Honda GX 35 Power for Nuvinci Developers Kit

Recommend Lou's original idea

I had my Staton gearbox converted to tri-hybrid for ~$40, including shipping. Dave drilled the hole for me and I just had to wrench it together. My intermediate shaft turns at 1100-1600 r/m, perfect for motor/gen PTO.

Just to update, my motor/gen was apparently bad. Four volts are useless, no matter the current. The new one (~$30 delivered) puts out the good volts. And the controller also worked. It blinks like it should when hooked up to the battery, while being charged from my motor/gen. The weather got cold so I could not test the whole system (motor/gen, controller, battery, and Nuvinci auto shifter as electric load) while riding, but I'm guessing it's ok. I'm also guessing there's enough extra power for a 12v light in front. I'll hang the bike off and check it out with the hyperterminal from my wife's netbook and my Radioshack voltmeter first.

We need to fully appreciate the practicality of Lou's thinking. This is a system that is affordable, balanced, and available to anyone using a Staton gearbox. I could have Mickey Moused around for months otherwise. There are lots of builds that could easily be retrofitted. I did it, so believe me, you could too!

Best to all;

Bob D.
 
Charging system, lesson learned

Folks;

I have recently used up 2 of these little motors, as generators.
https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?item=10-1674&catname=electric

They work well for a few hours, giving me plenty of power to shift my Nuvinci 171 CVP with the auto shift from the Developer's Kit. But then, voltage drops away. I took apart my first one, and it seems that my brushes wore down. Suppose I could replace them, but I don't want that much frequent maintenance. I am still thanking Loquin because he got me pointed in the right direction, and only pointed out this product without touting it.

Here is the advice from the folks I'm going to try now, along with the product..
http://www.small-generator.com/FAQ-1.htm
http://www.small-generator.com/Small-Alternator-YAF-54.htm

I hope it works. I will have to get a belt and mount to fit, but that's achievable. Also a bridge circuit, but that's cheap from Radio Shack. Any advice/user experience would be appreciated.
 
re the surplus center motors: what sort of voltage regulator circuitry did you use, b.o.b ?

That motor is 1/25th HP, and at 28 volts, you can only pull apx. 1 amp from it. If you are over-drawing on the current, this would cause the brushes to wear down very quickly.

Ideally, you would want to use a switching-type regulator, as this is the most efficient means of getting your battery charged (you don't waste a lot of the available power in heating up a resistor.) Nor do you want to just feed the voltage directly to the battery, as the high voltage difference between battery (14.4) and generator (28) will pull excess current from the generator to drag down the voltage.

motorscooter type regulators are going to pull down the voltage on the generator as well; they are designed to work with a 12V alternator/generator that has beefier wiring (and brushes, if it's a generator) that'll support 60-100 watts of power at that voltage.
 
My voltage regulator

Hello Loquin;

Here's what I ended up with. If I screwed up the attachment I will see when I post and reattach.

I tried the smaller one you pointed me to, but two of them failed. My currently installed regulator seems to be working ok. I don't know my charging amperage, but I had enough amperage to both charge the tiny motorcycle battery to a charging voltage of ~14.5 volts, and send ~2.5 amps at over 12 volts to my transmission shift control. I know that amperage because I can measure it on my wife's netbook using hyperterminal. That amperage might be higher when running (not just hung off stationery) because I am shifting under load. I charge up even while running, and with using the battery for downshifting to a stop (the mid drive gearbox PTO is stopped then). The voltage regulator was never hot, and seems to be well below it's rating, so if I had an overloading problem I think it would have been from the motor/gen. FYI, I took it apart and saw no burning of varnish or anything like that. Just worn brushes.

Bob D.
 

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