I'm trying to make a quick charger for my 36v 150ah battery pack using ether inductors or capacitors and a high current rectifier. I'll be powering it with a ground isolated 2kw generator. It'll only run for a couple minutes at a time while I monitor voltage, current and temp. Which would be better, capacitors or inductors? I've already built one successfully with induction motor run caps but it took dozens of them for an 8 amp power supply, but I'm looking for closer to 30 amps. I've also been considering a mercury vapor 400 watt ballast with the secondary coil re-wound for the lower voltage. The batteries may have up to 25 amps being drained from them while charging.

 

Since your generator can only put out 16 amps at 120 volts you need something to step down the voltage so you can get more current, not just burning up the difference in heat. It would call for a really big transformer or a big switching regulator.

 

So if I re-wired a 400w ballast to put out ~40v that would be my best bet? I also have a 70 amp welder from harbor freight, it could work if I added a full wave rectifier.

 

The welder might be the best bet. Do you know the voltage of it?

 

Around 35 volts AC, I could use it to charge the batteries all at once when they're really low then charge 2 to full then finish the 3rd. Also I think that the rectified output would be around 40 volts (correct me if I'm wrong, I know 120v is like 150v rectified) which would be just about right. Or I could just switch to 24v, I haven't built the battery bank yet so that wouldn't be a problem.

 

You know, I think that might work.