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Shimano DH-3N70 output

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Shimano DH-3N70 output

Old 10-26-07, 08:08 AM
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Shimano DH-3N70 output

Hey guys, I was playing around with my Shimano DH-3N70 dynohub in the lab the other day, and thought I would share my results for anyone else interested. I wasn't satisfied with the information gain from the "3W 6V" rating on the hub.

I have little (read: no) experience with motors/generators, but a fair knowledge of electrical theory. Generators act like current sources rather than voltage sources, and produce AC current, so there is more to the story than "3W 6V."

The following are rough estimations. I have access to an accurate oscilloscope, but the tests were by no means identical. I turned the wheel by hand to what I thought was a speed producing full power under each of the different loads. Here's what I've got.

When hooked up to a lumotec light (no standlight) alone, the dynohub produces roughly a 8.5Vpp waveform. (RMS of about 6V)
When a 10 Ohm resistor is shunted across the light, voltage drops to about 3.5Vpp, and light output is considerably less (not enough to light up the road, but just enough to be seen)

Using this information, and assuming the impedance of the dynohub is negligible at the operating frequency, the impedance of the lumotec light is roughly 13 ohms, which coincides with the 3W rating.

With an open load, the voltage waveform takes on a very different shape (reminds me of a, tangent graph), with voltage going all the way up to 80Vpp. Clearly this is behaving as a current source.

Basically, the dynohub was pretty consistent in providing about 750mA of RMS current. (all numbers are quite rough, remember). As expected, the waveform takes the shape of a well-behaved sine curve under normal loads at operating speeds, with frequency increasing with wheel speed. Peak current is slightly more than 1 A, and RMS around 750mA. I have a feeling there is a voltage clamp within the light itself to keep the max voltage around 6-7V.

I hope this is useful to someone. Sorry for the inaccuracy of the whole thing. I just got bored at lunch and decided to play around. To make things worse, I had to get these numbers from memory, since I can't seem to find the paper I wrote everything down on. Has anyone else looked at the dynohub like this and can confirm these results?
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Old 10-26-07, 08:48 AM
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The lumotec light comes with a built in zener diode to regulte voltage/amperage (watts) to help prevent the bulb from getting fried by the dynamo when speeds become excessive. I have a lumotec head light and am using a very cheap ($11.99 US) dynamo to supply current, and I've seen 30mph with the dynamo in the active position, and the bulb has survived with no issues.

By the way...what does RMS stand for?
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Old 10-26-07, 11:02 AM
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RMS is Root-Mean-Squared. It's basically a way of measuring the "average" strength of a signal with varying amplitude. I quote "average" because in a sine wave centered around 0V, the average voltage is 0, but the RMS is .707 times the peak value.

Technically speaking, it's the square-root of the sum of the squares of the components divided by the time component.
Sqrt((a^2+b^2+c^2)/t). Confusing.

The magic number is sqrt(2)=.707 for sine and cosine waves.
So when the voltage is a sine wave with 8.5 volts peak-to-peak, .707*8.5=6V
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Old 10-26-07, 11:21 AM
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Originally Posted by JSteiner
RMS is Root-Mean-Squared. It's basically a way of measuring the "average" strength of a signal with varying amplitude. I quote "average" because in a sine wave centered around 0V, the average voltage is 0, but the RMS is .707 times the peak value.

Technically speaking, it's the square-root of the sum of the squares of the components divided by the time component.
Sqrt((a^2+b^2+c^2)/t). Confusing.

The magic number is sqrt(2)=.707 for sine and cosine waves.
So when the voltage is a sine wave with 8.5 volts peak-to-peak, .707*8.5=6V
Thank you. I would never have gotten that without a good explanation...which you gave.
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