The 3 phase generator you need for your workshop has a extended and extremely fascinating history. They have been invented just a couple of decades just after electrical energy was very first controlled and managed in machines by Faraday in the 1820s. From that time till the middle of the 1900s the changing of direct existing to alternating existing was achieved employing rotary generators.
Early on these converters utilised a synchronous or induction AC motor connected up to a generator. The link was produced in such a way that the dynamo’s commutator reversed it’s shiny connector plates at precisely the proper time to generated direct current.
This worked completely effectively, although there is usually space for improvement and immediately after some time the synchronous converter was created by enterprising engineers. In these advanced converters the windings on the motor and generator have been combined in one particular armature. At one finish this was gripped by slip ring s, at the other a commutator was positioned and both relating to just a single field frame. As a outcome alternating current went in and direct present went out.
About mid-way via the period we are describing, in the early 1900s, vacuum tubes or tubes packed with gas have been adapted and employed as switches in these converter’s circuits.
electrical slip rings of these machines had been often called M-G sets. A thing intriguing is probable with these sets. The direct existing can be said to be generated independently from the alternating existing. This is distinct from the present produced by synchronous converters where it can be stated that they output alternating existing that has been “rectified” by a physical mechanism. So, if you put in place the appropriate auxiliary and controllers, an M-G set rotary converter can be made to turn “backwards” ie., turning AC into DC. This is exactly where we get our modern term inverted converter.
From this elementary starting we now have phase converters that will take direct existing from batteries, solar panels or fuel cells and turn that into alternating current operating at any voltage. So equipment designed to be plugged into a mains energy socket can run on there storage devices. Or conversely they can be rectified to output direct current at a distinct voltage.