Re: Power to the people!!

Posted by Ken Sadler On 2011/3/25 17:16:39

Thanks again for your suggestions OD.

Good point about the replacement metal badge - I notice that these are available all over the web, but no, it looks pretty original.

I had a quiet think about this and wonder whether I have connected the brushes the wrong way round. Obviously brush number 2 is hard to get wrong as it is grounded.

But if brushes 1 annd 2 are the wrong way round might that produce 0 volts? It occured to me that the generator would only produce a charge when the brushes were the wrong way round if the armature was spun in reverse. As this is not possible (driven only one way by the motor) it follows that the the phasing would always be wrong. I would appreciate your opinion on this.

I'm sure it is something as silly as this as I did rebuild it very carefully and it is now very clean.

The only other thing I could think of would be a complete break in one of the two wires out of the generator but they are thick and short.... either that or a really bad short somewhere that grounds any potential before it can be measured.

If it were a case of damage to the windings or the commutator then I would have expected a small voltage but intead there is nothing.

So I think that someting is reversed because when I checked the voltage from the generator before I stripped it, there was a small reading (0.03V) was not surprising considering the state of it inside but something nevertheless.

Its late now so I will have another go at it over the weekend.