Vertical alternator orientation?

[BioHazard]

I've seen plenty of backyard DIY chargers made out of an old lawnmower engine and an old car alternator. My suspicion is these homemade devices don't generally rack up a whole lot of hours and are probably not designed for longevity.

Is it ok to use a stanard automotive alternator vertically, will it hold up long term this way? Obviously the bearings are usually meant for horizontal use...does it make a whole lot of difference?

[wiebe]

My delco has a balbaring in the front and a roller baring in the rear .
I think it wil run vertical for a long time .
And the tension on the v belt is holding the balls in the ball baring in the middle of the groove .

[mobile_bob]

i agree, the belt tension will keep the balls pretty well centered in the race

while there might be some penalty in lifespan i doubt it is much more than a 10% reduction in lifespan
and when you think about alternators and what generally fails first, it is almost always something other than a brg failure.

so i would have no issues with vertical mounting of an alternator.

bob g

[wiebe]

When you think about it there is more runtime to win with a real bal bearing like skf ore one of the other names .
And maintaning the bearing ,
I like to worke with the 2rs1 one,s they have rubber seals in them ,at my worke they like to run 4 times more then the ones with the metal seals.

Greetings Wiebe.
ps must instal amerikan spell chek /next to my dutch one.

[SteveU.]

Hi Guys
This has become an important question for me recently. Ah-hum. As you may have noticed I am into self produced woodgas fueling. My personal pet project is emergency/site made gen sets made out of common obtainuim. I am West Coast Ring of Fire USA. Sooner or later we gonna have a Big One earthquake/tsunami event here. Our sediment/geologic deposits say this happens every 300-800 years and we are now overdue.
Got the woodfuel gasifier possibilities narrowed down now. Natures gonna supply the woodfuel. Look at the pictures after a tsunami, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, nuke blast - lots of wood fuel then down at ground level then.
In my little mountain valley with ~2000 people there is probably ~200 riding lawn mowers and at least 1500 vehicles with 12vdc alternators and batteries. 90% of the riding lawn mowers are now vertical shaft engines. There will NOT be the purpose built right angle drives available. Lawn mower differential ratios are all wrong to spin the alternators fast enough and anyway drive gears setups noisy, energy wasteful and just one more complexity to fab and then breakdown.
"I think" (HOPE!) maybe both you Mobile Bob and Weibe are correct that with belt tension the ball bearing will be forced self centered. How well and long this works is going to depend a lot on the individual alternator. My Eletrodynes have a BIG wheel bearing sized floating roller bearing on the drive end - no centering or side thrust capability there. Just a small 6203-2rs ball bearing on the opposite end - but they do have a non wound light weight rotor pole piece. The 8HA Loadhandler's you like MB do have ballbearings on both ends but also have a  massive heavy herkin' wound rotor. By the way almost all automotive alternators by the late 1980's went away from a floater roller/needle bearing for the easy heating expanding and contracting management due to the RPM shaft bouncing kicking sharp edged variable duration voltage spikes into the electrical system screwing with the by then digital onboard computers.
Regards
Washington State Steve Unruh