ToroGen Generator Questions

[injin man]

Bob,

I'm not an EE, but I've stayed at a Holiday Inn Express,   , your ToroGen
is very close to a design I'm studying that was built by a couple guys with
lots of letters behind their names at NREL. Theirs is a Direct Drive Axial Flux
Toroid wound field(one big coil) fitted into 'poles' with slots with the Neo mags
sandwiched between the rotor segments, there were 2 coils per phase and the
phases then rectified to 48V or so.

My variation involves a series of three sets of 3 radial toroids with a radial flux
rotor probably a 12 pole with the windings done for 24V.  I'll see if the paper is protected
and then post a link.
Here's a link to the paper it's from 1998 but hey most of the stuff we like is at least
a hunderd years old.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24996.pdf

[mobile_bob]

i was aware of the nrel guys work, and as you recognize there really is nothing new under the sun that somebody
didn't work on over a hundred years ago,, nothing is more so than alternator design.

having said that, i look forward to your progress, and would like to see how it works out.

while the design is called a toroid, because of the single toroid coil stator, my design was quite different and truly modular
in that each coil had its own toroid core and there could be as many as one wants poles and phases. the advantage if there is one
is the ability to remove a single toroid core with its related coil for replacement in case of burn out, or one could reconfigure the number, connections etc to get whatever output he wants. also a machine could have a complete set of toroid cores wound with differing turn counts and gage of wire to match the blade set, wind speeds and voltage requirements of an installation.

basically the torogen would be an experimenters dream because of its modularity and ease in making changes rapidly.

btw,, the only letters behind my name are (Jr.)  yup there is a Bob Sr.



bob g

[injin man]

So it's coil wound on it's own pole.

The NREL generator looks like it would work quite well but it's really not simple enough.
I have a another idea for a pole section that involves using a special Carbon/Graphite
R393 that I can get right down the road from my day job. The unit may still end up with
a laminated pole arrangement but just for grins and giggles it would be fun to test the
reaction with the new material. The Radials are definitely harder to work than the axials.

The good news since I'm in  the middle of the industrial district here I can usually just
will things like magnet wire, sheet goods, electronics and such, this should make prototyping this a lot smoother. I don't have a scope, is their an alternative?

[mobile_bob]

in the torogen design each toroid had a slot cut through it where the magnet rotor ran, each core would have its own coil
wound upon it.

back when i first worked up the design, (btw i found out some years later it is basically a modern version of an 1886 design)
i found a toroid manufacture that could not only build the toroids out of grain oriented magnet steel of whatever composition i
wanted, but could also cut the slots and polish them as well.

winding a slotted toroid is much easier than a close toroid as well.

the toroid core makes for the shortest and  most perfect magnetic circuit, choosing grain oriented steel of thin section
also improves the magnetics.

someday i want to actually build the prototype and do some testing

as for the scope thing?  is there an alternative to a scope? not sure what that might be
however you can buy a used one off of ebay for 50 bucks or so that is more than adequate for alternator/generator work

bob g

[injin man]

Thanks for your input, I'll check out ebay when I get to the office. I can't help
but imagine it would be a necessary alternator builing tool. In another post the
light bulb lit up about wave forms using a magnet across a coil.