Car Alternator

[RhettSpencer]

Looking at magnacoaster setup, i have just been wondering could it be that if you remove most of the bearing friction in a car alternator and run it at a certain speed and load that it is an OU device.

Could it be that there is a sweet spot in speed and current output that it goes OU?

I have seached around for a few hours and have seen reports of 50% to 80% efficient but that is at full load.  Could a lightly loaded alternator with the bearings freed up be over 100% efficient?  Most car alternators have sleeve bearings packed with grease you can hardly turn them by hand or if you can they will only spin a couple of turns before stopping.

If you could get 200 to 300 watts 24/7 and then run as many as you need in parrallel you could make a nice home power station.

magnacoaster is playing with a smaller alternator 65 amps peak output, not the 100 or 120 amp brute force models in larger cars.

Has anyone other than magnacoaster ever tried removing the bearing friction in a car alternator?

Modifing it to have ball bearings may be the trick.

Time to go to the parts store to see what this gm se alternator looks like.

Rhett

[Gearhead]

Most auto alternators have ball bearings at the pulley and needle bearings at the unloaded end.  Bearing drag is small compared to electromagnetic forces.

[RhettSpencer]

The 3 I have torn apart must be old style! They all have just a brass tube as the bearing on each end.

Rhett

[rapttor]

You probably won't find a ball bearing supported shaft in any of the 60 - 75A units. You'll want to look for an alternator out of a higher end vehicle, If my memory serves me, they'd be found in the 130A - 210A Alt's.
All of the other units have a Bronze bushing, which... are terrible if you are looking for efficiency / less free spinning resistance.
If you dig, I believe there's a few companies out there that have Magnetic bearings available now.

my financed .02

good luck,
-art

[Nali2001]

If a given genartor has no means of somehow lessening or lowering Lenz law. Then that regular generator can not be overunity since the backdrag generated by lenz law is in proportion to the watts generated. The most efficient 'normal' alternators I can think of come from http://www.electrodyne.com/ And if you want to go o.u you want to contact the guys from flynn http://www.flynnresearch.net/ and learn about their generator efficiencies