Vehicles Alternator Principals and Testing Procedures

Ohhhh Blimey..... where do I start?

I designed one back in 1979 it was a monster! switching load current, altering speed, monitoring temperature etc... etc...

The main problem was the noise!! spinning alternators at 10000 rpm plus.... created a heck of a din!!!

John.

To Electroman

The noise I know is going to be high, that is OK for short period of time.

for load I am thinking to use an array of at least 100w each (12v) bulbs and accordingly connect as many as require the specific test.

For altering the speed I believe an variable size pulley on the saft of a gear box driving by a 230v AC induction motor it will be OK. Maybe you have a better idea.

Monitor the temperature where ?

Stelios

The one we designed was for a large motor manufacturer and their specifications were very tight, we had to precisely control the speed and be able to digitally set the electrical load in amps, so we had to use constant current electronic loads as well as precise speed monitoring, this was so they could feed a computer with the results and draw a 'map' of the speed and output together with the temperature of the alternator...

It may be overkill if you want a more simple test specification, but ours had to test the alternator to destruction which meant running at high speed high load for 24 hours a day etc...

But as I said the main problem we had was the noise, even though it had to operate in a factory environment the noise of the drive belt and speed sensors etc.... was a real problem, we ended up having to make all the moving parts aerodynamically 'quiet'!!

I think we also had problems with obtaining a sufficiently robust vee belt drive as well - it was great to test the thing though as it sounded like a jumbo jet taking off when it had full load and maximum speed dialled into it!!!

As I said though we had to use electronic constant current loads which 27 years ago was a major problem for discrete transistors back then, now it shouldn't be especially if you can use lamps as the load.

John.

Thank you John, I appreciate you help.

Stelios