Ooo---- I think I have a case of flywheel envy.                                                     Leland

Thanks for doing this Peter!  This type of info is very valueable to someone who needs it and very interesting reading to someone like me who looks at stuff like this just for fun!  (My shrink says they will find a cure for me someday!)                Leland

Hey Zeke glad you got juice!  I'm not clear what the motor controller was plugged into, regular house outlet or is it powered by the ST head?  Did you check the harmonic winding for output while the generator was making voltage?  Have you tried reversing the poliarity of the output from the motor controller to the field?  If the harmonic winding generates power when exciting the field with the motor controller I would try exciting the field in each direction, then hook up a known good bridge after each test to see if you established some residual magnetism.  If there is no output from the harmonic winding I'd stick with the motor controller method.  In fact you might have a better waveform using the external exciter but I think I'd keep a spare motor controller on hand if you are going to stick with that.  If you get the ST head working after exciting the field in only one of the directions it might be that RCAvicitems theory about an embedded magnet and Dougs theory about the wrong type of steel are correct.  If you are stuck with having to use the motor controller powered by an inverter to get power when no utility power is available, congragulations on making lemonade out of a lemon!  I seem to be good at running into mysteries like this too.     Leland

I had a Toshiba Satalite running windows 95 that was a good machine but now I have this one that has a persistant glitch when typing words.  This Toshiba runs XP pro and works O.K. except that when I'm typing it will start putting the letters in random places at random times and other weird things.  I think the keyboard controller circut is bad.  I will buy a Mac next time I get a laptop.     Leland

Hi again RCAvictim.  I was suprised at how much drag the belts added and that is what made the difference in being able to hand crank start the motor.  Without the belts on I can just barely hand start it and with the belts on I can't.  I thought of direct drive and I'm sure that would increase engine life but it was cheap and fast to use belts.  I wanted to slow it down to 2400 to try and increase engine life and the pulley from the motor mounted on the generator shaft gave me the ratio to do that using the double pulley that came with the motor.  I had to buy a $0.75 bushing to make the Briggs.  motor pulley fit the generator shaft, and I was up and running but with a lot of shaking back and forth.  The ChangFa is way too noisy so I'm setting up a listeroid set for a permenant back up genset.  I really love the design of the ChangFas and also the Petteroids but the Listeroids are way, way quieter to start with.  Leland

This golf cart wiring has a thermal snap disc circut breaker (mounted on the chassis, not the motor) that is probably there to get hot and open just before something in the motor melts.  I'd seen the cart stranded on steep hills a few times over the years waiting for the overload to cool down and reset.  Since the overload doesn' touch the motor I guess maybe somebody tried too many trips up the hill on a cold day and one day the winding failed.  It was an easy fix, I just clamped a piece of wire onto the winding with a split bolt connector.  It would make a slick setup to have a starter/generator so I will play with it.  The problems would be the cooling which could maybe be fixed with a fan and lots of holes, and the fact that it is a series motor.  I don't think it would work to try and use as a generator with the field and armature in series, and if I try and run the field in parallel I'm afraid it would need a large resister to limit the current because the field has quite low resistance due to the fact it has few windings of large gauge wire.  I think I'd have to shove an inefficient amount of current through the field to generate enough voltage to recharge 36 volts of batteries.  Because of the potential value of having a starter/generator I will experiment a little after I finish balencing.  There is just not an easy way to put a starter on a Listeroid that I can see.  I think the easiest way would be to mount an automotive flywheel on the crankshaft and make a big ugly bracket to hold the starter.  That is on my to do list if this golf cart motor/generator thing doesn't work out.  The fun never stops....Leland

Well here's a good argument for simpiel.  I just tried moving one of my heavier weights on each flywheel around and just out of luck hit a very good balance!  I can now use a dial indicater to try and fine tune the balance but it must be real close.  I haven't weighed the U channel pieces yet but I think I have about 1.5 pounds on each flywheel at about 90 degrees from the cast counterweights.  It's so nice to not feel the vibration for the first time!  This has got to help things on the genset last a lot longer!  Oops... now I have to change my forum handel  maybe I could be M61sits?  In another thread someone wanted to know how much power it takes to rotate a 6/1 and I measured the 3HP golf cart motor I'm using to turn mine 650RPM for balancing as using 50A at 32V.  Thats about 1600 watts.                     Leland