Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

Wanted to thank you guys for the help. On Friday I received a package that had Ford Model A generator brushes. Those fit great. I then once again put the piece together again and back on the stand. After maybe 20 minutes it started generating power. I think maybe the new brushes had seated themselve...

I am a forum member of an antiques radio forum and one of the guys sent me some owner's manual for the one I have. I learned a few things. First and foremost it says you HAVE to have a battery connected or you can overheat the Armature. I have been testing it with a 6 volt light bulb attached. Is th...

Greatly appreciated. Seeing this makes me think mine isn't putting out enough juice. So far I have done the following: confirmed the fields are good. Reflashed the coils, they have good strong magnetism. Checked all of the leads on the armature and commutator. Cleaned all commutator sections and spa...

So here is an update. I got this to work. But what I find is that it takes a considerable amount of wind to get it to generate power. I live near the coast and there is often a 10-15MPH breeze. The windmill seems to need to spin rather fast and this translates to maybe around 20% of the time where i...

Thanks. I will take another look at the commutator. Also- do you know if new brushes can be found for these? The old ones are made by AC Delco which makes me think they were common brushes for automotive generators. I am not certain of the RPM. I live on the coast and when I tested it out it was def...

Thanks for the response. I did check for continuity and unless I was measuring the wrong things they seemed to be ok. What I did was measure both of the leads going to the two lower brushes from those to ground and I was getting continuity. Silly question: Is the commutator the area that the brushes...

Hi all. About a week or so ago I acquired a Zenith Wincharger. It came with the original blade, the generator and tail fin. I had to fabricate a stand for it. I will freely admit this is not in my wheel house. So I am seeking some very basic advice. As it sits now if I put it all together and let it...