Converting a Ceiling Fan to a Generator

Change the motor in an 3 phase alternator.

You will land up in an extremely inefficient wind turbine.

HI FRIEND , PLEASE BE POSITIVE, WHENEVER A PROBLEM YOU FINDS, TRY TO SUGGEST A POSITIVE RESPONSE. IF ONE SAYS ABOUT FAN CONVERSION TO ALTERNATOR WE EXPECT THE SOLUTION AT THE PRACTICAL LEVEL. CONCEPTUALLY THE IT WILL WORK, EFFICIENCY IN TAPPING NON CONVENTIONAL ENERGY IS LEAST BOTHERED AT THE INITIAL STAGE OF DESIGN..

SO FORGET ABOUT EFFICIENCY, WHETHER IT WOULD WORK OR NOT

IF YES, WHAT ATLTERATION DOES IT REQUIRE.... I HOPE THAT U WOULD COME UP WITH A CLEAR SOLUTION

hello I believe you are wrong about the output.and I dont care if you disagree or not. I have one that I converted and it works quite well. You say 25 watts at best. well the tip speed ratio of the blades make them run much faster than the RPMs that you see them run inside your house. at 25 cents per magnet I figure that the 200 watts I've seen is quite remarkable in comparison to your opinions stating. I dont do it the way everyone else does it I do it through 2 transformers to make the impedance match , and I also use 4 batteries in series. 2nd point, these are single phase motors as you say. Chalk one up for you ! Good observation. But the ceiling fan uses only one set of coils at a time. There are 2 sets of coils at 90degrees phase. hooking both sets of coils to separate trans formers and then to separate diode rectifiers gives twice the power otherwise considered for output and an almost smooth dc output whether the outputs of the rectifiers are in parallel or in series. Point 3 ... as compaired to a solar panel , the cost of making these little toys are a lot less than the cost of a solar panel, even if they only put out the wattage you say they do. I bet you dont have one and are just speculating. It's nice to speculate and I dont have a problem with that. But before you give details or a review of a product or conversion you should have the object in hand or have tested it in order to give accurate information about it. It's nice to have an ego and an attention gathering about you. But disinformation is not going to help development as you put it. My intention is not to put you or anyone down, but to help concider the real options at peoples disposal. To make your toes sore has not been my intension. Just an honest opinion based on the hands on. The reason I use transformers is that the coils are at a high ohms value. thus they are not the same impedance as the battery's internal resistance. Thus not a good match for power transfer. To enable maximum power transfer you must correct the impedance matching, or the higher resistances will absorb the power and waste it as heat in the motor/alt. open voltage is high volts before the transformers and diode rectification. simply converting this is an easy chore. I wind my own transformers and am thus able to play with the outputs efficiency. Even before I changed my setup to a double transformer matching. I have seen 70 and 80 watts out. I hope this helps in the exploration to the questions at hand. I chose this particular blog number not to insult it's writer but it had the most definitive start. Thank you for reading. I have not logged in or registered I just wanted to say hi and share my experience. Capt'n Ron Way Peachfuzz

Capt'n Ron

Transforming the ceiling fan into an alternator is easy. Harvesting the power efficiently is a bit harder. I think that I have modified the transformation process in these 2 videos: "HALF CEILING FAN ALTERNATOR" (By PRPaul1),

"Ceiling fan alternator 125+ volts (by PRPaul1)

I simply removed the original rotor and replaced it with 16 permanent magnets.

The most important thing is to find magnet sizes that fit perfectly and yield the smallest possible gap between rotor and stator. Once you find a magnet size that you think will work, make the same 3-dimensional shape out of wood and verify that it will fit perfectly before you order magnets. I did not make any additional part.

I really like your transformer idea and wish you would contact me by sending mail to "generatorblue" on Youtube. Google "PRPaul1" or Google "generatorblue" and you will surely find links to my videos. I am good with the mechanical transformation but could use some help with controlling the output. If you watch the videos and want to offer some technical assistance, I can use all the help that I can get with the electronic and control circuits involved in generating electricity. I am also working on alternator designs that are original and made from scratch. I can always find new ways to position magnets and coils but I need help with the rest.

I hate to do it alone and spend too much time on one idea, but I will.

I hope that you or can offer more details about the transformers. Thank you for your comments.

PRpaul1

Refit the ceiling fan motor armature with Strong Neodymium Magnets and the ceiling fan blades with a furnace blower fan or any comparable blower fan vertically.Hang it in the wind and watch it produce.

How rude you are and untutored in the subject!!! He was quite correct and you are out of order!

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I personally would say sell the ventilator/fan and use the money to buy a proper generator or alternator!

The changes needed to the fan are so great as to make the idea you have completely impractical and probably impossible for anyone with limited knowledge and workshop facilities....lets say it is NOT the place/way to start!!

Even normal DC motors, which have far more of the requirements for generating a voltage, are also exceedingly inefficient, because they were not designed specifically to do that.

naduhtodiahris, is bad typing in capitol letter everything. in internet is sign of shouting, like SHOUTING! see?

so you stop bad hobbit or people will no like you. PEACE!!!

Dear sir,Thaks for your effort.I just got one old Ceiling fan and some neo-dymium magnets.I am grinding the inner circle to place the magnets which are so powerful and creates much flux to move the electrons.I will place a rectifier in the four core wire to convert into DC to charge my batteries.I want to run this generator with wind energy attched to a Bi-cycle wheel for more RPM.thank u

With a 4.5 tip speed ratio the blades speed will be hard to match with a bicycle. Especially under a load. Capt'n Ron Way Peachfuzz

I was registered at your forum. I have printed the test message. Do not delete, please.



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The convection movement of air in a normal room would hardly be enough to even make the ceiling fan move. Tapping power from it would be imposable.

An extractor fan does however turn by itself and would be able to generate some power but the flow will be restricted resulting in less cooling.

HI FRIEND,

I AM NO LONGER GOING TO MOUNT CEILING FAN IN A ROOM. RATHER I WILL INSTALL IT IN A METALLIC FRAME OUTSIDE. MY QUERY IS NOT AT ALL RELATED TO AVAILABILITY AIR . I WANT TO KNOW HOW THE ELECTRICAL ELEMETNST SUCH AS STATOR / ROTOR WINDING AND THEIR CONNECTION ARE BE MANAGED>?

IN THE CASE OF CONVENTIONAL SOURCE OF ENERGY CONVERSION, DONT BOTHER EFFECIENCY AT THE PRIMARY LEVEL

I EXPECT YOU WOULD COMMNET ON THIS

Before working on a fan to generator,You should be working on your keyboard.It seems to be stuck in CAP'S. many will take it as you are shouting at them.Look and see if you have a stuck key or something broke on your keyboard.

Please try using the CR4 spell checker.

Mr. naduthodiharis,

Please be practical when you are placing a technical question in any respected forum. Primarily what you are trying to do is a hobby type experiment and you want others to help you out. Please appreciates that any technology has positive and negative aspects. if it was possible to change a fan which has single phase motor to alternator, it probably might have happened long ago. even if it was possible to convert it into an alternator, where do intend to use that energy. may be, like in traction motors, it will regenerate back to the grid. good idea! But, Sir, that would be a minute fraction of the total grid power.

So, when a fan is invented for circulating the air, let that technology do that function.

one more thing, please do not use capslock and please use legible and correct english.

It is possible. You can replace the motor with small DC generator/ac generator and you have to spend a lot of money on that project.Then you will achieve your objective.But it is not econamical.before going to this job you can study wind power mill and do needful.

Your innovative idea is very good.But you have to do lot of reasearch on this for getting econamical way of power generation.

Best of luck

You have an excellent idea, and an excellent question. One reply said you could add a current to one winding, so the other would have a magnetic field to turn against. Since we can't have a generator without a magnetic field; how about adding some powerful magnets from surplus computer hard drives, and inducing a small feedback current from the winding that is generating the power back to the one other winding providing the magnetic field. Who knows, you might get more output than you expect. Tesla would be proud.

V/R, Hatch

I removed the housing then the metal ring and replaced it with bar magnets(attached to ousing)

I am not sure i got the polarity right but i get 4 volts by spinning by hand

s archer

i AM HAPPY WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE COMMNETS, VERY NICE........ ALL OF YOU ARE VERY MUCH KEEN ABOUT EFFICIENCY OF DEVICES , IT IS A GOOD SIGNAL.

ACTUALLY MY IDEA WAS TO MAXIMISE THE USE OF N.C ENERGY. THE ENERGY IS 100% WASTED. SO INCREASED THOUGHT OF EFFICIENCY WILL IMPEDE OUR INITIATIVES IN SUCH PROJECTS. THAT IS WHY I POINTED TO FORGET ABOUT EFFICIENCY.

IN AUTOMOTIVES BREAKING SYSTEM, THEY USE REGENERATIVE BREAKING. BASIC PRINCIPLE IS WHILE APPLYING BREAK, A GENERATOR IS ACTIVATED, THE CONNECTED LOAD (BATTERY) ADD UP RESISTANCE , AND ENERGY IS RECOVERED.

IF WE ARE DEVELOPING A MOTOR CUM GENERATOR FOR SAY FAN APPLICATION WE CAN USE IT AS GENERATOR USING WND ENERGY AS WELL AS A FAN.

I ADVICE MY FRIENDS WHILE RESPONDING TO QUERIES, IT SHOUL BE IN LOW ABSTRACTION LEVEL, DON'T THINK THAT ALL ARE EXPERTS LIKE YOU, I MEAN ANSWERS LIKE 'CONVERT TO THREE PHASE GENERATOR' . HOWEVER THE FRIEND HAS BEUTIFULLY EXPLAINED LATER. NICE

I AM BASICALLY A MECHANICAL ENGINEER WITH PRODUCTION ENGG SPECIALISATION. THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED MAY CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION ON FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

FAN IS SINGLE PHASE MOTOR, IF IT ALLOWS TO ROTATE BY WIND FORCE AT ITS RATED R.P.M WHAT CAN WE EXPECT AT ITS INPUT TERMINAL?

Arkemedies tried 3000 experiments to innovate a lamp. Why can't you ?

It is an innovative idea... & the demand is efficiency.... try your luck to device a combination out of a spoked wheel & a battery from a junked yard, as arkemedies had tried even a cotten thread , suit buttons for a bulb filament, why not you ?

All I can give you is the specs required from the motor gen set...

The device must have synchronised power with the utility.

device should store electricity in a black box, & use it whenever required.

device should be self powered to generate electircity

I think , as the discussions went, At the present state of innovations & technologies available, & abiding the einstein's rule of energy in put = energy out put + losses,

All you have to start with the condition Energy out put = Energy input + cosmic energy

Uh, do you mean Edison?

Do you know that you are still have your CAP'S on.Why do you want people think you are shouting? DHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Please turn off Caps Lock.

To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." Thomas Edison

Thank you for this quote. I needed that.

Please feel free to discourage me anytime. On the "Generatorblue" channel on Youtube,

I posted 11 video clips depicting my attempts to transform bicycle wheels into wind turbines and wind generators. I have the pile of junk, please let me know if I have enough imagination. I still need help with the electrical aspect of it all. Someone like you, will honestly let me know what not to try. That will save time.

Building my "magic rotor" to make a bicycle wheel generator is easier than tranforming a ceiling fan into a generator.

Thanks! PRPaul

I thought he was just trying to power the fan on its own to save energy " off grid power on just the fans " you know just give them a spin and off they go moving the air around saving energy Get Idea if thats the case here

And the next question will be, 'Why does the fan stop turning when I connect the load?'...Doh!

Good point! Propellers and fans generally have low efficiency when converting wind into rotating torque. Flate blade propellers have the lowest efficiency and unless the entire propeller disk is filled with blades, the propeller generated torque will not support much of a watt load.

Wish you had an identity, I could almost give a good answer.

Try this: Get a 12VDC starter motor from a junk yard. Attach it to a spoked wheel, maybe 10' or 3 meters in diameter, with braceing to prevent collapse. From each spoke attach by the head and tack a triangular sail. From the clew attach a line (sheet) to the next spoke. Adjust the sheets untill they start luffing, them snub them up just till the luffing stops. Check your polarity before you attach your leads to a voltage regulator, then to the battery. Use a bigger wheel and/or a smaller starter motor 'till you get it right. The starter motor should work with any type of rotary power source. Alignment is not needed for a verticle windmill.

I would say good luck, but persistance will stand a better chance.

I trust you are not being serious??

Others might think you are!

It still makes more sense than using a ceiling fan.....

Yup

"Gustibus non dispudendum"

"there is no disputing about tastes"?

Hi

I hope you can open this pdf file it contains slides on how to build a vertical axis wind turbine from an old 5 gallon water container.

Sorry I cant attach it.

let me know how to attach a pdf???

You cannot attach a file here. But you can post a link to the file if it exists on a server somewhere.

JR and AG, good jobs! (GA's).

You are too kind, I did not deserve one really.

JR put the main part together, I just came along and picked some holes!!!

But I gave you one, for taking the time for a more detailed explaination.

first you need to be in tuch with what is need then the pile of junk. to feel why its needed spot

From an EE standpoint, you are absolutely right, but I perceived that the OP was not an EE (otherwise he would not have needed to ask) so I am guilty of some over simplification to be sure. It was already too long to begin with, I guess my editing left out some important concepts, sorry.

But just to be even a little more picky, there is a window of wind force that can be applied to an induction generator once it is connected to the grid, because as the wind speed attemts to increase the shaft speed beyond the grid frequency, the slip increases but without increasing the output frequency, up to the point where the grid can no longer hold it in. After that, the induction generator is over loading. If you look at a torque-speed curve of an induction motor, the generation curve follows as almost a mirror image. The difference is, at the point where the motor would stall as the curve slips behind the breakdown torque, that is where the frequency gets out of control as a generator and it must be taken off line or risk being destroyed. Think about it, even a 400kW wind generator is NOT going to drive the grid frequency higher than it is coming out of the hydro plant!

But as to the car alternators, that is just something I was unaware of. It's probably been 30+ years since I took one apart, obviously I did not know that things have changed, so thanks for that.

Hey Brother, Good one and no probs......

You seem most intelligent, I still differ with a few statements. try this. type in muddymuddymuddmann on you tube. I found this by accident but I learned a lot about the ceiling fan generator. Capt'n Ron Way Peachfuzz

If you spun your ceiling fan induction motor at a RPM that only superman can emulate, you are onto a good start for making a generator. While the rotor contains the basics (wire coils) you would need to throw in some permanent magnets on the stator to get anything useful out of a ceiling fan. This obviously means making a custom stator to encompass your rotor. Some rewiring into three phase star or delta (depending on your flavour preference) would also be needed for better efficiency, but using stock wiring configuration would still output something useful to power an LED if you you implemented the permanent magnet idea.

Aside the various excellent ideas generated by this poser, I think this query has generated the maximum number of responses in spite of initial rough-rides.This bodes well for the amateur innovators who wish to tinker with things and in the process graduate ti higher levels o0f innovations.

THREE CHEERS>

Prof GV Rao

OK, forget the other mumbo jumbo you have read. here it is...

assuming you know what the red, black, white and green wires are for---connect the red and black wire to the end prongs of a lamps' power cord. make sure the other wires (green and white) are not touching. spin the fan motor as fast as possable you should get a flicker or a dim light. if not you have to spin it faster.

all motors are power generators. if it has power input it gives off a power output....

blackscorpion908@yahoo.com

Totally wrong.......sorry.

Your knowledge has some large black holes in it!!!

How can we light up the black holes ?

may be right

Since he has not put a limit when ω → ∞ ?

...assuming you can spin an induction motor such as a ceiling fan above its rated RPM, might come in handy for lighting an LED

There are many examples of people who have converted ceiling fans to wind turbines. The best I have found is here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf923InYeH8

Yes, most ceiling fans use 1phase split-cap (ie 2phase) induction motors and these can't be used as generators. Unless you add permanent magnets to the rotor. This is quite easy, by no means a new idea and seems to work OK.

I just skimmed through some of the answer you got and don't know if you ever found what you were looking for but I know it can be done. I'm working on one myself and I found most of what I needed on youtube. look up..." part 1 how to ceiling fan wind turbine " or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf923InYeH8 It's a 7 part series.

Let me know how you do. I'm not all that electricly inclined and a little stuck. Maybe you could help.

Dear Mr. naduthodiharis

And one more point , Please do not use other's knowledge and get the credit among the local population, if you want to innovate some technology or value add some existing technology please do it on your own. you are using other experts arm to fire the gun and its not ethical.

I concur!.

Dear Mr. naduthodiharis,

you are a disgrace to Indian engineers by asking stupid questions and baseless theories in CAPITAL LETTERS (well u do not seem to understand 'CAPS', do you?) on an international forum.

Kid from which part of coimbatore are you??

Cant you understand others comments - about your CAPS?

--Indian Engineer

It is easy converting a ceiling fan motor to a generator.

I just did it about a month ago,

I shot pics and videos of how I did it and put it on youtube for free.

Just google Bildore1 to find it.

I show with as much detail as I could written on the pics

I am getting up to 168 volts no load cranking by hand

into an Amtek 30 volt motor I am getting about 45 volts and it really spins

as you can see in the vid and I also have it lighting 2 light bulbs about 11watts each.

I have yet to seal it and put a prop on it and put it in the wind , but for a proof of concept that it is making power seeing is believing.

I ordered in some 2 inch by 1 inch by 3/4 neo magnets but even with thick glove they are too scary to play with so I decided to built my first one from a ceiling fan.

I hope this helps.. have fun.

I did hook this up to a a large cap and it runs a couple of one watt LED's quite easily

I hooked it up to a 35 watt incandescent bulb but it became quite hard to turn and only got moderate light from it.

I have converted several and sold several. They work quite well in low wind and the ones I make are non-cogging. been able to get upwards of 30 volts on them and for me, that's more than enough to charge a battery. You can check out our Youtube account under kevlauenterprises.