> Thanks to many people here I finally understand how to get a 12 volt
> alternator to produce over 60 volts! I made a crude field control
resistor
> from some NiChrome wire and, powered by a 4 HP engine it is doing a fine
job
> of charging my 48 volt battery bank. I am, however, reluctant to connect
> the output of the alternator directly to the field rotor without some
> resistance inbetween. Will it damage the field coils if I give it full
> power? It stll has the internal, original diodes in there so I'm not
going
> to try it quite yet in any case. The doides are holding up fine at about
30
> amps @ 51 VDC but I suspect they are at their limit. That's about the
limit
> of 4 HP anyway.
Just for posterity I wanted to say that I've settled on about 10.75 volts to
about 12.5 volts (this increases as the batteries become more charged) going
to the field coils while charging a 48 volt battery bank. I'm using about
14 ohms resistance but this may not be exact because it's too small to read
on my analog meter and I'm not sure my cheap digital meter is correct.
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> alternator to produce over 60 volts! I made a crude field control