I just bought the core to a Schmidt bicycle generator.
Actually, I kind of goofed as I had thought that it was a complete generator minus the outer housing. But, it turned out to be the stator minus the outer housing and was also lacking the magnets.
I had been fooled by the horizontal metalic parts on the stator assembly, thinking they were magnets or something.
However,
Apparently the way this alternator works,
The steel fingers are attached to steel disks on opposite ends of the alternator which are in turn attached to a steel pipe connecting the two halves of the generator.
I believe a single coil is wrapped around this center pipe.
When the magnets are placed above the fingers, they induce opposite magnetic poles in the endplates (and traveling through the pipe in the middle).
Rotating the magnetic hub around the stator will alternatively induce N and S poles to the endplates, and thus induce flux and current flow in the stator.
Anyway, I thought it was a unique concept.
One obvious extension would be to use plain notched disks with the magnets mounted between the two disks. However, such a design would be more practical with fixed magnets and a rotating stator assembly. The notches and fingers in the disks would line up and cover half of the magnets. Presumably it could also be designed to pull off of 100% of the magnets, but that would certainly complicate the design.
Anyway, I thought I would post this as food for thought.
The bicycle generator was supposed to generate 6V, 3W.
