Magnets

[azland]

Do the magnets have to be placed (sns)(nsn)? Is there any reason except that they are easier to place? Will it not work if they are all north or south?  Thank you

A tad of reading would have answered this.

[Flux]

N on one magnet disc must be opposite S on the other to be any use.

If you make all magnets on one disc N and the other disc S then you can make it work but you need to wind it differently. Don't try, you won't understand it and will get in a mess. Just take it from me that it is possible to build unipolar alternators but it is not a very wise thing to try with neos.

Why does someone always want to do things differently. Do it like everyone else and avoid trouble.

Flux

[azland]

Thank you flux.

I am trying to understand the theory behind this. By having all the magnets opposite each other it makes the flow of electricity go in the correct direction? By having them opposite one will be generating the, for instance, 110vac while its opposite will be generating -110vac is this the correct way of looking at it? Are there any references you can point me to to help me understand how and why it is done this way?

[Capt Slog]

You're close to getting it.  It took me a while to get my head around too.

Think back to school physics.  The direction of the current depends upon the motion of the conductor and the direction of the magnetic field. I'll admit now, I can't remember it either so will refer to current going 'one way' or the 'other'.

Then look here.....

http://www.windstuffnow.com/main/3_phase_basics.htm

Ignore the fact for a moment that it says three phase, but look at the diagrams where it says 1st 2nd and 3rd phase.  Imagine them as time frames for the SAME piece of wire.

You can see that as the RED wire, it doesn't cover any magnets and nothing is flowing. An instant later (BLUE wire) the DOWNs of each coil are cutting across the N and the UPs of each coil are cutting across the S, and so current is flowing around that coil.

An instant after that (GREEN) its going off the magnet and the current is begining to fall again.  

You can see that if you carry this on, the current will flow in the opposite direction as the DOWNS go across the S and the UPS go across the N magnet faces.

It helps to draw that magnets on a piece of paper and the coil on something transparent and move one slowly across the other.  I did this and plotted the current flow, hey presto, a sine wave!

Once you have this bit right, you will see SINGLE phase ac.  Most of what you will see on here will be THREE phase, which is just more coils (to put it simply) spaced so that there is always something happening.  You can go back now to Ed Lenz's page and read it again, and if you're feeling really brave try the transparency trick and plot that.  

http://www.k-wz.de/physik/threephasegenerator.html

Unfortunately, there's no substitute for reading everything you can find, but hopefully this gives you an insight.

.

 

[azland]

Thank you capt.

That was very helpful. This is how I had almost imagined it.