What are the advantages and disadvantages of AC and DC generators?
First off, all generators are AC. As the rotor passes through the magnetic field, the voltage rises until it reaches the strongest part of the magnetic field and then falls to zero as the field weakens, only to reverse electrical polarity as the rotor passes through an area of the opposite magnetic polarity. However, AC “generators” use slip rings that totally encircle the rotor shaft and give a sine-wave output that reverses polarity half the time while DC “alternators” use a segmented commutator that mechanically reverses the internal wiring whenever the voltage would normally be negative, thus yielding a pulsating DC voltage. The brushes in AC generators don’t suffer that abrasive effects of constantly hitting the little edges of the contact areas on a commutator because slip-rings are smooth, and they don’t spark because they never reverse polartiy or open a circuit under load. As a result, they require a bit less maintainance. AC Generators don’t require as much additional circuit
There are no advantages one way or the other, because the type of generator you purchase will be determined by the equipment you connect to it. If you need AC power, you purchase an AC generator, and vice-versa. This becomes a factor when you need to power both AC and DC equipment from one source. DC is not commonly used as the main power source, except for small consumer goods that are usually provided with voltage adapter (wall-wart). The best choice is probably an AC generator, since most DC equipment is supplied with an AC voltage adapter when it is purchased. Some AC equipment is very sensitive to the quality of the power source and inexpensive inverters do not produce very clean AC power. Unfortunately, the quality of the AC power produced by consumer-grade power generators is also widely variable. Converting AC to DC voltage is straightforward and the adapter itself usually consumes little power. There is no standard DC voltage used with consumer goods and I have encountered eve
