Charge Controllers

I don't think it's that easy unless you are into power electrical/electronics design.
I think you need to switch in a dummy load... try this site it has tons of good links and stuff.

Del

This girl may be able to help you select the correct dummy load for your application:

You may want to look at the electronics in an industrial battery charger for a lift truck. Some modification may need to be made as you did not list a voltage.

Hello mister406

Perhaps I misunderstand what you ask.

A Motor is a consumer of energy - an Electric motor is supplied with electric power to produce mechanical energy.

Did you mean an AC alternator or DC generator instead of that "motor"?

Your reply with would be helpful.

Kind Regards....

I,m useing an ac electrical motor to spin a dc motor to use as a generator. So far I have had good luck producing a charge to my batteries,but I want to make the unit self controlled.I know there are several charge controllers that will "dump" the charge when the voltage is high enough. I simply want to have the unit turn on and off when the predetermined values have been met. I am not an engineer, just a hobbist trying to build a device to charge batteries so I do not have to use so much oil to heat my home. This unit will supply an electrical charge to my batteries that will in turn power an inverter that will power my electric heaters in my home. Also this home made generator has been powering the batteries for my totally battery powered garage, Except for my 5 hp air compressor, the garage has been working just fine for all my hand tools and the fridge.my only problem has been that I have to manually turn it on and off to keep the batteries charged. Thanks for all the replys jerry

Hello mister406

Thanks for your reply.

But what is producing the AC to power that AC electrical motor?

What type of "Electrical Motor" is it:

1. Voltage
2. Current
3. RPM
4. Winding type:
   

• Squirrel cage
  
• Wound Rotor
• Other....
  

Other information - Advise please.

The efficiency of your system appears to leave a great loss of energy in its wake, during the various conversions.

Reply here, with

Kind Regards....

It is a 110 volt,wound ,3amp motor. It was lying around the garage so I hooked it up to an outlet for now. I plan on running it from the inverter after I find out what other componets I need to make it automatic.the motor spins the dc motor that produces electric to charge the batterys. The batterys are hooked up in series and they are wired to a 1500 watt inverter. I plan on simply plugging the ac motor into 1 outlet from the inverter to supply the 110 volts needed to run the motor. I will use the other outlet to run a 1000 watt electric heater. Oh yes, I believe the previous owner of this house had planned on useing the ac motor for a spare of some kind. I just kept it for future use when I bought this house.as I mentioned this system DOES produce electricty.I am not sure of exactly how much,but, it will spin a small 24 volt dc motor about 3 times faster than the motor should run .It charges a battery like crazy, wich is why I need it to work in an automatic fashion.I do not want to burn out the dc motor or ruin my batterys. Jerry

sorry for the 2nd reply,but here it is. I am not alflully concerned with loss of energy between the 2 motors. I do not see where the loss is. It is simply an electrical motor spinnng another motor that produces dc voltage to charge batterys. I was useing a small homemade wind generator to do this, but I simply do not have enough wind in my area to keep up with the batterys. So I am looking for a more efficiant way to keep my batterys charged. I have a large draw on the batterys with the heater and I want to keep them charged to lower my heating oil bills. As I mentioned. this system charges the batterys in my garage.Now I am building a few of them to be used for heat in my home.

Hang on...
I'm totally confused....
Why don't you just make a battery charger??? Plug that into the outlet or am I missing something??

How many batteries have you got in series?

It is so much easier to build a charger than to use two motors and then still need a charging control circuit.

Del

What you are doing is totally impracticable .

If I read you correctly you have a 24 V battery system to run an inverter to run a motor to run a dc motor of unknown output to charge your battery bank??? and then make this automatic.?

If I have misunderstood your application please redescribe your system because as I see it it will not work. If you have mains power use a battery charger, if you dont then you should get a bigger wind generator.

I,ll try this again.I have a 110 volt ac motor plugged into a normal household outlet.This motor has a 6 inch pulley on it. I run the fan belt to a dc motor that I am useing as a generator. The dc motor has a 3 inch pully on it. The dc motor is wired to a battery bank consisting of 4 t-105 6 volt batterys wired together to give me 12 volts.In effect it is a homemade generator.The charge to the batterys is controled by a charge controller so when the voltage has reached the maximum charge it "dumps "charge so as to not overcharge the batts.my question is this, can I use the dump load to power some sort of auto switch to turn the unit on again when the controller calls for more charge to the batts. this auto switch would also have to turn the motor off when the charge voltage has reached the max. the batterys are used to power a 1500 watt inverter.since the inverter has 2 outlets on it, why can,t I plug the ac 110 volt motor into it to get the power to start with. It would have the caracters of a sort of "closed loop,self contained generator would it not?If anyone can explain how to make a home made generator with out useing a petro based fuel I would love to hear how to do it.I want to break away from petro based fuels in this application as this unit will be in my basement .That is why I am trying to make everything electric. I have no problem useing a battery powered motor instead off a 110 volt ac motor. it simply was available to me so I used it to run the thing in this project. Thanks guys for your info jerry

This is complete madness. (See post#9).
Just build/buy an 'intelligent' battery charger!

Del

Hey Jerry : I will certinally give you an E for effort , but as all other respondants have pointed out , you are doing a lot of " building " for no return in energy savings . You cant fight OHMS. LAW ! In short... the power you are using to drive the motor to spin the " generator " is lost power. I would suggest you simply charge your batts. with an " automatic " batt. charger plugged into an ordinary 115V. outlet . This would provide the charge control you are looking for and be cheaper all around to boot !

What do you think ?

You'd be way ahead of the game -- both in terms of simplicity and economy (ie, no motor, generator nor batteries required) -- by using that electricity to heat your home directly. The setup you describe wastes electricity in the motor, generator and in the batteries because none of them are perfectly efficient, individually nor collectively. Nor will they ever be.

Unfortunately, electric heat is the most expensive of them all -- much more expensive than oil heat -- so you already have the best economy you're going to get given your choices.

My advice to you would be to put on a sweater, make some hot coco, turn down the thermostat and enjoy the money you're saving by not building this setup.

O.K. Fellows. I realize what you folks are saying about "lost energy".I have known that all along. My point is ,unless I,m a complete idiot ,how can there be lost energy if the unit creates it,s own electri city.I am not looking to save energy. I am trying to make electricty. When people build windgenerators ,when they put regular car altanators on lawn mowers ,when they make homemade hydro generators. all in the effort to produce thier own rlectricity ,are they missing the point? Certainly I allready know I can use conventional power to run my heaters, The point is I want to make a unit that produces it,s own. Any "energy" required to run it would come from itself ,so I do not understand the theory that it would waste energy. I do not subscribe to the idea that it,s wasted if it,s being used to make more than it consumes. I know it makes electricty, I have been useing it to power my garage for about 9 months. The system works just fine.I simply want to add a control or 2 to make it turn itself on and off when needed. I can send you guys to hundreds of websites and you tube videos of people makeing thier own electricity.I have a windgenerator that produces plenty of power when the wind is blowing. However ,there is not enough wind here on a steady basis for my needs. There are companys out there that are modifying GM alternators to produce electricity at very low RPMs with rediculous amperage outputs. But, they reguire some kind of "energy " to spin them. I guess they are worthless because they do not spin themselves.My local utility company wastes thousands of tons of "energy" to produce my electrical power needs for my home. A gas powered generator for emergency purposes wastses oil based "energy "to produce power.I guess what I,m saying is, "wasting energy "is not my problem My problem is figureing out a way to automatically controll the machine that produces all my "wasted " energy.I know this, the last time we had a power outage, My home and garage had lights, heat , and refridgerator when everybody else was in the dark. all of this "wasted "energy came from a few battery banks that were charged by homemade generators that i made from junk in my garage and a few purchased items, jerry

Dear Mr. Europium,to date I have spent a total of almost $425.oo U.S. on 1 complete windgenerator that produces 35-40 volts at roughly 32 amps to charge a battery bank that holds almost 700 amp hours. The most expensive item was the used forklift battery that powers my ENTIRE garage excepting the 5 hp air compressor. Also I owned and operated a relatively large home heating oil buisness,selling over 1.25 million gallons of heating oil and diesel fuel per year. I have sold that buisness and am semi-retired. My efforts for this project that everybody seems to think is a waste of time ,come from the theory that I believe that my word will be better when I become independant from the dependancy of outside providers for food ,, heat, power. I, more than most people,know EXACTLY how cheap oil heat is. I also know that ,in a few years ,it will be a lot more expensive. so to close I will say, I would rather take my wife on a nice vacation 2 or 3 times a year with the money I save by doing as much as I can for my home and family as CHEAPLY as I can. OH yes as an afterthought,I would like to tell you that since I started playing around with all of this produce my own electric stuff, my monthly electric bills went from $275.oo per month to an average of $70.00 per month. Some waste of time hunh ? jerry

I think you have lost us all.

One minute your windgenerator is producing the power...the next you tell us it's coming from your wall socket.

I feel you havn't expressed yourself very well.

Del

"The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

It is one thing to collect and store energy from the wind, quite another to "generate" energy from energy. So which is it?

If your wind generator helps cut your energy bills, I'm happy for you. Keep up the good work. Lord knows we'd all like to unplug from The Grid.

But please don't go throwing a bunch of numbers around -- 700 AH here, 35-40 volts there -- and, by virtue of their sheer magnitude, expect fawning acolytes to fall in tow behind you. Some of us here work with big numbers; really big numbers. You have no idea.

Wanna know what does work? A real, working, verifiable demonstration.

Keep your numbers to yourself. I wanna see a working demo.

Jerry,

Energy Can Not Be CREATED, It can only be CONVERTED for one form to another, and every conversion there are losses, it is not a correct way to "SAFE ENERGY", what you do is actually " WASTE ENERGY", you should buy an " AUTOMATIC BATTERY CHARGER" or change your heating system to use AC power. Thats it.

regards

William Tan