[clug] Exercise and pay the bills!

[Sam Couter]

Robert Edwards <bob at cs.anu.edu.au> wrote:
> A (smallish) car alternator (ie. 13.8V) and a 12V-48V inverter might be
> the best bet to get 48V into your power feed-in.

This discussion drifted in all sorts of amusing and off-topic
directions, but I just wanted to come back to this bit.

A car alternator usually produces close to 15 volts if the regulator is
still working correctly. A lead-acid battery is nominally 12V but really
produces 13.8 and the alternator needs to charge that, not just meet it.
So it's a little higher. I don't know how easy it would be to just
replace the regulator with your own to make the alternator output 48V
instead of messing with a 12V-48V converter before the 48V-240V
inverter.

Also, the smallest car alternator you're likely to find can probably
handle at least 300W or so output, which is more than you'll be producing
on an exercise cycle unless you're a metabolic freak like Lance Armstrong.
So I don't think you need to worry about getting one that's big enough,
any will do.
-- 
Sam Couter         |  mailto:sam at couter.id.au
OpenPGP fingerprint:  A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05  5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
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