How does Aerovee voltage regulator work?

[gammaxy]

Does anyone understand how the Aerovee voltage regulator works? Or found a datasheet on the part? Ever since I noticed it only has 3 electrical connections, I've been confused about how it works.



If there were 4 electrical connections (two AC input from the alternator, one DC to the battery, and one ground) I would expect there to be a 4 diode bridge rectifier and a circuit to clamp the AC to ground when the battery voltage gets too high.

It seems like one of the AC tabs and the DC battery tab are connected together which makes me think it doesn't work this way and maybe is only a half wave rectifier.

[radfordc]

You do have 4 poles. The body of the regulator is the negative DC pole and gets grounded to the airframe/battery - terminal. The two AC poles are connected to the output wires from the alternator. The positive DC pole supplies power to the battery + terminal.

Now that I look at it closer, you may be correct that it is a half wave rectifier.

[gammaxy]

To me, it looks like the first and second tabs are connected together (one AC and the positive DC one). That makes me think there are only 3 poles.