Does anyone know what causes the armature to burn/melt?

 

Never had that problem, but did a quick look up of that problem and some of the causes for a burnt armature are-1)current overload, 2)improper regulation, 3)soaked winding. I would think the first one would deal more with an armature of a motor. Was there any oil on it? Not sure how these generators work (except a coil is rotating within a magnetic field generating electricity) not sure what regulates the output of the generator and dont have my electrical schematics with me to look and find out. I'll try and look tonight when I get home. Hopefully someone will come along that has dealt with this before.

 

Check the oil seal on the R/H side of the generator right where it mounts onto the R/H engine case.....I had one go out on me years ago and the oil leak flowed down the generator to the L/H side of the engine and spewed all over the primary cover......I only noticed it coming out of the pub with a puddle of oil towards the front of the motor forward of the front cylinder.......a simple oil seal changed that.....The usual leak was from the primary cover around the clutch near the side stand......Knew something wasn't right with a puddle of oil that far to the front of the engine!

 

check your connections coming out of the gen there are insulators that insulate the studs and also check to make sure that the leads are not shorting out or shorting out due to bad wire routing let me know what u find