You just bought your generator, and a few days into use, a power surge renders it useless. Power supply issues may be unmanageable, but the good news is its effects on your equipment are within your control. So, is an automatic voltage generator a necessity? The answer is simple: YES!
An automatic voltage regulator is essential in ensuring sudden surges of loads don’t cause damage by promoting a consistent and reliable output terminal voltage for generators.
Components and Reasons for an AVR generator
You need an automatic voltage generator if your area is common for steady and intermittent low or high voltages. A voltage regulator has three main elements: the Feedback circuit, Stable Reference Voltage, and Pass Element Control Circuit.
An automatic voltage regulator for a portable generator and its locations
An AVR will either be located in the main control box, the alternator’s terminal box, or under the rear cover of the alternator for portable generators. So, how does it work? On sensing the variations in voltage from the terminals, the regulator compares the set value for the optimum operation. This way, it can create the necessary adjustments by either lowering or increasing the flow of current to exciter stators, resulting in high or low voltage at the primary terminals.
Do AVRs fail?
Every device on the planet is susceptible to failure despite how efficient or well-built it is. When your generator’s AVR fails, it will lead to excitation loss resulting in a low voltage which may force a shutdown. But that is if you have an under-protection voltage set. If not, your generator may continue running, leading to severe damages.
Features on an AVR for generators
- Regulating voltage
Faulty wiring, wrong cable types or sizes, and faulty transformers are some of the factors that affect voltage regulation. Our automatic voltage regulators come with an accuracy selection of -+1% to minimize voltage variations.
- Ideal input voltage range
What’s your input voltage range? Since voltages drop more than they increase, our regulator’s input voltage range is broad and shifted to accommodate low voltage correction.
- Impedance
It is the effective resistance of an electrical device to the current. Any good automatic voltage regulator strives to achieve low impedance to avoid harmonic distortion, low and imbalanced voltage.
- Compatibility to the load
An automatic voltage regulator should be compatible with the set load for flawless operation and to avoid interfering with the functionality of other loads siphoning power from the same source.
- Accurate voltage
To sum it up, any efficient voltage regulator should improve the accuracy levels of voltage for generators. For this accuracy, achieving the voltage requirement is very critical. Remember that changing the conductor’s size does not influence a variation in voltage regulation.
Where can you get an automatic voltage generator?
While various firms offer AVRs, finding a suitable one for your electrical equipment is crucial as the wrong choice may still cause downtime, even to the costliest technology.
At Ace Power Products, LLC, we provide high-quality products, including an automatic voltage regulator with its AC alternator, so our clients do not have to stress about finding a compatible alternator. We have different models with slightly different features for different generators.