Utterpower Honors Mick at Metabunk.org

Posted on April 4, 2013 by George B.

Today I honor Mick at Metabunk.org for writing a great article about small companies that make big claims. I haven’t asked permission to repost here what Mick wrote there, but I do so in hopes you WILL make the time to read the other comments there!

Mick Writes:

There’s a type of scam out there that’s being going on for at least 100 years. A company claims to have invented or discovered something that will make a lot of money. Quite often this will be in the field of energy, although we see them more and more in the field of weather control and information technology. The company can demonstrate research, they will often hold one or more patents on the technology, and they will have some kind of prototype that does not actually fully work, but they claim is a demonstration of the proof of concept.

They won’t reveal all the details, despite having filed patents, because they either don’t want people to steal their ideas, or they claim it’s too early, and more research needs to be done.

What they are looking for though, is investors. They will talk about the huge potential market, and hence the huge amount of money to be made. They will get people to invest in their company.  The technology will go nowhere slowly, and eventually the principals will withdraw, and the investors will end up with nothing.

The scam works because it’s not illegal to be wrong, unless you actually know you are wrong. So if you think you’ve discovered a form of free energy, it’s perfectly legal to set up a company to research and develop the technology. It’s quite legal to solicit investment based on what you think is correct science – even if it does turn out to be wrong, and the investors lose all their money. They took a risk, they lost. It’s quite legal to pay yourself and the other principals  a large salary.

So all you have to do to run such a scam is to never admit you knew it was a scam. You have to pretend you believe in the technology. Then when it fails you simply keep insisting that you thought it worked, and you were sorry you didn’t get enough time to work out the kinks.

Then of course there are those people who actually ARE convinced that their technology works. There are plenty of people who think they actually have discovered something new, and they just need a bit more research to make money from it.

So which of the two is V3Solar?

http://v3solar.com/coolspin/

V3Solar claims to have invented a technology that makes solar energy 20x as efficient. They do this by magnifying the suns rays with a lens, so you get 20x as much sun on 1x the area. Now regular solar cells don’t do this because the cell gets really hot, and breaks. V3Solar claim to have solved this by mounting the cells on a rotating cylinder, partly so that the wind from the rotation cools the cells down, but mostly so that only 1/20th of the surface is exposed to the concentrated sunlight at once.
The problem is they seem to forget that multiplying something by 20 and then dividing it by 20 does not equal 20. It equals 1. So they are right back where they started. Plus since half their solar cells are in shade, then it’s really 0.5, and since they are on a curved surface, it’s more like 0.3. Oh and not to mention that the solar panels are enclosed in a glass cone, so will actually get quite a bit hotter than regular solar panels.

Basically their claims make no sense at all. Look at the image of a “CoolSpin”:

End of Mick’s excellent post….

George Comments:

I think this is a lesson to pass along to your kids and grandkids.  The very best thing you can do for our country is teach kids how to think with a pencil in hand, and teach them not to start in the middle. No higher math required most of the time.

As I’ve said before, the fact that V3Solar exists at all, is a testament of how far we’ve gone wrong.

What is it Fathers and Sons do together? And what do Science Teachers Teach?

The DIYer mind would likely make use of companies like V3Solar and Hydrovolts, and get their students involved in ‘THINKING’ about their claims.

Imagine the power of a guest post done by the 8th grade class at Madison Junior High shooting holes all the way through a theory that the Huffington ComPost Science Editor got so excited about that she claimed it brought her out of menopause!

But lets look at reality…. due to the lack of our involvement in the development of young minds, they are far more interested in fairies and fairy dust, the promise of the easy road, and they become prey.

Those grade school science teachers could change the course of mankind, but there’s days I think they teach more inline with their Master’s cause.

So Mick, I award you the Utterpower blue ribbon ‘Best Article of the Year’.  Is critical thinking, a lost art for the common man?

It is truly dangerous to allow our children to believe in fairy dust, as it  makes them all too easy prey,

GB

 

 

 

In my last post I told you of the Best of Better Gang Green Blue Ribbon Awards idea.

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Critical Thinking, Free Energy, Generator Realities, Inspirational People, The New Green Movement | Tagged , , , , | 19 Comments

Hydro Power, another lesson in critical thinking?

Posted on April 2, 2013 by George B.
See my Blue Ribbons

See my Blue Ribbons

 

As we’ve discussed many times, a person should never think he’s the very first to have an idea.  That old expression that there’s little new under the sun is so true.

But there are others who will instantly say… “yes but if you think that way, you’ll never discover a new and better thing.”

I suggest you at least ask why very smart people might have ignored the idea for a 1000 years or more.

Most of us who have any kind of energy awareness know that ships are pulled up on shore and scrapped as soon as there’s a more efficient way to power them, and the rail road would go back to clean coal fired steam if it were cheaper.

So this energy in water thing,  we need understand the Gang Green Mind, when it sees something move, that’s energy! Move your arms, and they see the force moving the world! But in addition, there will be a parade of Gang Greenies hanging blue ribbons around your neck for such an idea.  Is it about the deed itself, or about the fact that you care enough to march in their parade?  Headless hydro, and the headless horsemen, I’ve heard of both, but never see them so much.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are plenty of studies worth your while, but hydrovolts.com might be a best place to study marketing.  It’s all about what I think, but step one is to know who you market to, and why.  Maybe you learn from them, and sell your idea too?

Was it in Iraq a thousand years ago, they knew that moving water could do work and developed a way to measure how much? And that Green loon you know who would build a tower so tall just to stand on top and hold a pin wheel in his hand and say.. “feel that wind in your face? It’s sure to make you re-comb your hair!”

So let’s take a look at Hydrovolts.com, it’s been around for how long, their idea is as old as Homer himself, and all the professional world for all these years has pretty much ignored that water in the irrigation canal as a source of hydro power.

Here’s the truth.. you being a DIYer, you ask why? Why didn’t the Canal Builder ‘build it in’, and in many cases wasn’t he the same builder who placed those turbines below the head in other places?  And look there! Right at the head of many irrigation canals are screens, ‘big wheels’, and normally turned with electric motors.. why didn’t these pro canal builders power the turning of the screen with the hydro power itself?

Yes, you DIYers spend less time marching in the parade, and less time chanting too..

Following are durable questions we might ask about any technology…

What is the total cost of the KWH generated? Have we included all real costs? Maintenance, cost of the machine, cost of finance?

Here’ one link for your study.. just Bing it for more…

http://hydrovolts.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Hydrovolts-Newsletter-July-20111.htm

I’m still allowed to think, and even say it’s my thought, and here it is…

DIYers do think differently, and there are others who would read every detail of what Hydrovolts does and praise every effort.

Here’s a learning experience I think..

I see their pages have changed a bunch since I last looked, the wayback machine might have it all for you to see.. as I remember.. a rather huge machine was placed in the canal, and clearly lighting a light bulb.  Since I have walked miles of canal, and some of the same ones, I know about what falls in canals, and what is sure to foil a machine, we do need a maintenance man to mind it all no matter how tiny the power we make, maybe a guard shack placed close by, and three shifts? Since it’s green, perhaps a new union job, and benefits too?

It leads me to think.. if it’s blue ribbons for show, , why don’t we sell them?  The “National Committee For The Best Of The Better Ideas?  Who makes blue ribbons? Who might make you blue ribbons, and how much could you sell them for? Yes, we call it  ‘BOB’ for short! “Best of Better.”

So now.. you’re onto a money making idea! Why award a blue ribbon when you could sell one to the marketing folks?

And here my DIYer Brothers is where reality kicks in for you!  Just like the canal idea, you are more than 1000 years too late to call it a new idea…..you yourself come to that conclusion, and that is what makes you different, and a true bore at parties..

Sorry, but it’s why the Fairies don’t like you so much……It’s what I think, and I don’t think we need think hydrovolts.com will fail at their mission..

GB

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, DIYer Skills, Earth & Energy, Free Energy, UtterPower Articles | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Email of the day, Question about Generator Stator Windings

Posted on March 30, 2013 by George B.

From: Thomas

Subject: generator windings in parallel

Question:

I read the post and still confused. You rewire the head or the receptacles on a generator.

My wiring is just like the Coleman schematic. Why can’t I rewire the head to go from series to parallel before the breakers?

George’s Answer: 

YOU CAN…… BUT should you ?

We don’t want to exceed the current rating of the ‘winding’. We protect that..

Consider a possible fault: a stator power winding goes open when the generator stator windings are wired in parallel. now we have one winding doing all the work, where is your breaker, and is it still adequate to protect the winding?

In the case of a common plug in, many if not most today are rated at 15amps. Exceed that by too much, and you can damage the connections in the plug itself.

The potential problem can come from that higher rated plug, and sometimes we see 30 Amp 120VAC plugs in use on the generator or attached to it.  If we have such a thing as part of our generator, AND it’s protected with a 30 Amps fuse (an example), then we are set up to fry our winding via overload.

I talk in general terms, as there’s no way to keep up with the changes in generators, and exactly what you have. But I’ll attempt to share a potential difference in generator performance.

If you have a simple kiss generator head with a loose connection right where the two stator windings were tied together, and only one coil was providing power, (current) you’d see the voltage ‘droop’ far lower than expected as compared with two coils WHEN you increased the load. If we have no AVR at all, the operator of the generator might give pause, and wonder why?

 

With an AVR in use, might it see the voltage too low and attempt to boost field current, and if poorly designed, could it cause you even more grief? I think so fuse it or breaker it best.

If we open our household breaker boxes and see how they ‘breaker’…. it makes no difference how an American standard 120VAC supply is used.  The breaker is at the head of it all, and if it’s used to help supply a 240vac supply, it returns to another breaker in the box, and makes use of another 120VAC supply that comes from that commercial transformer on the street, and this secondary is very much like our two stator windings, they rightfully choose to protect each of the 120VAC supplies, and should we emulate what they do?

This transformer we see on the pole, it’s designed  similar to generator stators with the assumption that you will not need more current in any single 120VAC circuit than what one side of the center tapped secondary can deliver.

So… if you place that breaker and size it for the individual stator winding, you can save yourself a lot of trouble if things happen just wrong.

 

————————– end

As a side note:   There are some folks that are in areas unique, or they have been exposed to three phase, and they think those two hots delivered to your house are no more than two phases of the three. This is not the case, and we need keep it straight.  Your house is normally supplied by a single phase, and that transformer secondary winding and the center tap confuse people.

As for the Professionals: They don’t always get power right. I remember one Telecom office that had a number of air handlers that were effectively used to keep the building at a slightly higher air pressure than outside. About 5 years after install, Switching Tech Jim Swanson, noticed that one air handler was running backwards! He didn’t know why. But he did know that the HVAC guy had changed the filters and checked on things a number of times. Fact is, it was more than one guy that had done the maintenance and found it AOK.  I never ever noticed, Jim did! He didn’t know why, I did having a 3 phase AC back ground. I wrote a memo and sent it off to the power engineer to have two of the three leads swapped, it wasn’t our world, as most of what we did was -48 DC.

Swanson noticed a lot of things not done quite right, the type of man every crew needs, and always worth his weight in hard currency. And that reminds me.. Minimum wage was $1.25 cents when we were kids.  That’d be $26.50 in silver melt value today..

GB

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Critical Thinking, DIYer Generator, DIYer Skills, Generator Realities, Generators, Inspirational People | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

March 27, 2013 Muse of the day..

Posted on March 27, 2013 by George B.

What shapes our world?

Easter-island-statues

 

Saving electricity and time  through the proper choice of a coffee cup.

How DIYers Think.

This AM I again thought of my favorite coffee cup, I’m holding one now and feeling the heat thaw my stiff hands. It has straight sides with a bottom wide and hard to tip  over. The pattern on the outside are of chickens, and of course they are handsome and free range chickens…. at least in my mind.  But most important is the inside of the cup… it’s a proper white.

I can see to fill it in near total darkness, no need to turn on the kitchen light, that’s not the case with other cups in the cupboard, to fill the inside of a dark cup, I need the light on.     From where the coffee pot is, it’s an equal number of steps to one of the two light switches, and not only do I need to turn it on to fill a dark cup, but then I need to turn it off with a full coffee cup in one hand.  A tiny problem you say? Well yes, but not with a cup as full as I pour, so if I were to use the lights, I need remember to pour a little less to keep from spilling dark coffee on a light colored carpet.  It’s not the spill the man worries about, it’s the evidence left behind, and it’s far easier to monitor a cup for spills when the inside is white, and the contrast high even in the early morning darkness in the hallway leading to my in house office.

It causes me to think of a man’s world VS a woman’s, and how they most often pour less coffee into a cup apparently not knowing they need make more wasteful trips?  But perhaps equally important, as I look from the kitchen to where my Wife sits in the morning with her favorite cup…. I can’t see the level of her coffee because the inside of her  cup was fired to be near the same color as the coffee.  I naturally step in her direction to fill her cup, and she often tells me it’s full, such a waste of movement!

Her favorite cups are shaped like funnels, far easier to tip over, I share this with hands on experience, so this is an account you can trust.

But of all things this morning, I reflect on how few people have the luxury to think about these things, they rise in the morning with their hair on fire, and fully stressed about the traffic and whether they’ll be to work on time. I remember those days.

Having visited Prof Panos’ FB posts, I reflect on what he brings to think over.

One item I can’t get out of my mind is how we humans seem to ignore the number of related deaths as an indicator of risks, and I’d be honored to leave you with a thought.

There were 112 people killed building Hoover Dam alone, a very costly project as per loss of life.

So we compare clean forms of energy, Nukes VS all others, and don’t we see that man does not always use the number of deaths as an indicator of risk or danger?

So we move on to Organic food, horrible deaths associated with such foods with the purposeful use of animal dung for fertilizer VS other types?  How many needing organ transplants? And we compare that to GMO foods. Again, we humans totally dismiss the number of deaths as per any calculation in risk assessment, and what the majority of us  think shapes our world..

GB

 

Posted in Critical Thinking, In The News, Strange Stuff | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

March 26, an important message to pass along to your KIDs

Posted on March 26, 2013 by George B.

The real  face of Evil? I think so.. Selling magic in order to stay in power is the worst kind of evil, and here we have the Queen of all Witch Doctors, vote for me, and take the easy road..

I wish I knew who to credit for this image..

I wish I knew who to credit for this image..

My muse for the day:

In the old days, our Politicians would have sense enough to stop writing laws when no house was big enough to hold the paper documents. Now that we have cheap digital storage, that constraint has been removed!

Of course.. now we have leaders that don’t really know the difference between printing a dollar, and creating wealth, that be the case of the JOKER!

Do we find the door to the future cracked open? Can we see the potential for so many new services offered by attorneys tomorrow?

Consider a man who wishes to leave his Nephew all his worldly goods,… in many States, he’s not the same class of relative as a spouse would be. If an attorney can arrange a marriage between the two prior to the last day of a last illness, what taxes might be avoided, and if they are hundreds of thousands that no longer flow into the public purse, why won’t it happen? And will there be another 50,000 pages of law to define exactly who and how one can avoid the tax?

So talk some sense into that Kid of yours! There’s two kinds of people in our future, those who write garbage and are paid well to do it, and those who are forced to eat it!

Get your kid off to a good start in life, as a Doctor he’ll eat sh–. As an Attorney, he’ll feed it to others and be paid well to do it!

GB

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, Gravity, How Tos, Legal, Survival Skills, Things I Hate!, Your Wasted Tax Dollars | Tagged | 3 Comments

A simple thing but it could be costly to you.. BEWARE!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by George B.

My mini truck is used off road.. lowering tire pressure and pumping them back up is part of the game.

This could be trouble!

This could be trouble!

 

It’s spring and as the weather improves, I attempt to get things sorted for this year’s use.. The Mini truck had two low tires, and as I attempted to unscrew the valve cap, I realized I had stuck ones for the first time in my life! Sixty five years of living and never once have I fought this trouble.

The problem? The cap is made of some type of alum alloy, easy to machine, longer tool life, but it can and does react with the metal used in the valve stem, so nobody.. till now has made one that I know of.

I leave it to you to figure.. was it a person who didn’t know better, or a person who didn’t care better?

If you have these, get them off your vehicle.. I have two that I have heated, and dowsed with penetrant a bunch.. no joy yet..

Updated 3/30/13

BEWARE! Ebay is full of cheap beautiful in appearance valve caps! They are made of Aluminum and at least in my climate, a generous amount of aluminum oxide was formed and made it impossible to take the cap off!  

After some days of soaking with penetrant, Brian W. said he had read that Ammonia could break that corrosion between alum and steel, and suggested I give it a try with alum to brass. I used a die grinder to cut off the end and then a Q-tip to keep swabbing on ammonia, within 2 minutes the bond began to break, and I kept twisting the cap back and forth and finally the cap was off.. did the other side and now I’m set to put on stainless steel or plastic..

Is this a link to more trouble?  I dunno…..   http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-4-pcs-Hexagonal-Ventil-Valve-Cap-For-Auto-Car-Truck-Silver-/271036711380?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3f1b0c01d4&vxp=mtr

Thanks for the Ammonia Brian!

 

GB

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in DIYer Skills, Strange Stuff, Things I Hate! | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

How to appreciate those free energy machines?

Posted on March 23, 2013 by George B.

Are there now thousands of free energy machines on the net?

How is it we DIYers might learn to appreciate the efforts?

One of my friends sent me this possibility.

 

 

Now… once you dumb down, you can watch AND enjoy videos  like this one..

 

Have a great weekend..

GB

 

 

 

Posted in Critical Thinking, Free Energy, Gravity | 10 Comments

March 22 2013 Muse of the day. What’s going on in Fargo?

Posted on March 22, 2013 by George B.

 

Do you remember the movie Fargo?  The world was introduced to that unique ‘Fargo Accent’, and a memorable satire born.

 

But this recent event that follows,….. does it suggest that Fargo might be spawning other satirical works of art, or just predicting our future? do read my intro, you need know the mood so don’t jump ahead! The story is in this link below….

 

I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder, and I might just  be in the mood to see it that way after spending the day with friend and pilot Brian Hoffman at the Museum of flight yesterday, and then having received this link from Huey Pilot Doug Bradford.

We all wonder how the eye phone and modern electronics might  re-shape our minds and our society?

Yesterday:  After Brian and I got our Museum of Flight passes and wrist bands on, I thought to ask the receptionist if he knew Gloria Jackson?  I said she and I were friends.  He pointed us to a desk, and said he’d connect us to her office.  Soon, Gloria was in the lobby to greet us and showed us around, she explained that the museum was full of old fly boy volunteers, and that they had forgot more than most people know about flight, we should take the opportunity to ask questions  when we had them.  It was so great to see her, and she was so right about the museum staff!

Brian knows so much about flight, no doubt this was a love from an early age for him, and as we talked about the different air craft and marveled at the displays, Brian told me what it was like to take a C130 over the Hindu Kush in bad weather, and land on an air field cratered by mortars but made smooth again by those expecting the freight he and his flight crew delivered.

One of the Gemstones in this Seattle Museum is the indoor display of propeller driven fighters, and perhaps your best op to compare them from so many angles. To be able to accurately judge their size and shape, and compare which ones look more slippery. To imagine the men who flew in them,  and what it was like to pull the Gs in a dog fight and use the best abilities of your aircraft to defeat your foe.

And now that I’ve attempted to properly set the stage, I thank Brian, Gloria, and Doug for the muse, and I ask. Do we see the door ajar, and is this a look into the future? Your kid next door, does he ever mow the lawn?  Is there a computer game he hasn’t mastered? Does a chair fit his back side best?  Is he the ACE of tomorrow? It’s just my muse this AM…

http://www.theglobaledition.com/drone-pilot-ejects-from-office-chair/

But of course the trip to the Museum also leaves me with the question, those turbo compound engines, masterpieces of engineering, the Combined heat and power plants we build. The greatest generation did all the math, they built marvels of efficiency that carried payloads further and allowed them to return. Why haven’t we seen turbos (turbines) fitted to exhaust streams that run high RPM PMGs where we recover that energy, and return it to a DC bus to be used for any purpose we choose… it’s just a muse, and you know I had to make my ending rhyme.

GB

 

Posted in Gravity, In The News, Strange Stuff | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

March 20, 2013, Email of the Day, more ST gen head head scratching

Posted on March 20, 2013 by George B.

 

A recommended utterpower modification

A recommended utterpower modification

The simple ST Head

The simple ST Head

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To: george@utterpower.com
Subject: UtterPower.com Contact Form: ST Gen/ Light Flicker

From: David J.

ST Gen/ Light Flicker

 

I have a ST gen head from Tom at CGG and the harmonic winding wasn’t enough to maintain excitation voltage on the machine. Tom sent me a 120VAC AVR and instructed me to use one half of the machine output to provide excitation for the unit. The problem is that the 120VAC leg that is not providing the excitation is rock solid at 62 Hz no load and the one feeding the AVR is all over the place and causing the lighting on that half to flicker or pulse. Can you suggest a different way or a solution to provide excitation for my ST gen head? I am running the gen head with a Yanmar @2800 rpm and using a Fluke meter to measure the voltage and frequency for each 120VAC leg. Thanks, David J.

 George’s Answer:

David,

This is an excellent question, and it can lead to a lot of learning.

We really need analyze the windings, and what they are doing, and since our rotating machine is designed to run at 60HZ, that’s where I choose to take measurements after we do the basic checks.

I believe in Kiss, and I do think it’s best to evaluate what you have in steps. On new heads we always document these readings and keep them, or we risk paying the price later. This way you know what you had when it worked right,  and you can do a compare later if you do have trouble.

Step one, a good meter is a must, if you don’t have a good meter, borrow one. (a Fluke is a good meter).

Read and record the resistance value of all windings.  Harmonic, Stators, and Field.

  • Consult your drawings and specs, are they in spec?
  • Don’t do anything to risk your warranty, check with your vendor before you conduct any further tests.
  • Most STs are designed to function with a standard rectifier, consider checking with your vendor, the radio Shack 30 amp rectifier they’ve had in stock for 30 years is normally plenty, the PIV rating need be well above the voltage peaks.

With the rectifier AC side wired to the harmonic, and the DC side to the field, apply 12 volts from a battery across the DC side (flash the field) with the same polarity as marked on the DC side of the rectifier..  Check all brushes and wiring,  (this is very important, if you are a regular visitor you’d note that poor connections in brush wires can cause weird behavior).

If the harmonic winding and the field winding are NOT working as specified on the name plate, (voltage and current) at 60HZ, then you likely have a problem with the Gen Head. Do you need to know more?  Is it in your best interest to apply a Band-Aid to mask the problem?

As for using one of  the stator windings (120VAC) to power the ST field, I Haven’t seen that, so I’d greatly appreciate others commenting if they have that setup, and they are happy with it?  I know that the people I have talked to think Tom works hard to make things right with customers, so I am not critical of his approach to help solve your problem.

If you are on grid you might try using another source of 120vac to drive this AVR just to see how it works… and if you have a link to drawings or other info, sharing with other DIYers here would be great.

The flicker issue: Since I don’t know about the circuit, hard for me to comment. My approach would be to put it on the other stator winding and  see how it works over there.

I would think if one stator is flicker free with a load, then the field itself is not the source of the problem, that would suggest a need to examine what’s going on current and voltage wise in the one stator that’s being use to drive the field, and most would want to look at both current and voltage in that stator, and display the output on a scope. There are very inexpensive scopes you can use with a lap top, a data analyzer would be great.

Others, keep me honest here.. I have little use for the Chinese AVR, I’d rather live with an acceptable voltage droop for most of what I do, as making power is far more important than keeping the voltage tighter than I require. Adding parts and complexity is fine if it meets your needs, but IF you are wanting a generator to make power in an outage, the kiss back up is a very nice option, no juice? Fall back to KISS designs..

As always, I suggest that people check every connection on the STs, and I personally eliminate the dog house and most of the crap supplied. The better connection is a properly sized twist nut, with tape over that, the volt meter needs to be off the set if you are wiring it up stationary. Big singles punish meter movements over time.

We all need Identify our goals when we build our generators. High on my priority list is a very quick fix IF I have trouble.

If you think the AVR is a must, then it’s best that you write down exactly why, and we do need know that AVRs can be very simple devices, and some quite complex and costing more than many generators. One thing we want to be sure of, and that is that the AVR is designed specifically for your gen head, OR it has an adjustment to limit the current in the field to assure it’s not over driven and damaged. And if it does have that adjustment, that you set it.. otherwise, consider a fuse in the field supply to assure it’s not damaged.

A great place to learn about simple AVRs is in Electrical repair shops where people contract to take care of assets from large to small for a construction company for instance. They know of the complaint in small portable generators.. “The guy said it was working fine till it ran out of fuel.”  In this case, a bare bones AVR can attempt to boost current as the generator slows down to the point where something in the field circuit fails, a marginal brush, poor connection, or it might just smoke the field if the AVR and field are not properly designed to dance together.

GB

 

 

 

 

Posted in DIYer Generator, Generators | Tagged , | 9 Comments

March 19, 2013, Email of the day, 120 VS 120/240

Posted on March 19, 2013 by George B.
Draw your configuration and include the load.

Draw your configuration and include the load, are you wired series or parallel?

 

From: Robert C.

Subject: ST Head Wiring

George,

If you re-wire the ST Head, and eliminate the 240v.  Does the AMPS increase? If I have a 2900 watt ST head, will the amps be close to 24?

I’m new at this.

Thanks

Robert

 

Robert, you are exactly right, it’s a trade off, the power figure stays the same, so if we choose to wire 120 VAC only, we can increase the current, but we need understand, that happens when we put two windings to work.  For others who visit this page, I’ll extend the conversation.

It’s easy to keep it straight if you think of the two separate windings in the ST as flash light batteries.

We can arrange the windings or batteries in series or parallel and the result will be that we have the same power figure, but our voltage and current are different.

Some years back, I warned that the ST 3kw head can provide good service, but owners need a clear understanding of the limitations of 120/240 operation before they make use of it.

 

Lets keep it simple and use batteries that have a voltage of 1.2 volts for our comparison.

 

 

In both cases we are stuck with the power figures, there’s no magic to create more power potential than what we have, BUT we can trade off E and I  (voltage and Current) in how we arrange the batteries or the stator windings.

 

In the case of the 3KW ST, we have 25 amps at 120 volts, and if we want to arrange the winding in series to get the 240 volts we reduce (or trade) current capacity for the higher voltage.

 

120volts times 25 amps = 3000 watts

240volts times 12.5 amps= 3000 watts

 

WHEN we are wired for 120/240 operation, our 120 volt loads are powered by a single stator winding, the other winding can NOT help supply current to that load. Yes, we can have another load on the other winding at the same time, but that doesn’t help us supply more than the 12.5 amps to the load.

 

I think the danger come into view when we visualize using a portable table saw, and loading it down when ripping a board. Here’s where you WILL either protect your ST with properly rated breakers, OR risk burning out a stator winding.

 

We need understand how the damage we cause might not be readily seen, we can heat up that winding where we damage the insulation and send it towards a premature failure, it may take some time to see the damage, but with enough heat cycling and use, the damage shows up.

In smaller gen heads, there’s a ‘trade off’ option you can wire in. It allows you to select 120 or 120/240 VAC operation at the flip of a switch.

 

This of course is no substitute for proper fusing or circuit breakers, and we need to consider it is the individual winding we are attempting to protect.

Stator Worst Case

 

I always appreciate comments, do help me keep info accurate..

GB

 

  • Q: What past utterpower article covers the re-wiring of stators, and shows  the addition of a simple DPDT switch to select stator configuration?
  • Fact: If we were to cover this topic well, we’d need a lot of pages, and why do that when Bill Rogers’ book covers it so well? The analogy between ST stators and batteries helps us remember the trade offs of E and I, but in AC, we have other things going on, and we can make good use of inductive and capacitive reactance, and learn how by reading Bill Rogers’ book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in DIYer Generator, Generator Realities, Generators | Tagged , | 1 Comment