Thanks for the comments, Yes Boondocker these are getting hard to find. I've found a few 32 volt ones which would be good for a 24 volt system. But the 110 volt ones are rare. i guess not alot of people wanted to look after, or could afford 55 batteries!The 110 volt ones were more common for small towns and villages for street lights and the dance hall.
Sparweb, The inside of the governer is a work of art for sure. For being built that long ago I was amazed when I pulled the cover off and everything looked like new!
On each shaft inside there is an inner and outer tapered roller bearing, that you can grease. The shaft never makes more than a third of a turn as it twists the blades, but they never used bushings.
When I first erected it, at slow speeds I could hear a click evertime it went around, drove me nuts.
I had one outer bearing that was a bit loose so decided to replace it, the bearing shop talked me into going to a greasable ball bearing rather than tapered roller. So I ended up replacing all 6 bearings to ball bearing type.
When I had it all apart I found my click. In behind one shaft was a teardrop shaped weight they used at the factory to balance the governer. The threaded bolt holding the weight on had loosed slightly to let the weight rock back and forth against the side of the houseing.
The out of focus meter you see is trying to show 42-43 amps, thats what it was putting out that day at about 60 volts. I think the meter has a range of 0-150 amps or so.
At only 22 feet in height there are very few days this generator is stopped, it seems to be always turning and always putting something in the battery bank. I cant wait to get it up to 60 feet!
