Electrical – BLDC generator output current

alternatorbrushless-dc-motorgeneratorrectifier

I'm using the following BLDC motor as part of a project to generate power:

http://www.rcdude.com/Cobra-C-3520-18-Brushless-Motor-p/c-3520-18.htm

I'm able to spin this motor to about 3000 RPMS which gives me about 5 Volts. This is to be expected given that the motor is rated at 550 KVs. I'm using a three-phase rectifier with a smoothing cap to convert this to DC power. What I don't understand is the current produced. I'm getting about 33mA which is to low for my application. Essentially I would like to spin a small PC fan with this power. I'm able to do it but at a very low speed given that there isn't enough current flowing from the generator. What I would like to understand is why there is so little current flowing at those RPMS. I would at least expect it to be 100mA or 200mA, but this is just speculation on my part. Apologies for my noobness. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Best Answer

You think that the problem is in the motor; that the motor cannot supply more than 33 mA. This isn't correct, the problem is that your 12V fan is not able to function at such a low voltage and thus does not draw much current. Remember: current isn't "pushed" by the source, it's drawn by the load. If you were to short out the rectified output and measure the short circuit current with a multimeter, I guarantee you will see several amps flowing trough (possibly blowing the multimeter fuse, destroying the diodes and/or overheating the motor coils in the process).

A standard silicon rectifier diode will drop 0.7 V when conducting. As a rectifier bridge has two such diodes always in series with the load, the diodes will steal 1.4 V from whatever meager voltage your motor puts out.

You can rectify this by using schottky diodes, which have a much lower voltage drop (about 0.2 V), and using a lower RPM/V (KV in radio control terms) motor. For example, a 140 RPM/V (KV) brushless gimbal motor should put out 21.5 V AC at 3000 RPM, which can then be rectified and dropped down to a nice stable 12V or 5V with a buck converter.

If you want to stick with your motor for whatever reason, and you have the necessary programming skills, you could also write a custom firmware for a commercially produced ESC (RC brushless motor driver) to act as a synchronous rectifier instead. The ESC MOSFETs will drop next to no voltage when conducting and they are already arranged in a full bridge configuration, granting much better efficiency than any diode. You could even boost the motor voltage while rectifying by pulse width modulating the MOSFETs, doing exactly what the ESC normally does but in reverse.