Rectifier..car electrics ? what are they and how do they work ?
Answers:
your battery is 12 volts because your starter needs 12 volts. everything else on your car runs on less voltage.
do belive the rectifier is in your alternator. alternators reverse polarity and a rectifier only allows current to flow one way.
it runs the elec power of the car to and from the coil and work with the alt.with out it the battery will run flat and most likely burn the cells in the battery. 12v or 24 volt depend on how much current the car needs v6 and v8s need 24 volts and trucks/pick ups. the coil will convert the power to +- 20000 to 40000 volts to spark with the plugs. and yes volts are not the only thing that kills so do not worry if you get zapped you will know all about it don't get me wrong. amps is the killer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/alternator.
Everything you want to know explained better than I can do it.
The alternator produces ac current which is no good for charging a dc device like a battery.The rectifier which is built into most European alternators converts this into dc current which can be used to charge the battery.the rectifier is just a block of 4 diodes called a full wave diode bridge.the rectifier in the alternator is able to handle the voltage that the alternator produces.Yhe charge rate is controled by the regulatorwhich turn on and of maybe 100 times a secondand controls the amount of currentthat is passed into the rotor so controling the output.this is done by sensing the state of the battery
in simple terms, a rectifier is a device that turns alternating current into direct (pulsed or continuous) current, by only allowing the electricity to flow one way.
at its simplest, it can be a single diode component, but often it'll be more sophisticated than this as the output from it will be pretty rubbish.. though ok for charging a battery from, at least.
as stated by others, the main place you'll find this is in your ALTERNATor (big clue in the name), which, bizarrely, puts out "12v" (generally 13.6 to 14.4v at normal road speeds) DC to drive the ignition, charge the battery, run the lights and radio, etc - as it's got a (fairly big, sometimes rather obvious) rectifier attached.
please ignore spades answer as it is so wrong.
Cars work on 12V DC. All the electrics in the car are 12V (except the spark plugs which are fed from a high tension coil) The electric lights, switches, motors, fans, horn, seats etc are fed from the battery. the battery is recharged by the alternator.the alternator is belt driven from the engine..as it is a rotating device it produces 12V AC. a rectifier is used to convert the Alternating Current to Direct Current..the rectifier uses diodes to smooth the AC sine waveform to DC which feeds the battery.
The answers post by the user, for information only, UKQnA.com does not guarantee the right.