Technical Need a suggestion for an electrical load

I have built a rig to test generators (and regulators) using an old Norge electric motor. It works great except I need to come up with an electrical load so that I can see some readings on an ammeter I've installed. I have been using a pair of headlights but they only draw 6-8 amps and are a bit big, I would like to use something that is small and draws 20 amps. Any suggestions?

 

How about a heating coil out of an old electrical room heater?

 

Get a wire-wound ceramic core resistor with a .6 ohm resistance. It will need to be rated for at least 250 watts. Make sure where it's mounted that it has adequate room for cooling because it's going to get hot....

 

Electric fan, elect. window or fuel pump could draw up to 20 amps. Not really small though

 

A heater blower motor could draw up to 40 amps depending on size.

 

hunt around the swap meets for an old Sun VAT tester....

 

Use a battery load tester. Available at Horrible Freight for $21. Saw this thread last night and didn't reply 'cuz I figured someone would beat me to it. Easy solution

 

ditto.
I was going to suggest a lot of 100 W lightbulbs butt Chevy 57 reply makes a lot more sense.

 

The problem with using a battery load tester is those are designed to put a much larger load on than what the OP needs; after all, he's trying to test a generator system that probably at best can only put out 40 amps, not the several hundred amps that most battery load testers do.

I suggested a .6 ohm resistor for a 20 amp load, but using four 2.4 ohm 100 watt resistors, two 20 amp rated switches, and a bit of creative wiring could give you a tester that would allow testing at 5 amps, 10 amps, and 20 amps and allow you to test the regulator under different loads, not just full load.

 

A starter pulls a pretty good load. You can create drag on it all the way to lock rotor AMPS if you try hard enough.

If you had it lying around modern stereo equipment draws a pretty good load too, and you would have the added caveat of tunes while you work. I am not sure but I would bet that an air ride compressor is also a leach.

 

Back in the day, military used fans for some electrical load testing, inherently self-cooling...

 

The old Sun testers have a variable load....it is designed for testing charging systems, as well as batteries.

 

You can still get battery/charging system testers (I've got an '80s Snap On unit) but they're not all that common and rarely cheap if in good working order....

 

Carbon Pile resistor is whats used in the old testers. It's discs of carbon and as you put more pressure on them the resistance lowers and draws more amps. It's the device Squirrel is talking about.