“After building a couple of reasonably successful alternators out of wood, I thought it would be fun to make one utilizing steel behind the magnets, and some sort of steel laminates.
The most recent wooden alternator I built works great, but the lack of iron behind the magnets and coils severely limits its maximum output and may cause inefficiencies, especially at higher output levels.
Iron behind the magnets nearly doubles the magnetic field density through the coils. Putting steel laminates behind the coils has the same effect, again nearly doubling the field density through the coils.
The wooden pillow blocks and ball bearings in the wooden alternator also limit its strength and durability. This alternator uses a rock-solid Volvo wheel bearing, which is built to take thrust forces and abuse, and will hold up well to weather…”
