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Hi all. I bought a Champion w128-12v wind driven generator (circa 1920-30ish) awhile back and started playing around with it today. I'd like to ask if any of you have any literature or experience with the type?
I found an EAA forum thread that was going a similar direction, but that thread is several years old and didn't really come to any conclusions. It did somewhat describe the makeup of the device. I'll post that below.
The old school quick way to check a generator is to apply power to it ( 6 or 12 volts depending on what it uses ) and it it is good it will run like an electric motor.
That's exactly what I would do with an old car or motorcycle generator but this Champion type seems to have a voltage regulator built into it. I don't want to apply power for fear of cooking the points on the regulator. It does appear to be a DC dynamo with brushes and a commutator rather than an alternator. On an old Brit bike you would connect the two output terminals together and measure the voltage between them and earth but I'm getting nothing this way. I should say that I have no reason to think that it is US but I don't want to find any problems later on in the rebuild. Thanks for the advice so far.
Today I just spent a quick minute with it. When you put a meter on it in DC, it reads a slight negative as you flip it over by hand, didn't matter which wire to which terminal. It did not much of anything being turned with a cordless drill while reading DC.
Changing to AC on the meter we were showing something, sorry I don't remember the reading but it was clear it was active.
Where I'm going with with this is to figure out if the Voltage regulator I had mounted for the last engine driven generator will work. That was a lance neville 15v/15amp unit. I haven't tried turning the unit over with a load yet, hadn't thought of it till I read the response on EAA.
Anyway, I wanted to see if there was anything out there to read or if it has all disappeared. Maybe someone remembers.
Dan.
I found an EAA forum thread that was going a similar direction, but that thread is several years old and didn't really come to any conclusions. It did somewhat describe the makeup of the device. I'll post that below.
The old school quick way to check a generator is to apply power to it ( 6 or 12 volts depending on what it uses ) and it it is good it will run like an electric motor.
That's exactly what I would do with an old car or motorcycle generator but this Champion type seems to have a voltage regulator built into it. I don't want to apply power for fear of cooking the points on the regulator. It does appear to be a DC dynamo with brushes and a commutator rather than an alternator. On an old Brit bike you would connect the two output terminals together and measure the voltage between them and earth but I'm getting nothing this way. I should say that I have no reason to think that it is US but I don't want to find any problems later on in the rebuild. Thanks for the advice so far.
Today I just spent a quick minute with it. When you put a meter on it in DC, it reads a slight negative as you flip it over by hand, didn't matter which wire to which terminal. It did not much of anything being turned with a cordless drill while reading DC.
Changing to AC on the meter we were showing something, sorry I don't remember the reading but it was clear it was active.
Where I'm going with with this is to figure out if the Voltage regulator I had mounted for the last engine driven generator will work. That was a lance neville 15v/15amp unit. I haven't tried turning the unit over with a load yet, hadn't thought of it till I read the response on EAA.
Anyway, I wanted to see if there was anything out there to read or if it has all disappeared. Maybe someone remembers.
Dan.
