Hot alternator
Actually, at least on cars and trucks MOST generators had current limiting, at least on the years they were popular. "3 unit" regulator.
You don't even need to jump a car to destroy an alternator. Just running the battery down, jumpering it to start, and then depending on the alternator to recharge the dead battery can ruin an alternator
In "the old days" of amateur radio, there was a guy, "Jo Emmett Jennings," who has made all KINDS of stuff for the RF industry, perhaps the most famous of which are very high voltage vacuum tuning capacitors, "vacuum caps." He also was one of the famous team of players for Eimac high power transmitting tubes
Jennings also did a LOT of experiments in test equipment and amateur radio gear, most notably high-power mobile gear before alternators were common.
At one time he built up a circuit in order to get high voltage DC out of the 3-phase output of an auto alternator. This then, necessarily involved 3 specially wound transformers to transform the low voltage 3 phase to high voltage, and then rectified that. It almost seems as if he used rectifier TUBES, but this was when rectifier diodes were in their infancy so he may have used them.
This was before SSB became popular and he had built a fairly high power AM transmitter in the trunk of a car, using 4CW-150 / 250 series external anode tetrodes. These were water cooled, and so did not need forced air cooling
Amazingly, I was unable to find a photo of one of them. Like below only a 'ell of a lot smaller. The entire outer metal structure where the cooling water hooks up is the anode!!! In the case of the aforementioned tubes, the anodes are operated somewhere between 1200 and perhaps 1500VDC. So water purity and connection tubing dielectric IS important LOL
(Eimac also made some tubes that were designed for "vapor phase cooling" IE cooled by the conversion of water boiling to steam and the fact that much more energy is absorbed. Part of the tube socket was actually known as a "boiler.")
Actually, at least on cars and trucks MOST generators had current limiting, at least on the years they were popular. "3 unit" regulator.
You don't even need to jump a car to destroy an alternator. Just running the battery down, jumpering it to start, and then depending on the alternator to recharge the dead battery can ruin an alternator
In "the old days" of amateur radio, there was a guy, "Jo Emmett Jennings," who has made all KINDS of stuff for the RF industry, perhaps the most famous of which are very high voltage vacuum tuning capacitors, "vacuum caps." He also was one of the famous team of players for Eimac high power transmitting tubes
Jennings also did a LOT of experiments in test equipment and amateur radio gear, most notably high-power mobile gear before alternators were common.
At one time he built up a circuit in order to get high voltage DC out of the 3-phase output of an auto alternator. This then, necessarily involved 3 specially wound transformers to transform the low voltage 3 phase to high voltage, and then rectified that. It almost seems as if he used rectifier TUBES, but this was when rectifier diodes were in their infancy so he may have used them.
This was before SSB became popular and he had built a fairly high power AM transmitter in the trunk of a car, using 4CW-150 / 250 series external anode tetrodes. These were water cooled, and so did not need forced air cooling
Amazingly, I was unable to find a photo of one of them. Like below only a 'ell of a lot smaller. The entire outer metal structure where the cooling water hooks up is the anode!!! In the case of the aforementioned tubes, the anodes are operated somewhere between 1200 and perhaps 1500VDC. So water purity and connection tubing dielectric IS important LOL
(Eimac also made some tubes that were designed for "vapor phase cooling" IE cooled by the conversion of water boiling to steam and the fact that much more energy is absorbed. Part of the tube socket was actually known as a "boiler.")
