Old car generators

[kenputer]

I stopped at a an old garage in the country today and the owner had some car generators there that he said came from a 1955 chev that looked to be never used and I was wondering if these might be usable for wind generator,has anybody had dealing with them? I did not get any specs. other then they are 12 volt.  Thanks for any info

Kenputer

[Opera House]

Put them on eBay for sale, get some money, and buy a permanant magnet generator or alternator.  When you try to create a magnet with a field coil you shoot yourself in the foot because they take too much energy.

[kenputer]

Thanks,I had not bought them and surly wont now.

[willib]

I'm not positive on this , but i think the old generators did not need any coil excitation , power to make them work.?

[mlz]

Or remove the field coils and Zubby the arm, thus making it a PMA...

[Don Cackleberrycreations]

Power to the field coils where the means of regulating the generators  power out put.

Though the thought of  "Zubblying" the amrature might make a doable single phase.

I wouldnt expect many watts.

On many old gens you can remove the field coils  by removing a large screw.

I have an old gen from a desoto??  I think. The field coils are wound flat copper ( I'll try to post a pic )

[hiker]

heres a old vw gen?[i belive]or motor....bosch

any way i took the field coils out and replaced with lowes ceramic mags[lots of amps]

needs a lot of rpms as a gen thou--would have to be rewired--you can see it frying some wire their in the pic. when powered by a hand drill....works great as a 12v motor also.

[Idlehands]

I am new in here gents, been reading but with my work with vintage bikes I would have to recommend a try with a stock 12v 1960-70 harley genny.  They came on old sporties and shovels and can be picked up on e-bay for a song and a dance.  VW's used something similiar but need more RPM's.  I plan on trying one with a Bosch regulator and battery to light up a pasture.  Ever heard of someone using one of these?

 

[wooferhound]

Harley generators ahve been mentioned here several times

http://www.fieldlines.com/?op=search&offset=0&old_count=30&type=story&section=&s
tring=harley&search=Search&count=30

[tecker]

 

Any time the power has to jump a switch your loose a lot .  

[Norm]

About like that...except the Chevys had 2 poles

instead of 4 might make a slight difference in performance ....maybe the wrong way....

Anyway...... way back then ...they used to make universal motors

by rewinding the field coils with smaller guage

wire ...putting the field coil in series with

the armature and they make a nice powerful 110

AC motor...or at least that's what the guy in

the classified ads in Popular Science claimed.

                  ( :>) Norm.

[kell]

Old car and bike generators have mechanical commutation.  Which means they don't make AC and rectify it. They put out straight DC.  Of course, if you are charging a battery you would still need some way to prevent the battery from discharging back through the armature windings when the generator is not running.  Nowadays this would entail a diode.  In the old days, the voltage regulators on vehicles were actually relays that would switch on and off, and they would open circuit when the generator did not have an output.  So what with the segmented commutator on the armature, and the relay in the voltage regulator, they did everything without diodes.  It worked very well, for the limited amount of electrical power the old vehicles required.  The mechanical regulators had two relays, one for voltage regulation, and another current limiting relay that kicked in when the load was excessive, like a low battery.

My latest project was building  solid state voltage regulator for an old Harley generator.  The generators from GM cars were practically the same

[richhagen]

I think Jerry converted a couple of newer alternators by putting magnets where the fingers would be on one, and using axial mounted magnets on another if I recall correctly.  The issue with these seems likely to be that since they were designed to generate 12V at higher rpm, you would likely need to rewind them to operate at lower rpm.  

Here is a comparison of alternator/generator types from our hosts:

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind_alternators.html

Hope you are having fun in Nova Scotia, Rich Hagen

[TomW]

Folks;

This may be a bit late in the discussion, but I think some folks do not quite grasp the difference between a generator [creates DC voltage via a commutator] and Alternators [creates A.C. with no commutator].

I find that many folks use the terms interchangeably.

Truly old automotive stuff would have had a generator and it likely was permanent magnet excited. I had a few cars with these and they were known to wear out brushes and have faulty regulators at the worst possible time. The wear on one of these in an RE application would probably equal 100K hiway miles in a year or less of use.

Anyway just wanted to point that out so someone could tell me I am wrong.

Just noting the [not so] obvious.

TomW

[elvin1949]

Tomw

You are right.   before 1955 most auto electric systems were 6 volt.

from 1955 till the early 60s most were genarators

at 12 volt's.

By 1967 all were alt. i think.

later

Elvin

[amgine]

When cars had generators they also had low compression motors which were relatively easy to turn over, hardly any electrical accessories and crank handles for when the batt went flat.

The only good thing about them were they were very long lasting and could be repaired. Thank goodness alternators were introduced.  amgine

[terry5732]

All that said, an electric field alternator with regulator is the only way to go for a constant output voltage without the need for storage. Stock automotive devices were all of low output ( 30 -60 Amps 12V , 300- 700 Watts typical). But a large induction motor can put out quite a bit more. However you need more than 12 volts for excitation for high voltage output. The induction motor also gets past the brush wear problem. For water or places with a steady wind over say 15 MPH, it would seem to me that eliminating the storage component would be highly beneficial.

[jlt]

I think that the comment that brushes wearing out is  is largly mistaken .I have a 200 watt wind charger that ran for 10 years on one set of brushes. and i know of a jacobs that is still running the same set it came with.also i had a military 24 volt gen. that run on a wind gen for about 4 yrs.hada 7ft 2 blade prop on it and worked very well.and put out 30 amps into 12 volt battery. If i still had it i would put neos to replace the field coils.when i got rid of it the brushes were still okay.the bearings.gave up first