Re: Failover generators

[James Fidell <james@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil Harris wrote:
>> 'wonder if adapting a modern small car engine would be a
>> viable route ... driving a big-car alternator, say ... their
>> more sosphisticated control systems might be helpful ... ???
>>
>> Chris
>
> Two immediate thoughts here...
>
> 1) A "big car alternator" is perhaps 80A - that's only 1kW
or so of power
> which isn't really a lot and it's at 12v so you are looking at pretty
hefty
> cabling unless you get it to 240v AC pretty quickly.

It's not too hard to find 120A+ alternators, especially if you look at
large vans and suchlike.  And there's the car-modders, who need lots of
power for their "music" systems.  Who'd have thought there'd be a
benefit to chavved-up motahs?

> 2) Although a Micra might sound nice and quiet at tickover, you just
stand
> beside one at 5,000rpm with the engine under load - you would *NOT*
want
> that outside your house for long.

Definitely not the way to do it :)  OTOH, driving the alternator from a
slow-speed, high-torque engine isn't completely infeasible.

James