Bob, I finally used the 555 alt you talked me into!

[Mad_Labs]

Bob, All,

Well, as the subject says, I finally got around to using the Leece-Neville 555 alternator that Bob talked me into buying a couple of years ago. It's now connected to a 11hp Honda GX340. I pulled 165 amps out of it for a few minutes, 5 amps over it's rated current. I ran it at about 120 amps for 30 minutes and while it was hot, it wasn't too hot. One odd thing was I had to adjust the frequency of the PWM to the field coil to get smooth output. All the other alts I have tried have been fine with 10kHz, this one likes about 7kHz. Anyway, thanks for talking me into this not cheap but great alt. Winter is coming up and we will find out what it's really made of.

Jonathan

[mobile_bob]

Jonathan


so sorry to be so late responding to  your post, these last several months have been hell and i have had little time for the forum.

i am glad to hear you got a 555 alternator, i think you are going to really like it too.

it took me 20 years of working with all sorts of other alternators before i came upon a motorola (the grandaddy of the 555) and was
so impressed with the build quality and the fact it had dual ball brgs (front and rear) more stator and rotor poles, external regulator
and externally serviceable brush holder/set, and its high output (90amps which was quite large way back when).

i only saw one of the motorola's and it wasn't until the 90's when prestolite got the rights to the motorola and released it as the "loadhandler"
at a brand new off the shelf, no core of around 150bucks that i got really excited and started to work with them in earnest.

since then i have tried all the other new offerings that are reasonably priced (under 250bucks) and have not found anything that even
comes close to what the 555 is capable of.

looking forward to your project reports

bob g

[Mad_Labs]

Life is a busy place, so no problems for the delayed reply.

I've put about 10 hours on the alt  so far and it seems happy as a clam. The thing is so well built and easy to plug yer own controller into. I'm predicting a long hard life for this beast. Thanks again for the reccomend.

Jonathan