Re: Failover generators

[James Fidell <james@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil Harris wrote:

>>> 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.
>
> Thing is, car alternators need pretty high rotational speeds and even
a
> 12v/200amp unit will only give you 2.4kw at 240v (assuming no
conversion
> losses) which isn't very much...

True, if you're using it purely for backup power, you're probably going
to have to accept that you can't run any heavy loads on it.  You'd
really have to be going for the full battery bank/inverter system and
driving the alternator for a large proportion of the day to make it
feasible.

James