On Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:05:29 GMT, "Lew Hodgett"
wrote:

Alternator output is rectified AC, not pure DC, which is NBD if you
have a storage battery connected since it absorbs the ripple as well
as functioning as a humongous capacitor.

Not sure if today's inverter can accept rectified AC or do they
require pure DC.

In any event, having a storage battery in the system makes life easy.

Normal practice is to have the alternator, inverter, starting battery
and/or house bank, all in paralell. I'm doing this on my boat with a
Xantrex 2.0 inverter/charger and it is working just fine. We are able
to get about 1.5 KW continuous from the inverter using a 250 amp
alternator, 1/0 wire for the interconnects and dual 1/2 inch belts.
The house bank is 4 golf cart batts in series-parallel.

The alternator actually creates 3 phase AC which is then rectified
into pulsating DC. Because it starts out as 3 phase the ripple is
less than you would otherwise expect.