posted on Jul, 20 2008 @ 03:48 PM
Originally posted by hinkyIt's easy to knock out electric devices, it's hard to knock out a generator; using only electric fields. Do
a little study in electrical engineering and EMP, you'll figure it out.
Small gasoline generators used for home electricity back-up purposes could actually be knocked out just as easily as any other electronic devices.
Especially the portable el-cheapo Chinese ones that are quite common today.
These generators DO have many delicate electronic parts inside the generator itself: the diode in the rotor, possibly also a separate voltage
regulator having several transistors in it. And then there is the ignition electronics for the engine itself. All these parts are potential
reliability hazards.
A generator having an old-fashioned gasoline engine with mechanical ignition breaker points (or an all-mechanical Diesel engine) together with a
squirrel-cage type electric motor wired as a generator would be much more reliable in this sense. No semiconductors, this means less EMP-related
problems if nothing else!
I have two cheap Chinese gennies and they both stopped generating electricity when I tested them last summer, actually a few days apart! Now I need to
replace the blown electronic parts with more robust ones and hope they'll last longer than a few hours of use.
I do, however have an issue with computers and other electronic devices occasionally having very weird misbehavior when I'm close to them, even with
absolutely no apparent reason. My friends have already started joking about my BKC (Bad Karma for Computers) syndrome, and I no longer find it very
funny...
The latest problem was with a very well built U.S. made gasoline grass trimmer that I bought new just last week. The poor B&S engine lasted less than
five minutes and then the ignition suddenly died. I took the engine to a qualified shop for warranty repair, and the guys were astounded, telling me
this was the very first ignition module they had seen to fail for that brand as this was no Chinese junk.
Either I'm very unlucky with all electronic devices, or then I'm just an occasional... SLIder