator. Cleverly if the voltage regulator or 60Hz oscillator
can be built to rotate along with the rotor - then no generator brushes are
required.

All that is required for the generator is exciting voltage, most likely done by
those permanent magnets in the rotor, a frequency control which could be
that fan and vane on the throttle, and a voltage regulator which could be those
components on the rotor.

Obviously, if the magneto flywheel/fan (rpm control) excites the generator
then those parts part of the engine would need to be retained to use the
generator by itself.

:S:MarkSCoffman

By hand 

Are you crazy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOIZZ1WnoWw

Same principle exept wound on the outside.

XS-NRG,

Thank you for the SUPER VIDEO.  Awesome technology.

.