I'll leave the bridge rectifier in there, in case I upgrade to a different motor or happen in my infinite genius to reverse the polarity. The caps provide a temporary battery, along with the fact that it can run from low input voltages and still produce 340V DC. But I'll see how it all fits together when I get the motor hooked up to the scope and slowly turn it. If it's low voltage (<100Vp-p), it might make more sense to make a buck, SEPIC or flyback converter and feed a standard 12V automotive inverter.I say it would put out DC, and that the level of DC would depend on the speed of the turbine and load on it (loading will slow down the turbine). I would suggest a battery bank as a buffer between your turbine and circuit; that would smooth out the effects of changing load as well as smoothing out effects of changes in wind velocity.
It's quite plausible that it has failed, so I'll be testing it as soon as I get my hands back on it.I'd suggest testing it before making too many plans - figure out how to wire it and run it on the bench.
Maybe the reason that a used motor had been removed from an appliance was that it had failed.
How would I configure it as a motor? (bear in mind I haven't touched anything other than a 3 phase brushless motor on my RC aircraft.)Well, did you try running it as a motor? if it's a no-good motor then its going to be a no-good generator. and I still maintain my prediction that it won't be a good generator.
ok, so something is missing, per design (maybe slightly different or less-featured model); there are some things we can eliminate: it's not either of the armature wires (because it wouldn't run otherwise), it's not either of the field wires (because it wouldn't run or switch direction otherwise), and its not either of the tacho wires (because we already verified they're there) so it must be one of the wires coming back from the variable resistor. did you see a variable resistor anywhere on the motor? I didn't.That's a good point, there are only 6 wires.
Two red wires go to the tacho/temp sensor. They go straight to the rear of the motor.
There's an earth point, which has a connector pin which is similar to the rest inside the plastic white connector, so maybe one end of something is connected to earth - perhaps a common terminal or such - or maybe a design revision?
There is a grey wire which goes to a brush on the right hand side. And there is a blue wire which goes to a brush on the left side.
There then appear to be two wires left; a brown and a black, separated by a gap in the connector. Maybe the field? Is the stator powered using the brushes?
The motor is reasonably new. Date code 28th week of '06.
Idiot question: What would be the minimum number of connections to get this to run from 12 - 24VDC?