I will have to do some research on the arm type brush holders. I think I know the type you are talking about. If you could point me to any examples it would be a great help!
On the three welding turntables I have built over the years I used a 1" diameter graphite rod inside a 1" id. heavy wall tube. I isolated the tube with a phenolic mount & bushing and hooked the ground lead to the back of the tube. I had to use a very heavy spring as it was a part of the circut & had to conduct 400 amps as well. That might not be the best design with the spring in the circut but at the time I did not have an easy way to connect the wire direct to the graphite rod.
Let me know if tou think that design would be feasible for a wind turbine slip ring?
I had very good luck on the turntables using dielectric grease, the brand I use is from Trucklite and is used on electric connections on tractor trailers. I use it on all DC electrical connections on batteries & crimp connections.
Brian Clark[ Parent ]
I hope this link works. If so it shows one of the common brush holders used for this sort of job.
Having the brush directly connected to the holder arm with no intervening sliding contacts or springs makes them much better for this application. If you build your own I would use carbon graphite brushes from starter motors or other low voltage motors rather than plain graphite, although at 48v graphite would be ok
I would try the rings dry but if you get tarnishing from the weather then try a thin film of the grease that you mention. At these low speeds it doesn't normally lift the brushes on a hydrodynamic film and the tarnish prevention may be better than not having it.
Flux[ Parent ]
Linked worked fine. Thanks for the help.
