Ever since I have been driving I have had a morbid and irrational fear of being stranded with flat batteries - so I'm liking this idea of having another way of charging batteries should my generator fail (and potentially a much faster way of charging too). I also like the whole 'inventiveness' thing, and definitely disagree with those who say 'You must do it this way because everyone else does'.What would be a really neat solution perhaps would be to arrange the additional small engine so that it could somehow be made to turn the existing bus alternator, rather than having to supply a new alternator and all the associated cables and switching etc required. It wouldn't really be feasible to change belts over each time, but I expect a clever person could work out some kind of electrical clutch mechanism to allow the alternator to be turned by either engine. Perhaps the electric clutch thingy off a belt-driven air conditioning pump could be adapted?Jeremy
It might be more reliable and a lot quieter to use one of the smaller Yamaha or Honda generators. You could then power a charger for the batteries. It might be more economical than having to run a big genset just to charge the batteries. Of course, you'd have to have gasoline on the bus, but some of us do anyway.David
I have a 24 volt electrodyne alternator I bought off of E-bay 2 or 3 years ago. It was a new rebuild from detroits city transit. I don't know the specs on it as far as amp's, some of you may. I also have a brand new Honda generator remote starter. My inverter is 12 volt and I have no intentions of changing that, works fine. Can I use all of this stuff to build a cool genset or should I put it on E-bay and start over? Don't know if there's a way to rectify,capacitate, modulate or just reduce voltage. Those other 3 words were just thrown in there to impress you guy
in 50+ years of RV'ing I only had an alternator on a vehicle quit one time. At the next town I stopped at Sears and purchased a small battery charger. I then started my genset and connected the battery charger to the coach battery so I had lights and the other needed electrical items. I did not have an inverter. In fact this was before the days of the inverter. I did always carry the battery charger after that, but never needed it. This was on a gasoline coach. A diesel coach requires very little DC power to keep running. Richard
Richard,The automotive alternator was developed long before the 60's.I've seen refences to them clear back into the 40's, and the PD4104 had what was called an AC generator inthe 50's.Just a little worthless trivia from my coffee and 12v clouded mind.
Your making this more difficult (for me) than it needs to be. My understanding when I started this thread was that you could make a generator of sorts using an alternator and just charge your batteries to keep up with the demand on them from the inverter. eliminating the need for a large, expensive, and loud generator. I already have a coleman 3500 generator that does the job when called upon. I however cannot use my smart charger off of it as it has already burned up 2 of them. Just not compatible. I may build one of these just for fun and something to do and the learning experience.Now my previous post about building a genset out of a V-Rod motor was my ultimate goal when the bus is complete. Correct me if I'm wrong but after reading the thread about the 24 volt alternator I thought I could do both things and have redundancy built into this unit. Just for example only... I buy that generator head from Northern Tool. Drive it with the V-Rod motor to make my regular genset.Then I use the built in alternator to keep my house batteries charged. You can get heavy duty alternators for them to help with the larger load, which still may not be enough to keep up with a running load, but it would not need to since if its running any way your running the generator also, unless you build in a disengage device. It probably don't make sense to any of you but I think it would be way cool. The Ultimate Harley Bus
Just for example only... I buy that generator head from Northern Tool.
No way. The silicon diode was not invented until the 50-60's and the brushless alternator was not possible without the diode. Prior to that time all the devices generated the DC directly and removed it from the revolving armature with the aid of very heavy DC brushes riding on commutator bars. AC generators (not alternators) prior to that time used heavy duty brushes riding on sliprings. RichardQuote from: Dallas on January 24, 2007, 01:50:18 PMRichard,The automotive alternator was developed long before the 60's.I've seen refences to them clear back into the 40's, and the PD4104 had what was called an AC generator inthe 50's.Just a little worthless trivia from my coffee and 12v clouded mind.