Ack! I haven't been doing much work on this project since trying to chop my finger off. (Totally unrelated, I assure you....)
Also, I have had some trouble with the charger. No, it's not because of running it from a generator.
I was having some trouble with the charger this summer. The charger would come on and start charging, but quickly taper down it's power. I figured that wouldn't be a problem for the hybrid setup because the issue appeared to be a mis-recognition of the "fullness" of the battery pack. With the batteries under load, the voltage drops, and the charger kicks in to full.
I tried replacing a bad resistor on the charger's circuit board. After that, it didn't work at all! Well, the charger still came on, the green light glows, and the fan blows, but no amperage out!
The manufacturer is no longer in business, so no tech support there. I did e-mail somebody that I know of who has one of the same chargers. He checked the color code on his resistor and let me know (I didn't know the exact value of resistor - ash is not a color) and found out that the one I had put in was wrong.
I replaced it with the correct resistor value. Still not working! Grr.
I think the best way to do a serial hybrid would be with a built, dedicated, charger designed to run specifically near the max continuous output of the generator. Maybe I could take my charger apart and use it as parts to build such a thing?
On the up side, the project has just become a finalist in the
Craftsman Tools Contest.
To be fair though, they do 30 finalists, but only one project will earn $5000 in tools.
That, and my project is up against a trebuchet, a made-from-scratch old-timey bicycle, and a TARDIS!
