What's what in watts.

I get a lot of questions about watts, and what it means.  That is because wind generator manufacturers rate their generators in watts, or the (make it sound better than it is) watt hours... 
What is the difference in watts and watt hours...... For example: someone says (this is a 25 watt generator) most people would think; ewww, yuck, that stinks!
How about this instead, (this is a 250 watt/h generator...  Not too bad eh??
So watch "watt" you are being fed. ;) (pun intended)

This page is not going to be a lesson in electronics, its just going to be an explanation of wattage in "amperage", a common term that makes more sense instead of a bunch of wattage hoopla that makes things confusing and many times misleading.

Here is what most people don't understand when they are looking at a generator system.  They think they must have lots of watts all the time.

So you know what I mean by that statement take this example:

If you were going to buy a battery charger for your car battery or even a deep cycle battery for an RV would you go to the store and buy a battery charger if it had a selectable output of  either 24 or 120 watts of charge power?

I think it is safe to say that most people would say "I think I need something bigger than that!"
Do you????   
I really doubt it...  That is actually a standard 12 volt, selectable, 2 or 10 amp battery charger like most people have in their garage.  They charge up every battery you put on them in a matter of a few hours.

Since the battery charger says 2/10 amp on it that makes it sound big enough to do the job therefore there are billions of them in garages all around the world.

Since all the DC Permanent Magnet Motors we play with are all rated in  voltage and amps , and when we are looking for a good motor to use as a generator we look for the highest voltage & amperage rating at the lowest rpm.
So for the sake of keeping it simple when you are thinking about the charge power you need for charging your battery (think amps)...
It will give you a general easy to understand base line to start with.

Now with this information in mind the TLG-500 puts out every bit of what a standard 110 volt battery charger puts out and it does it in winds of 20 mph and less, with much much more in higher winds which would make it a good fit for about anybodies needs.
Summing it up you would have the amperage rating of 3.5 amps at about 10 mph and the full 10 plus amps at about 20 mph.
That sounds pretty good doesn't it?  But wait, same 2 to 10 amps of output is only 24 to 120 watts of power......

Now I think you see what I mean about basing your information on amperage rather than watts.

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