Hi flux, I cant help but think that there's some folks here that are dancing around the issue that jerry is trying to prove. You don't have to build a test alt to get the answer. Jerryrig/delta, wound for twice the usual turns we would normally use on a given star stator eats the pants of the star mode for startup and all the way up the range. As soon as I learned fron Peter in Netherlands the resistive ratio's between the two systems, it was a lay down hand. Efficiency and theory don't amount to a hill of beans, star cannot compete with delta, pound for pound in the format jerry suggests. There is no fair comparison, wound jerry's way, you get a superior voltage, with half the resistance of what star is capable of...game over. We didn't need the test results, ohms law tells it all, and thats without the 1.73 : 2 deficiency that exists in his original format ie 7.5 ounces of copper each, same mags, same everything else, but half the circular mills for jerryrig. The diode differentials barely exist, his tests showed the difference between jerryrig and delta, if star has some difficulties as well with the non-linear diodes, think also that the load is non-sinusoidal. It is behaving like the front end of a pwm device on an ac line. It presents no load when the phase falls below 12v and then climbs rapidly until tdcenter and then it falls below 12v again. This is probably where there will be circulating currents, and star will suffer from the non-linear event horizon, more than jerryrig.
"At this moment we have mostly speculation based on one very odd alternator with unusual spacing of coils and magnets " :-Not speculation, in field measurements. The magnets. coils spacing does not matter provided they are 120 deg apart, and symetrical, and same hole size, same legs. His design was not haphazard, the two stators were for all reasonable pruposes physically the same, but for turns and wire size.
" before we can even think about the effect on a rectifier we need to know how it behaves in star and delta on a 3 phase resistive load. We need peak and rms voltage of each coil and the same for line voltage in star and delta. Then we need to load each one as a 3 phase machine with something like a 3 phase star connected load with resistors of perhaps 2 ohms each."
:-this sounds like shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. There is diodes diodes diodes. It matters not what a resistive load may or may not do. It is irrelavant. As discussed, the battery is no load until v becomes greater than battery voltage ( plus a little to overcome back emf in the battery). It then looks like a very big capacitor (mostly). The diode then conducts for either circuit. Any losses are difficult to blame for star performing so badly. If stars losses were diode losses, we wouldn't use diodes. its that simple. The battery doesn't begin to behave like a linear resistive load, more like a capacitor in hv side of switchmode power supply. I have no doubt that it would also give a skewed power factor especially for star config,as the non-use of all the voltage below 12v makes it very difficult to pretend it is a resistor for the windings....it's the kind of thing power companies hate, your'e only using the top of the waveform.
" We need peak and rms voltage of each coil and the same for line voltage in star and delta. Then we need to load each one as a 3 phase machine with something like a 3 phase star connected load with resistors of perhaps 2 ohms each "
:- not for this application we dont. We need to know which one charges the battery with the most AH. Thats all that counts.
Now, I've become uncertain what it is you are trying to compare, but jerry has been very specific... for x amount of copper and magnets, which system gives the best output. Its not rocket science. He's done the tests and they confirm what should have happened, twice the turns with half the resistance....has to win , W= E squared /R not a contest at all. If E is (2 : 1.73) times larger, and r is 2 times smaller ..Please explain to me how with this situation it could be otherwise. The diodes just rectify as best they can and we can't change that so we look at the results after rectification and the dust has settled, they pretty much follow the maths (except of course the 16% more turns on star (at your behest), and star still struggled because of its higher resistance. Twice the power is lost in the star stator than jerrydelta at any power output (except zero I suppose). star cannot win, no matter how you try and fiddle it.
Go down with dignity I say .........oztules:)