Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

This is for a typical late 1970's 200watt 12volt Wincharger
Im looking for a close up of the slip ring set up on the actual tower stub on top. I used to have the 10ft tower that came with my Wincharger, it was stolen??? Im needing to build the tower stub portion to fit my existing slip ring collar. I did build a wind turbine in 1981 complete with diy slip ring set up...thanks to all the Marcellus Jacobs material I could come across. Thanks if you can help.

Here's a few pics. Wincharger started using the 3-piece brush cup or collector ring assembly in 1939. Prior to that it was a 1-piece brush cup. The smaller size was used on 6V and 12V until 1982. 32V & 110V machines were a little bigger and some of the larger machines had 3 brushes....one for the field control. There's lots of pics of wincharger parts on wincharger.com under photos. The collector rings are one of the parts that seems to always get lost.

wow....you are so kind...thank you. I do have a 20ft piece of 2 inch k copper...perfect size for new rings. Thanks again!!!
Is there available brushes that go in collar? It appears mine are worn at slight angle...like the pipe had slack...a bit. Where the 1inch generator pipe slipped into tower stub.

I don’t have extra brushes. I rob parts machines or make them. The early brushes didn’t have pads, just the copper strap dragging on the slip ring. If you have access to a mill and copper material then whittle out the pad shape with a rectangular boss that fits the hole in your original brush strap. Smack it with a hammer to swage it on. Annealing the pad makes it much easier.

Mike , thank you for making repairing those electric machines sound easy , I am sure they are not easy as thereare too many moving parts . The best part are the large professional words you use to describe , like "smack " .

Thanks for appreciating the craft. I considered “bludgeon” but it seemed a little violent for such small piece of copper.

Thank you for making me smile this morning Mike !