Patent ID: 8497664

Claim:
A generator system comprising: an AC machine including six armature coils; a rectifier circuit electrically coupled to the armature coils, said rectifier circuit including twelve switches where a node between an adjacent pair of the switches defines a phase voltage node for a particular one of the armature coils, wherein the six armature coils are defined as a combination of two three-phase sets of coils where the two sets of coils are oriented relative to each other by a predetermined electrical phase; and a control circuit providing control signals to the rectifier circuit to switch the switches on and off, said control circuit determining whether phase-to-phase voltages of the machine between each of the nodes are above a first predetermined threshold voltage or below a second predetermined threshold voltage for each of the twelve switches, wherein the control circuit turns on a switch associated with a particular phase of the machine if the phase-to-phase voltage for that phase is greater than the first predetermined threshold voltage and turns off the switch if the phase-to-phase voltage for that phase is less than the second predetermined threshold voltage, and wherein the control circuit determines whether the speed of the machine is below a predetermined speed threshold, and prevents the switches from being turned on if the speed of the machine is below the speed threshold.