electrical gurus need your help please

[sledstew]

I am building a project where I need a voltage regulator/rectifier that can handle at least 45 volts AC , need the volt regulator to bring voltage down to 12 volts and the rectifier to charge DC. Any ideas for a volt regulator/rectifier would be great.

Thanks in advance

 

[madgadget]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

Need more information.

What frequency of AC, what will the variations of the voltage on the AC side be and how much current do you want from the 12V side.

 

[sledstew]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

pm'd you

 

[halas]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

I am building a project where I need a voltage regulator/rectifier that can handle at least 45 volts AC , need the volt regulator to bring voltage down to 12 volts and the rectifier to charge DC. Any ideas for a volt regulator/rectifier would be great.

Thanks in advance

Your question is not complete. Could you be more specific?
Are you starting with 120V? Is your goal to have 12V DC? Do you need 45 V AC? DC ? What kind of wattage do you need, how many Amperes?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

You need to get the components in the right order. Whatever AC voltage you start with feeds the rectifier which converts that AC voltage to DC. The regulator follows the rectifier (not before it) and regulates the output voltage to a specific range. If you plan to charge batteries with this setup, the regulator needs to operate between 12.6 volts and about 15 volts on the high end. Rectifiers are cheap and can be half wave or full wave and constructed from two or four cheap diodes of sufficient current carrying capacity. Building regulators are generally beyond the capability of the novice so an off the shelf style is your best bet but hand onto your wallet as they are not cheap. Are you getting the idea that we need more information here.

 

[halas]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

You need to get the components in the right order. Whatever AC voltage you start with feeds the rectifier which converts that AC voltage to DC. The regulator follows the rectifier (not before it) and regulates the output voltage to a specific range. If you plan to charge batteries with this setup, the regulator needs to operate between 12.6 volts and about 15 volts on the high end. Rectifiers are cheap and can be half wave or full wave and constructed from two or four cheap diodes of sufficient current carrying capacity. Building regulators are generally beyond the capability of the novice so an off the shelf style is your best bet but hand onto your wallet as they are not cheap. Are you getting the idea that we need more information here.

Not so fast: First you have to bring down the "whatever AC voltage you start with" like 120V AC to the lower desired level like 45 V AC or 13V AC. It would be expensive and impractical to convert high voltage AC to high voltage DC.

 

[sledstew]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

Ok guys maybe I can clear this up a bit, This is a off the wall snowmobile project that I need a volt reg/rectifier for. The starting Voltage is a steady 45 volts AC , the amperage at this point is unknown ,I just need to run some headlights, a couple air fuel ratio gauges and some other minor electronics and could probably get by with around 25-30 amp power coverage. What Im truly looking for is to be able to charge a battery (rectifier ) and power the minor electronics. The sled has a steady 45 volts AC power coming out of the stator and the goal is to get that down to 12 volts for all the elctronic accessories and 12.6-13.Volts DC to charge the battery. Hope this helps clear things up a bit.

Sledstew

 

[Texasmark]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

What Stator?

Let's see, 45v transformer coupled to 13vrms (45/13=3.5:1 step down....lot of luck finding that regardless of the amperage) then you want 25-30 amperes (13 x 30 =390 watts).

390 watts is 100 w more than the stator on my 90 hp Merc is max rated for.......Hmmmm

Mark

 

[halas]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

Oh that scenario?
You might want to go with Silvertip's advice if you have the snowmobile I can sell you a brand new regulator made for snowmobile cheap. pm me if interested...

 

[Silvertip]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

You don't need to step down the 45 volts. That is an unloaded voltage and the minute you connect the rectifier it will drop. Good heavens I did this on a 1971 Scorpion snowmobile when that sled was brand new. I really doubt that stator is capable of 20 - 30 amps. Build a full wave rectifier, epoxy the components into a pill bottle or other suitable container. Install a mating plug so it can accept the plug from whatever regulator you buy. My setup back then didn't even need a regulator as the battery took care of that job. If the stator on your sled was putting out 45 volts (loaded) the headlights would blow. The output on my sled was 38 volts unloaded. Turn the lights on and it dropped like a rock until engine revs got up higher. How old is this sled you are working on? For lights, unless the dim/bright thing bothers you, you can run lights directly from the stator. Other 12 volt stuff you add may benefit from the rectifier/regulator setup but even then, unless the 12 volt stuff is truly "electronic" and not just hand warmers, lights, etc, you don't even need the regulator or a battery.

 

[sledstew]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

Guys this sled is a off the wall motor setup ,let me tell you a bit about it. I build modified sled motors for mountain climbers. This sled happens to be mine, we built a full Billet triple cylinder 1400 cc motor and added a turbo onto it, after the turbo we started to build a fuel injection system for the motor, the coils are LS1 corvette coils, car ECU and ignition etc: thats why Im saying that the 45 volts is steady from the pickups and a regular snowmobile regulator will not be effective for this setup. I should add that a factory sled reg has 200 watts and that isnt going to cut it, I could get away with a 280 or 300 watt reg minimum.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: electrical gurus need your help please

Ahh -- see how important the little details are? Could we have eliminated a lot of guesswork had we known this in the first post. What pickups are you talking about that you are getting 45 volts from? Since you are using all automotive EFI components, why wouldn't the regulator from the auto electrical system work. If it works in the Corvette it should work on the snowmobile. If the 45 volts AC is an issue for you then you can still rectify that. Getting the DC component regulated at 13 volts is then the issue. There is an abundance of adjustable regulators on the market but be prepared to spend some bucks. But since this is apparently not an issue for you, all it takes is a few mouse clicks to search for "voltage regulators". You might look at an Evinrude Etec regulator as the bigger engines have a 133 or 75 amp alternators depending on the engine. If 1800 or 1100 watts doesn't do it for you I'm out of suggestions. I believe stator output on those motors is 55 volts or thereabouts.