Generator plans?

[miss_emma_jade]

Miss Emma. A pretty little generator. I assume the winding in the middle is a rotating armature?
Some Key points to generator design:

1. SMALL gaps between armature and stator. Can to reduce clearance to just a couple of thou, by changing the pole pieces?
2. High magnetic field. - Maybe you can insert some modern rare earth magnets between the u-shaped magnet and the pole pieces?
3. Speed. Can you drive it from (say) the perifery of a flywheel on a fast engine, to a small pulley on the generator?
4. Roughly : Speed means voltage. Windings make current. (Thin wires resist current). More magnetic field helps everything.

Cheers! K

yes. well aware of most of these things now.. lol there's about 10 thou gap, which is too much. the magnet was a dismal failure, so I rebuilt it in aluminium and imbedded two rare earth magnets at the poles. some finer windings on the armature might have helped. I know next time it might be a lot better. some wrought iron bar to make a permanent magnet out of would be even better. almost impossible to find though in 2020.

 

[Steamchick]

I have used an old file for hard steel for a permanent magnet. (HIGH remanence). Needs to be cooked red and cooled slowly to anneal before you forge it, shape it, machine it etc. Then red hot and quenched to harden it for permanent magnet molecular state. Then clean and magnetise in a coil with DC applied.
Soft iron is used for alternating magnetic fields (low remanence).
Your modern magnets are probably a stronger field though, but could be connected by a hard steel u-shape, not aluminium.
Enjoy!
K

 

[peterl95124]

I designed and built this replica Edison Bipolar Dynamo to deliver 12V at 1200 RPM, to go with my Stuart #9. If there is enough interest I will publish the design, and the design calculations so it can be scaled and adapted to suit the builder.

 

[deeferdog]

I would be very interested and pleased if you made them available. Cheers, Peter.

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Guys,

Its a pity that there are not more generator designs and plans around.

I think that the problem is that to most people electricity and generators are very much akin to black magic !

 

[miss_emma_jade]

I designed and built this replica Edison Bipolar Dynamo to deliver 12V at 1200 RPM, to go with my Stuart #9. If there is enough interest I will publish the design, and the design calculations so it can be scaled and adapted to suit the builder.

thats very nice. would love to see more.

 

[bdolin]

If output voltage is the main consideration, a simple DC pm motor will work well- think Mabuchi- easy and cheap
Model dc brushless motors are 3 phase with rare earth magnets and should also worK, some are very hi power in motor use

 

[Richard Hed]

I designed and built this replica Edison Bipolar Dynamo to deliver 12V at 1200 RPM, to go with my Stuart #9. If there is enough interest I will publish the design, and the design calculations so it can be scaled and adapted to suit the builder.

Yes, I am always interested in any type of generator or even alternator, dynamos, etc. plans

 

[tonyr769]

I would also be very interested in the design and calculations for an Edison generator. They look very good being driven from a horizontal engine.

 

[miss_emma_jade]

Im looking very closely at drawings and information in the first 3 ME magazines in 1898. there's a tidy little overtype dynamo that promises 8v. there are three iron castings and an armature made out of "charcoal iron" pressings. it has about a 1.5" armature and runs at 3500 rpm .

 

[miss_emma_jade]

 

[BaronJ]

View attachment 119292

Hi Emma,

That is a very nice rendering ! Thanks.

Somewhere I have a picture or two of real generators that I've taken in a museum. If I can locate them I'll post them.

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Emma,

That is a very nice rendering ! Thanks.

Somewhere I have a picture or two of real generators that I've taken in a museum. If I can locate them I'll post them.

Hi Emma,
This is a picture of a three phase alternator that I found last night. Its a picture that I took of an early generator set up that is on display in the Bradford Industrial Museum a year or so ago.

From memory a DC machine is also driven by the same engine. The alternator is run at 3000 rpm, the DC generator, which is run at a reduced speed, by means of a "V" belt and different size pulleys.

The DC generator is the machine at the front.

I've some more pictures that I will post when I find them.

Note the rather crude DC wiring coming out of the alternator. The DC generator providing the field power. The three phase is the cable on the floor to the left below the machine.

I've just found another picture of this !

 

[Steamchick]

Good stuff! As you say... the wiring appears to be a mechanic's "fiddle and bodge"... but may have been the correct wiring for the era....? Ever owned a 1950's motorcycle? I have had half a dozen, but it seems that until the 60s (Unitised engines and cleaner lines), the wiring "just happened to be where it was".
It appears to me that the dynamo looks big just for excitation? All that machine into those tiddly wires? But maybe the 3-phase voltage control was done by the field control of the dynamo, or those wires may not have come directly from the dynamo but from a battery (charged by the dynamo?) via an independent 3-phase voltage controller? Do you know which Museum?
K

 

[BaronJ]

Hi K,

Do you know which Museum?

Its a picture that I took of an early generator set up that is on display in the "Bradford Industrial Museum" a year or so ago.

 

[KellisRJ]

No luck so far.
Anyone seen anything like it ?
Rudy

Rudy, I was looking at the digest and saw a thread on a 1963 Popular Mechanics engine. At the same web site that had hosted those plans I spotted this
The First Green Steam Engine Generator
Ron

 

[Steamchick]

Good model! But to improve it, how about replacing the aluminium base with a copy of the top half - complete with magnets to increase the magnetic field? I guess a good few thousand rpm are needed to get any decent power out, so max field strength will help? Minimum clearance between armature and stator is needed, every thou of air gap saps magnetic power...
K

 

[miss_emma_jade]

Good model! But to improve it, how about replacing the aluminium base with a copy of the top half - complete with magnets to increase the magnetic field? I guess a good few thousand rpm are needed to get any decent power out, so max field strength will help? Minimum clearance between armature and stator is needed, every thou of air gap saps magnetic power...
K

which were you talking about?

 

[Steamchick]

Sorry Emma, I was referring to the "first green steam engine generator" link.
K

 

[Steamchick]

I hadn't spotted your 1898 generator. As that has an iron loop including the armature, with field coils, it doesn't need the permanent magnets.
Nice big of CAD! (I am a paper and pencil man, so no where near as good!).
You could design an alternator? There are many Home-made wooden armatures holding rings of modern strong magnets as armatures, then using coils on the perifery (stator). If you made a small aluminium cored armature with permanent magnets, you could easily configuration a ring of coils and fit the whole in a simple case to look like an alternator - something like the Bradford museum pictures already posted? Whatever takes your fancy! That's what it is all about.
K
K