3 ms·

Are insulated pipes burried 6ft underground going to lose that much heat? What kind of voltages are we talking about? I know that to get 12v from an alternator

Are insulated pipes burried 6ft underground going to lose that much heat? What kind of voltages are we talking about? I know that to get 12v from an alternator in a van to a leasure battery in the back with a modest voltage drop you need cables sized like welding cables. Is it possible to generate voltages nearer 240v directly from an alternator or do you need an invertor somewhere? How does the load on a heating element vary in low wind conditions? Presumably the voltage and / or frequency would be lower in that case. With water you have the fact that it'll boil naturally regulating itself (so long as you let it escape). You could raise or lower the water level in the stirring chamber and possibly take advantage of convection to pump it back to a reservoir when it gets to a good temperature.

kazinator 8y ago
> I know that to get 12v from an alternator in a van to a leasure battery in the back with a modest voltage drop you need cables sized like welding cables. This is because the voltage is low, so the current has to be high for a given wattage (V x A). High current requires thick gauge wire. > 240v directly from an alternator. is it possible to generate voltages nearer 240v directly from an alternator or do you need an invertor somewhere Yes, and since what comes from an alternator is AC, you don't need an inverter, but a simple transformer to step the voltage up or down. (However, you can't store AC, let alone high voltage AC.) Motorists use inverters to get AC because the car's system is DC, as such. The car's alternator, however, "natively" puts out AC; this gets rectified to DC. (I think, alternators in fact put out three-phase AC.) Car alternators are specially designed to output 12V; there is no such limitation in generators as such. In fact car alternators use voltage regulation to stay at around 12: when the system voltage rises above the target voltage (e.g. due to higher RPMs), the "field current" to the alternator is trimmed, which acts to reduce its output voltage.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  > Yes, and since what comes from an alternator is AC, you don't need an inverter, but a simple transformer to step the voltage up or down. I probably should have said AC-to-AC convertor rather than inverter. My problem with that is if your using a permanent magnet generator then the voltage generated is proportional to the speed and then how do you know how to size your wiring and your transformer? It's probably not that big a deal and the answer is probably somewhere along the lines of 'leaving plenty of room for error'. In short though, I don't think it's quite as simple as just connect a generator and some wires to heat the water.

kazinator 8y ago

> I know that to get 12v from an alternator in a van to a leasure battery in the back with a modest voltage drop you need cables sized like welding cables. This is because the voltage is low, so the current has to be high for a given wattage (V x A). High current requires thick gauge wire. > 240v directly from an alternator. is it possible to generate voltages nearer 240v directly from an alternator or do you need an invertor somewhere Yes, and since what comes from an alternator is AC, you don't need an inverter, but a simple transformer to step the voltage up or down. (However, you can't store AC, let alone high voltage AC.) Motorists use inverters to get AC because the car's system is DC, as such. The car's alternator, however, "natively" puts out AC; this gets rectified to DC. (I think, alternators in fact put out three-phase AC.) Car alternators are specially designed to output 12V; there is no such limitation in generators as such. In fact car alternators use voltage regulation to stay at around 12: when the system voltage rises above the target voltage (e.g. due to higher RPMs), the "field current" to the alternator is trimmed, which acts to reduce its output voltage.

VBprogrammer 8y ago
> Yes, and since what comes from an alternator is AC, you don't need an inverter, but a simple transformer to step the voltage up or down. I probably should have said AC-to-AC convertor rather than inverter. My problem with that is if your using a permanent magnet generator then the voltage generated is proportional to the speed and then how do you know how to size your wiring and your transformer? It's probably not that big a deal and the answer is probably somewhere along the lines of 'leaving plenty of room for error'. In short though, I don't think it's quite as simple as just connect a generator and some wires to heat the water.