Hello derekisastro, welcome to the forum.
Overlapping coils on a radially wound alternator will allow you to fill all available space with copper winding. This in turn makes the coils thinner because the winding is spread out over the entire surface area. You can choose to fill the winding space with fewer coils but you will then have thicker coils and fewer of them. Both examples will use the same amount of wire but you'll likely get less performance from fewer coils because their thickness will not allow for a close air gap.
You could make a radial alternator similar to an axial flux but would need to have an inner rotor and an outer rotor with a circular stator between them... Don't believe this would be and easy task. Building simplicity of an axial flux is one of its main strong points.
I started a radial alternator project and then put it on hold when it became apparent that building the steel core for the stator was going to be extra challenging. Remember you need to complete the magnetic flux circuit on any alternator. Either through magnet to magnet flux or from one magnet to laminated electrical steel flux.
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Hope this helps!
CM
Hey CM,
Thanks for the explanation, and yes, it helps to a degree, though still, irrespective of how much content I have consumed from all sources (and it's a lot), some of the explanation still is lacking ... don't get me wrong, I think the reason "because it's easy" is a totally legitimate reason and is probably enough of an explanation for me but it seems to me to not be the 'whole' reason.
As an example of what I mean, I get that your explanation of the radial generator and using overlapping coils leads to performance increases (?) due to having a smaller air-gap but then shouldn't the same logic apply to axial flux generators? Yet, on this same message board, I've seen the exact opposite explanation. That overlapping coils on an axial flux generator lead to thicker coil structure and so an increased air gap and so reduced performance ... you'll have to excuse my either misunderstanding or my trust in logic because to me, at the moment, that seems illogical, that overlapping coils leads to both thicker coils and greater air gap as well as leading to thinner coiling and reduced air gap.
Again, to reiterate, I do understand that by NOT having over-lapping coils in an axial flux design makes the design constraints much easier and simpler to deal with ... and that may be the best reason but having a radial stator in my hand, trying to wind over-lapping coils, I can't help but feel the same argument applies, without overlapping coils it would be SO much easier to wind! Does that make sense?
To also further help my understanding as well as understanding what I am talking about, I saw a great little axial flux design/coiling method on windstuffnow.com that, to me, seems to be quite a neat little design for an axial flux with overlapping coils. Am I somehow missing something in that design, other than maybe a slightly(?) increased difficulty in the design of the generator, that would lead to decreased performance issues?
Because the message board won't let me post links, I am referring to the Windstuffnow.com 3phase_turbine_kit in their store section ... the downloadable pdf instructions shows the winding I am talking about.
Again, thanks for the reply!