A friend is developing wind turbines and needs some advice The output of the turbine is 3-phase. Below 400rpm the coils are configured as star. Above that, delta (I think I got that the right way around - he took his notes). The 3-phase presently goes to a converter to make several amps of 12V for battery charging At a certain point, roughly 400Hz, the delta configuration gives a lot more wattage To make the switch from star to delta, he has a circuit based on the LM2917 V-to-F chip, and that operates a relay. The circuit needs at least 50mA What he wants to do is take a tap from the 3-phase terminals to get 12V-ish volts to run this circuit. Although the circuit has a 16V zener clamp and 7808 regulator on V+, so actually 8V would do. He doesn't want to have an extra wire coming back from the converter output to supply the 12V I suggested taking two of the 3-phase terminals on the turbine head and feeding them into a bridge. He tells me that at high speed, the turbine can put out up to 110V (he didn't specify pk-pk or RMS). At low speed, just a few volts, obviously Is what I suggested safe/practical ? Also, how would I cope with such a wide range of input voltages into perhaps a SMPS or linear regulator ? Bit out of my comfort zone TIA =============================================== If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist