If you read about Rud’s DIYer Gen set in Thailand, you saw that most interesting ‘FOLK’ branded generator head. What’s interesting is Rud bought this in Thailand, and he thinks it might be made there.
From what I see, I’d guess the quality is much better than the ST, checkout the very nice slip rings, and the construction, Notice the housing looks like it is made of sheet steel rolled. notice the two lugs welded onto the side of the case, slip rings of much higher quality . Notice the rotor is very different than the ST.
Folk Excitation
Folk Slip Rings
Slip Rings look to be made with more percision and of heavier construction.
Folk Internals
Folk might be the “name of the week” we know there’s no chance this unit was made in England like the name suggests, but from what I see, the manufacture might have reason to take a little more pride in what they do and claim the work as their own. As of 1/11/2011, a google search will likely return you to this page. I will ask Rud if he has an electrical drawing for this machine. Again, Sattahip is a deep water port, with a lot of boats, and this product is aboard a lot of boats there.
There’s never enough room on the web to post every picture, Rud lives in a very interesting place, a band of Monkeys swim at his local beach, a place of beauty with an occaisional Cobra snake in the yard. I have made a folder on the CD with a collection of pictures Rud has sent. Maybe we’ll find out more about this generator? There has been a few people complain abotu loose pole pieces on the ST (salient rotor) design, the FOLK avoids that problem with an entirely different rotor design.
I sure am enjoying the new format at frequent posts here.
Hi Bill, glad to see you here…
BTW, this is a Stampford copy.., no wonder that said made in England 🙂
hi George
it took quite a bit of digging but it appears this design “if” attributed to stamford
is a rather odd duck, it is from the “D range” design.
the fields are fixed, the outer case pole shoes are the fields,
the armature/rotor is where the power is made,
and it is brought out for use via the brushes,
which would explain the rather large brushes and leads.
the inductor looking thing is actually a transformer, and is used in what they refer to as a “transformer controlled” alternator as opposed to an AVR controlled alternator.
from what i gather the large copper windings are in series with the power output so that as the load increases on the alternator, the amperage goes up in the heavy turns which induce a higher voltage in the secondaries that feed the rectifier which of course powers the field coils. the secondaries are wound closest to the E core, under the heavy primary coil.
the voltage is set at no load, by means of adjusting the transformer air gap, if you look closely at the picture, on the upper right side of the transformer core there is a small shim apparent in the picture. the thickness of this shim sets the air gap and in doing so sets the no load voltage of the alternator. this transformer is referred to as a current compounding transformer, and referred to at newage stamford as a series 5 control system. the really interesting thing is the alternators that use this form of control are able to do serious motor starting duty, on the order of 1hp starting for each kva of alternator capacity.
if we could get a schematic this could be either proven or disproven.
still researching this design, more digging to do…
bob g