[Josh8loop]

Fellas,

I am now pursuing the creation of a "Hybrid" alternator for my 2002 VW Jetta TDI. My objectives are to modify the alternator rotor with some properly placed permanent magnets to help partially reduce the energy required from the rotor coil to create the proper magnetic field density. This will be more of a magnetic rotor "Bias" so to speak. Normal alternators full fielded will use 3-4 amps, so if I can reduce that a bit to say 1-2 amps that will be a savings in itself. The other objective would be to coat the newly modified rotor in epoxy resin to make a nice smooth shape-this should cut down on windage losses a bit(will increase rotor mass though). Since we now have a magnetic bias the rotor no longer needs so much current to maintain rotor magnetization so the resistive rotor coil losses will be reduced and rotor temps should be acceptable with the resin coating. The final change I would like to incorporate into this project is to bring the 3-phase AC out closer to the battery location to be rectified with some low forward voltage drop schottkey diodes. The schottkey diodes will reduce losses in the diodes to some extent, and transmitting the battery electrical energy as AC current directly to where it will be rectified could further reduce resistive losses in electrical connection between the alternator and battery. Synchronous rectification I'm told can reduce rectification losses even further, but at this point I'm unsure how to acheive that.

I envision the use of a Click PLC control topology with inputs from brake pedal, accelerator pedal, battery voltage, charge current and others. This will allow simple and extremely flexible alternator control logic schemes that can be changed at will as things progress. A local friend has donated an alternator as a guinea pig for the transformation. I hope to modify it, test it on a test stand at a local auto parts store, and install it into the car eventually.