Hey Folks,
I'm new here to the forum and new to electric vehicles. I am planning to build or do a conversion in the near future and am now in the learning and research phase. I have access to a marine generator, its a 7.5KW slip ring unit built back in the late sixtys. I was thinking of trying to convert it into an elctric motor and was wondering if anyone has any ideas or thoughts on this. The generator is about 13" in diameter and 17" in length. I can aquire this thing for FREE so I am interested in pursuing this if it is feasible. Any feedback appreciated.
Thanks!
Tim
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First some questions 1 how many slip rings does it have ??? 2 can you see or sence permanent magnets ( is a screwdriver attracted to the shell) ? 3 what is the power rating and output voltage ???? later
thank GOD I wake up above ground !!!!
The generator is rated at 7000 or 7500 watts and the output is 120 volts AC. There are two slip rings.
Tim
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Tim , without any more information my guess is that The gen. is a single phase self excited gen set . The energy for the stater field is created by the energy from the rotor moving threw a week magnetic field , fed to the stater and thus amplifing the magnet ,it does this rapidly till the magnet field is strong! . To turn it into a motor it wil need 110V 50-60cycle fed in ( ask granpa Chas about a controler for single phase pulse technolagy) ! I think most controlers run at a much higher frequency , and are 3 or 6 phase ? first try to feed the gen. with house cerunt with a light bulb in ( SERIES ) with the motor and see if it turns ( the bulb in series will limit the cerunt so you don't blow up the gen.-motor and if it turns than find a controler, (altrax ?) later
thank GOD I wake up above ground !!!!
My first and second questions are how big is this unit and how much does it weigh? The reason I ask is because I have a 15KW generator which powers my house during outages when the house batteries need to be charged. This thing is huge and weighs about as much as a mid-size motorcycle all by itself. Using a generator without magnets is not really a good idea. Because you must energize 2 sets of coils you automatically cut the available battery power in half. I know there are controllers designed to operate dual coils to create a drive motor or as they are known a traction motor, however they are very expensive. I think even if you found one of these controllers the expense would be so high you could buy a different motor and controller combination for less money. The efficiency of a setup like you are purposing is also very low compared to a simple hub motor or even a 7KW motor with permanent magnets. For what it's worth I would look at other options.
If you could add permanent magnets in place of the armature coils you might get it to turn using a brush less controller but even then you would need to add hall sensors for armature rotational feedback to the controller. As you can see this is not an easy thing to do. However there are controllers and the Sevcon Espac AC Motor Controller is one of the controllers that may do what you want.
just my opinion,
Grandpa Chas S.
Thanks for the advice. I had a feeling that it would not be viable option but it's hard to turn away from FREE. Like they say, there is no such thing as a free puppy! I may take on this thing just as a tinkering and learning project. I have lots to learn. Thanks Again!
Tim