You said they were bright when hooked to your battery charger. What's the voltage output of your charger? The charger output should be north of 7 volt. With a voltmeter check both the output of you generator (at the gererator) with engine running, and output of charger. If the same you have wiring problems. If they are as DADS50 posted, you are at the very bottom of the voltage window and will have dim lights at times.