Help with a Wind Generator Design

This link is a good starting point as it links to loads of good stuff.
There is plenty of info' and expertise out there.
It's not really my field but I do find it interesting. If my house was further away from others and on a bit of a hill I'd doubtless know a bit more, as I'd have built one by now.

Del

spotsart; there's an article in the BackHome Magazine issues 74,75,76, & 77 build your own 1500 watt high output wind turbine for $400.00 shows every thing from the tower to the generator, wiring & blades. perry

I would avoid the friction drive by any means. I would use either direct gears, spockets and chain, or none - instead, add more pancake alternators in line if needed. If you connect coils in series you can use larger wire to get the current while adding to get the voltage. If you connect in parallel and a coil shorts out you will possibly burn out the rest of them due to excessive current.

You can purchase a cheap anemometer at Harbor Freight to measure wind speed. Most likely you will be charging batteries and then using an inverter to get frequency?

The link Del gave you is good but you should make sure that you try to use iron-core in the stator which I haven't seen in any axial type when they use Ni-magnets.

Without core some sections of the coil simply do not act efficiently as they do not get cut by the flux.

Somebody from this site recommended the following site. Its pretty good and should help.

http://www.otherpower.com/

Good luck

Since you are starting from scratch, so to speak, let me suggest an out-of-the-box approach.

1. Let the wind turbine drive an air compressor (more about that later).

2. Pipe the compressed air, perhaps from several compressors, to a storage tank.

3. Send air from the tank to an air motor/steam engine driving a generator. There are lots of (new or used) internal combustion engine powered generators with all the fancy bits, like frequency control, already done for you. You need to convert the IC engine to run on compressed air, which isn't all that difficult. Modify the cam shaft and use a modified diesel injector to inject the air, or revert to 19th century steam engineering.

Any qualified compressed air engineer will tell you that the efficiency will be too low, perhaps 15 per cent, so air is a poor choice of transmission medium. The problem is that qualified engineers have read the texts which recommend isothermal compression. Vast amounts of energy are wasted cooling the compressor. You need to go to adiabatic compression, conserving the heat. Do that by puting a carburettor on the intake to the compressor and introducing droplets of water, meanwhile insulating the compressor (which can be a modified IC engine). As the air is compressed and gets hotter, the water absorbs a lot of heat turning into steam. Store the air/steam mixture (I call it wet compressed air, WCA. See US Patent number 5,832,728) in an insulated tank. The storage tank allows you to power the generator as needed while evening out the inputs from the wind turbines, which are subject to varying wind speeds. When the air goes though the expander (motor), it cools; the steam condenses, reheating the air. The input is ambient temperature air and water, and the exhaust is ambient temperature air and distilled water. Experiments in Germany showed that pneumatic power transmission can be more efficient than using an generator and motor. Further, the WCA can be used directly, for air conditioning perhaps, or powering a zero-emissions vehicle, without all those magnets and wire coils.

Hi Esbuck, I was reading your comment on cr4. I had the same idea about a wind turbine generator. You seem to be quite knowledgeable about compressed air etc. Could you contact me by email please if you get a chance, I would like to run some ideas past you if you would not mind. michael@roof2000.com

You might check into a Discussion called "Select Your Favourite Invention" By ky

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing but he thiniks that CR4 could be a place to help inventors get thier products to market. Check it out maybe it can help.

You should check out how Helix Wind captures wind energy. It looks better than using blades and a tower.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21666/?a=f

Check out this generator

you might want to check out some other products:

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Vertical_Axis_Wind_Turbines

http://www.awea.org/faq/vawt.html

also with some VAWT come airfoil profiles (NACA)

http://www.scialert.net/pdfs/jas/2007/663-670.pdf?sess=jJghHkjfd76K8JKHgh76JG7FHGDredhgJgh7GkjH7Gkjg57KJhT&userid=jhfgJKH78Jgh7GkjH7Gkjg57KJhT68JKHgh76JG7Ff

also see for a sample electrical diagram

http://www.newformenergy.com/pdfs/NFE-VAWT2.pdf

hope it helps

RAM.

Hmm, this sounds like a very suspicious scheme when the lead scientist/engineer has no scientific or engineering experience/education. You must be careful how you present your self, the term engineer can be protected in many jurisdictions for certain appications, and a "scientist" without any education is science or engineering will cause a public relations nightmare when the press gets ahold of the information. Your best bet once you get going is to retain a mechanical/electrical engineering company as a consultant if you need technical expertise. Plus if you retain the correct firm, they will have environmental personnel and civil engineers to assist with siting, permitting, foundation and support designs, and special structural analysis. There a many large energy groups in large firms that deal with most of this stuff, energy systems are complicated and expensive to permit and site. Off hand I can think of at least two that provide full service in this area, URS and AECOM. AECOM tends to provide better services for the cost. GE and some manufacturers provide electromechanical engineering assistance and support also.

THANK YOU "GUEST"

the term sarcasm seems to have been lost on you, obviosly.

the reason i was honest ABOUT MY LIMMITED EXPEIENCE was to qualify myself to the REAL engeneers (again see how i wrote it in capitols to suggest i am NOT one)

yea any thing is posible i could hire all those people you have suggested just send me one of your many gold bars and ill have the money for them, then ill be fine...IN FACT I WONT NEED TO MAKE ANY THING ILL HAVE MONEY...ooh you dont have any gold bars to give away, as mabey you can guess we dont have much money...BEING STUDENTS.... thats why im here asking for FREE ADVICE

THANK YOU TO THE OTHERS FOR YOUR GREAT SUGGESTIONS.

SOME OF THE LINKS GOT TO THE WIRRING DIAGRAMS and i get it NOW

thanks again to all the REAL people that helped

( since guest doesent get anything --Not you guest--- duhh)

Yes I share the same view I was trying to steer my friend into distributing other people's stuff, two reasons why we will go on our own

, one the other stuff cost more than making it we would like to get the extra profit for making them, and I want two stage for the amount of coils in play@ rpm=x, I have seen those out there but not for sale yet...and two stage for star to delta @ rpm=y, not available at all at reasonable price

Two we have investors lined up to invest in an invention/product not a distributorship

I just need a single prototype that can demonstrate some electrical production, and then I can get funds to refine it to my goal point.

My goal is to produce 1kw in 10 to 15 mph wind for less than $3000 to $4000 retail

Thus being better than what is out there for cheaper, yes I know 1kw unit exist at that price but @ 28 mph winds, not going to be there in Florida average wind speed for this area is 16mph

So I am back to the drawing board

I should have included my shopping list to show I'm using trailer hubs for my bearings($35) and brake rotors($7) for my magnets rotors it all comes to less than $300 (not including the wire and turbine) and has very few steps to assemble, low cost, for example lots of people have recommended pulleys or gears instead of the tire friction drive. but this is so cheap and strong it gives me a solid base for my turbine and combined with a torsion axel it will have good pressure regardless of tire pres. if I had to buy the tire and rim separate it would add extra time and money just to mount the tire but this way I buy it assembled and it just goes right on for $60. Using pulleys and belts and time to align and fit and order small parts and then have to design and fabricate a new base for the turbine just adds cost and time.

I am trying to use readily available parts that are cheap because of the enormous supply the parts are d.o.t. approved so they can withstand tolerances many time that which they will encounter and easy to repair at a low cost, easy to assemble on site and install

I really just need help understanding the coil windings and how to wire the connections some links provided helped but I could use more advice I am not an electrical engineer and don't understand some of the concepts. Between series and parallel it is just how you attach the back end of the coil wire together that changes this?

I was very grateful for the info from posters to understand the formulas for the turbine and how much power there is in the wind, I now know I will need a larger one based on the equations given me that helped save lots of time not building one too small the first time. Thanks again for all your REAL help