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Old 06-16-2010, 06:43 AM
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Aussie Mike Aussie Mike is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Sunbury, VIC
Cobra Make, Engine: Rat Rod Racer, LS1 & T56
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LT65 View Post
Mike,
These only produce about 3000 horsepower, at full noise of 1058 rpm with full electric load they produce about 1200 amps. They weigh in at 16 tonnes plus 7 tonnes for the altenator. Drink about 400 litres an hour.

Lionel.
Is that @ 415V? That's heaps! We had 2 engine alternators in the exchange and I reckon they would have been smaller than those. They would probably have only had to support 4000Amps at 48V and then there were batteries too.

I was most impressed by one setup I saw in one of the big city exchanges. It was a V12 or V16 with 2 big GM blowers and 4 turbochargers. I never got to see it run but I reckon it would have been awesome.

I don't know if you've ever seen one but in the early days of no break power supplies they used to have a big flywheel spinning the alternator constantly. When the mains failed there was enough inertia in the flywheel to hold the load till the gen set fired. It was pretty cool to see. This was 1950's tech but I read it's making a comeback in some of the UPS systems.

I wish I'd had the foresight to take pictures of some of this stuff.
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Melbourne Australia

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