English: Tapping into three phase power prior to bridge rectifier:

Automobile alternators can be used for wind turbines, especially suited for teaching purposes.

Although they do not produce much power output at low to moderate wind speeds (because they were intended for high turning speeds in automotive applications) the fact that they have an electromagnetic field winding means that they will spin at very low wind speeds, and that they do not exhibit the "cogging" effect of permanent magnet wind turbines. Avoidance of "cogging" means that they can turn in very low winds, and although this does not produce much power, it serves well for teaching purposes where all that is needed is strong enough output to show on an oscillosocope or the like.

Here I have tapped in behind the tridge rectifier (a tridge rectifier is an arrangement of six diodes to make a full wave three phase bridge rectifier).

I have used red, black, and blue wires which you can see coming out at the lower left corner of the image.

Red, black, and blue are the standard colours for three phase power.

There is no neutral because most alternators are delta connected or with floating neutral. The neutral, if it existed, would typically be provided on a white wire.

A green wire is connected to the housing, for ground.

This picture comes from my personal imaging (wearable image capture) cyborglog, and is released under GNU GPL.

The system shown in this picture has been replaced by a newer system that has the three phase bridge rectifier installed in a utility room (rooftop mechanical room) thumb|left|130px|Tridge Rectifier for wind turbine.