DC Load banK

cr4fan; go to harbor freight & buy a load bank with meters for a lot less then if u were to make one. perry

Try RS Components (usual disclaimer), then, who have distributors locally.

I would expect that you can use your AC load bank, but how well it will test power production will depend on the output voltage you anticipate out of your DC rectified alternator. If your DC voltage will be expected to be in the 12-15V range of an automotive system then your AC load intended to work on 230VAC will not be anywhere close to a low enough impedance to stress your system to usable values. If instead your alternator will produce 130V then the load will work fine. Depending on the instrumentation integrated into your load, you might require new measurement equipment though.

The best and cheapest single phase and three phase load banks are also surprisingly the easiest and most compact to build. As I have mentioned before on CR4 it is very easy to connect inexpensive 'radiant heaters' or 'fan heaters' together in parallel to get the required load. These range from about 600W up to about 2400W.

The only disadvantages are that the radiant heat must be handled (which is easy), the load selection can be a bit course due to the limited number of heater power selection settings (not a major problem with a number of radiant heaters in parallel) and 4 way single phase multi boards (or powerboxs) are limited to about 10A. This last point is easy to fix by building your own multi board out of parts.

I have done this with three custom built single phase multi boards and 8 fan heaters per phase to create a three phase 60A odd amp load bank.

i do have 1KW-8KW(selectable) 230AC load bank at lab . can i use this load bank to test the dc output ?

As for your application, you can use your 230VAC load bank (connected either before or after the rectifier), but only up to 8kW (is that enough?)

Can you provide more information on your application please.

This 3 phase alternator specially design for wind turbine to use at low wind speed area . The rated output 2.5kW at 4.5 m/s wind speed and 60Vdc 37amps(after rectification) at 7.5 m/s wind speed.