Greetings,
I'm a student working on a project so I'm working with a Top Ramen budget. So far all of my mock up plans are completely out the window and I'm MacGruber'ing this thing like crazy! Here's the skinny:
Quick setup:
There is a pneumatic cylinder powering a gear. Attached to this gear is a belt. The belt is turning a vehicular alternator.
What I need:
To keep the alternator cranking out approximately 13 AMPs (700-1500 RPMs respectively). It produces electricity AC (naturally) which is converted to DC and this is powering a heating element that I am needing to keep water boiling at a certain temperature. The AMPs do not need to be constant or entirely reliable as they are not powering a safe at Ft. Knox or anything. If the element cools a bit during a transition of some sort that's fine the goal is just to maintain the water boiling.
Here's my problem:
It's completely unregulated! So, if you put a multimeter (AMP gauge) on the alternator terminals that's great because I can watch it (manually - sigh -) only I am not wanting to stand there bleeding the air lines to slow down the cranking piston or tightening the air line to speed things up when I'm trying to show this thing. Also, this piston is not as exact as I would like it. At times it begins producing too much or not enough; I've got a program I wrote which is taking care of the microcontroller that powers the solenoid valve timing to keep the gears revolving correctly. Also, I'm not fast enough to make adjustments to the system to keep things regulated (if it starts producing too many AMPs I cannot slow it down fast enough).
Purposed fix:
So, here's my heuristic - (at this point I'm hoping to do a mechanical fix because I cannot afford to have an electronic fabrication specially developed to create an electronic sensor. Although this would be ideal to have it computer regulated I think this idea will just have to set on the back burner) could I use something like a linear slide? I could just set up conditions such as:
- IF AMP readout = 13.5 AMPs THEN hibernate solenoid from activating
- IF AMP readout = 12.5 AMPs THEN reactivate the solenoid
Basically, if I can have a mechanical shutoff that should work just fine (I'm thinking) because I could just tie a switch into the solenoid circuit. So if conditions are correct the solenoid is either activated or deactivated. This should maintain a more regulated flow, yes?
Closing:
Those are my thoughts and a basic rundown of the issue. I'm more than open for suggestions as to possible better solutions or ways of doing this and also how/where I can get a hold of an (extremely affordable) part or solution.
Thanks in advance everyone!
Matthew~
