Posted by Sherman in Idaho [50.120.88.57] on Sunday, October 04, 2015 at 13:00:19 :
In Reply to: Installed One-Wire Alternator posted by Dave Horvath [98.239.144.92] on Saturday, October 03, 2015 at 23:28:29 :
Looks real good to me. I notice the extra small pully on the alternator. That's probably a lot of why it puts out current even at idle. I'd be curious to know if anyone has figured out the maximum safe RPM for a modern alternator relative to the redline speed of the engine, to ensure that the alternator can never over-speed. So long as it doesn't over-speed under extreme conditions, the more RPMs the better, it seems to me.
A big part of the reason they went from generators to alternators is that alternators can take hire RPMs because the slip rings are continuous, rather than the segmented commutator on a DC generator. At extreme RPMs, a DC generator's commutator segments will fly apart, before slip rings will.