- Location
- Northumberland
The on-trend topic of the moment. Little lister genny has been keeping the borehole running (small kettle at a push) but it's getting tedious doing everything else by torchlight. Can't afford any more chippy teas.
I acquired this at a sale for scrap money with a view to a stationary electric PTO project. 45 kW on the plate. It was advertised as a generator. Mechanically it's a 6 spline shaft, gear-up pulleys and a big motor.
On the electric side we have a 'Brook Control Gear' box with this isolator on the back with socket.
Front has start and stop switches (no lights)
Inside looks like this. Heavy yellow wires form a long trailing lead with chunky ancient alloy plug on end. Motor connections (6) in red on bottom left. Main, delta and star contactors from left to right. Contactor at top right is for the small socket on the back.
We've got something to measure/detect current/voltage/frequency? on one of the phases
Which has something to do with this circuit board
and potentially the smaller contactor and these fuses
So, question is - Have I got a generator at all? As far as I can read, this would be an asynchronous one that would need mains to excite it into life. There are no capacitors. Could it be just for boosting mains power where the grid was weak? Does a star-delta starter make sense here (there appears to be a timer unit)?
If this thing can be made to work (just read @sjt01 comment about power wall or lead battery + inverter with interest), how do you get a neutral for single phase loads when it swings over to delta?
Or is it just exactly what I was originally looking for - an electric PTO?
I acquired this at a sale for scrap money with a view to a stationary electric PTO project. 45 kW on the plate. It was advertised as a generator. Mechanically it's a 6 spline shaft, gear-up pulleys and a big motor.
On the electric side we have a 'Brook Control Gear' box with this isolator on the back with socket.
Front has start and stop switches (no lights)
Inside looks like this. Heavy yellow wires form a long trailing lead with chunky ancient alloy plug on end. Motor connections (6) in red on bottom left. Main, delta and star contactors from left to right. Contactor at top right is for the small socket on the back.
We've got something to measure/detect current/voltage/frequency? on one of the phases
Which has something to do with this circuit board
and potentially the smaller contactor and these fuses
So, question is - Have I got a generator at all? As far as I can read, this would be an asynchronous one that would need mains to excite it into life. There are no capacitors. Could it be just for boosting mains power where the grid was weak? Does a star-delta starter make sense here (there appears to be a timer unit)?
If this thing can be made to work (just read @sjt01 comment about power wall or lead battery + inverter with interest), how do you get a neutral for single phase loads when it swings over to delta?
Or is it just exactly what I was originally looking for - an electric PTO?