zero maintenance brushless alternator
Mike Arman
Armanmik at earthlink.net
Sat Oct 31 06:42:39 PDT 2015
Zero maintenance brushless alternator . . .
Some of the older Honda 750 motorcycles had a very clever setup. The field and the armature are both
stationary, mounted on the engine end-cover. The pole pieces ("claw plates") rotate between them, it
is a welded assembly which is bolted to the end of the crank. There is no outboard end bearing (but
there could be).
When I first opened one of these up, I thought it was an AC generator, but after a very few moments,
I saw the three output wires, six diode rectifier and voltage regulator. A quick check of the
schematic showed that this was indeed an alternator.
Looking at this, there is NO reason this idea couldn't be applied to replace any slip-ring+brushes
alternator. It would remove some of the least reliable parts from (an admittedly already quite
reliable) system, reducing the parts count and simplifying the entire device.
All it has to do is turn. The only "wear" items would be the two ball bearings on the shaft. This
plus a set of beefy silicon diodes (rated at 10x the system output, hey, these are cheap) and a
proper solid state regulator would give a charging system which would last essentially forever with
about zero maintenance.
Best Regards,
Mike Arman
90 V8Q, garage queen these days
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