[TheForge] Generators

[Bruce Freeman]

Well, I'm no electric motor expert, but I don't think "magnetizing the
wrong windings" is a worry.  The "windings" are the AC electromagnet. 
What you want is to magnetize some piece of iron present in the motor
(probably as a core to one or more windings).

As I understand it, the issue here is that there has to be a magnetic
field to START with, or a generator cannot generate ANY electricity.  If
a generator can re-magnitize it's own metal parts (which makes some
sense, but I can't vouch for it myself) then it may not matter how
STRONG this initial magnetic field is.

This would be a true "re-booting" as the term is used in the computer
world.  A tiny induced magnetic field would cause the spinning generator
to generate a tiny current; which in turn would increase the induced
magnetic field; which would cause the generator to gernerate a greater
magnetic field; etc.

Please understand that I am rationalizing what I've read others state. 
I do not have the experience to vouch for any of this.  I DO understand
the physics of generating electricity, however...

Bruce
NJ

>>> xlch58 at swbell.net 8/31/2004 11:51:02 PM >>>
I was almost ready to call bullshit on this one, trying to figure out 
how much current might be produced even with the gearing etc, when I 
decided it was worth a trip to the garage to test it out.  I clamped my

antique half inch  Mall drill in a vise,  chucked a short crank in the

drill and hooked my vintage Simpson multimeter to the outlet, locked
the 
trigger on and watched the meter.  Moderate energy cranking it produced
 
half a volt and five milliamps ( twisting the chuck by hand would
barely 
register and not for any aprecialble time).    My generator test and 
calibration unit's flash  ( bout thirty fuve years old ) puts out six 
volts and about a hundred times or more that amperage.  Lantern 
batteries are rated at 12ah, but you are not going to pull 12 amps out

of them at any one time.    Low voltage and amperage, but it might 
actually have a chance with the generator running, though not sure what

the advantage is over a battery, and I think it would still be 
magnetizing the wrong windings.

Charles


qualityrepairs at bellsouth.net wrote:

>take an old fashioned electric drill, no vari-speed, and plug it into
the outlet with the generator running and the breaker turned on.  hold
the drill trigger on and turn the drill chuck backwards.  This will
generate enough power to energize the field without opening the
generator and having to find positive and negative, etc. 
>  
>

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