My latest wind generator experiment!

I'm seeing a nine foot rotor giving 28 amps at 100 volts. It just goes to show us how much energy is coming down our powerlines. We take it for granted, but we will sorely miss it if it breaks down. I'm following another thread where a 50,000 sqft building wants to go off grid. I don't think anyone realizes how much power it takes to run a building. It would take a full sized wind generator to power that building. And then what do you do when the wind fails. Now you need a huge diesel generator. What if it is just a little breezy, maybe solar panels can take up the slack. Not to mention huge batteries to smooth it all out. That's a lot of infrastructure, folks. I haven't posted much on the building thread yet, want to see what gets posted before I pop his bubble. It's a great concept, but I don't think the technology is there yet for a big building to go off grid. Find a clean way to burn coal. Plasma? Good thread, tcmtech, I'm going to make it a favorite, because I do want to have a wind generator eventually.

Thats a big issue I have came across for years as well. So few people have even the most basic math skills to comprehend or understand the realistic levels of the power and energy in general that is required for their daily life.

With this design, in normal winds for where I live, I expect to get between 5 -10 KWH's per day on the monthly averages or about 1/6 to 1/4 at best of my normal monthly power usage. Some days I will get nothing but others I will maybe see 20 - 30 KWH's.

The more honest rating for this size would be around 1 - 1.5 KW. But being I have regular high winds where it is located it is necessary to build for peak working capacities around 3 - 4 times that and some days that is not enough. Ideally my goal in the next year or so, if I can afford it this year, is to have a 21 foot 20+ KW honest rated working capacity system that can generate on average 100% of my normal monthly power.

I will likely never go off grid being there is no justifiable point in spending the time or money on an independent battery based system to meet my normal power needs, 1000+ KWH's a month. I simply just require too much peak power at times, 40+ KW peaks, so spending the $30 a month and being allowed to have a legal grid tie co-generation system that can use my local utility as a unlimited capacity AC battery is just cheaper and simpler in the long run.

Unlike much of the rest of the country and world I have a local electrical utility company that encourages its customers to do what I am doing and does not fight them for being more self reliant. They will let me co generate legally for no added cost and allow me to bank my excess power with out additional metering or billing charges above my normal monthly fee's I pay as a regular customer. I get to have a meter that spins both ways and only generates one bill for the month.

For those who are wondering I paid about $110 with shipping for my blades and the rest of the wind generator is all old steel and salvaged mechanical parts from auctions and local scrap yards. I have about $200 - $250 into the whole system from the ground up!

So few people have even the most basic math skills to comprehend or understand the realistic levels of the power and energy in general that is required for their daily life.

They realize when there's no power

For those who are wondering I paid about $110 with shipping for my blades and the rest of the wind generator is all old steel and salvaged mechanical parts from auctions and local scrap yards.

I was wondering about those blades if you made them or purchased., But I didn't get all the way through your post from your link.

When I worked at the Shipyard, I regular programed foil shapes on the router. Either one off or 2 off molds or the actual foil itself.

I was for a long time considering doing a project like this for quite a while. I was looking preferably for the geometry for this. I found some that I can reverse engineer with out getting to much into the CFD aspect.

Wind in our area is approx 8 MPH allot to be desired, but its the control I am concerned about so to not have a runaway, which after looking at what is available can be incorporated. We can get wind gusts up over 75 MPH.

I have about $200 - $250 into the whole system from the ground up!

I like to know How many Manhours? I worked on a number of home projects that if I really knew what I was getting into, it may have scared me off. But the 200 to 250 dollar range must have been a development to see what was needed. What does it look like?

Also How tall?

p911

To replicate this one from the ground up as it stands now would take about one long weekend so for me around 25 hours or less. The frame and mechanicals are very simple and I could copy them in a an easy day and probably set the pole too. Then do the alternator modifications and the rest of the install and hookup the next day.

The tower is an old 25 foot power line pole my neighbor gave me for removing it for him a few years ago. So that too is easy to set in the ground and put the anchoring guy wires and earth screws in as well. Realistically someone with good basic equipment and mechanical skills could do this in a weeks worth of evenings and spare time. Its really not hard.

It stands about 22 feet to the center of the frame. The one picture shows it in full view from the ground up from a little ways off.

Whats the Diameter of your blades?

I hope I do not bore you with my inexperience or qualifications on this topic. I have been trying to build a small wind powered system that will generate some electrical relief, but I am not really getting to far . I did stumble on this site, where I am so pleased to see there are others out their with far better qualifications than I to make this a real possibility. Is there any way that you could talk more about your invention and would you be willing to show me how to build something like it.

Do the math and the full sized wind turbine will supply adequately 30+ such buildings

Here is a better picture of the old frame from the day I designed a new pivot and mounting system to fit this pole. For many years this generator was on an old windmill tower over at my bothers place. An ice storm took the blades off a few years ago so I decided to bring it over to my place last year and re use it for a while.

As you can see its just 2" x 3/16" angle iron, some 14 gauge steel sheeting pieces and a 2" pipe for the base.

The current blade set is a 9.2 foot set with a slightly oversized hub to get them out to 9 feet 6 inches.

Excellent work, sir. I am normally not perceived as a fan of wind energy, but that is misleading. This is a perfect application for the technology, and your do-it-yourself approach is a winner. While I can not support large-scale wind or solar solutions, the smaller scale with reasonable expectations are very well worth pursuing.

Huunnmmm! These nice post make me brougth up and brainstorming to propose again an incorporate modified 'WindTurbineGenSet' for the electric cars. This will backup and supply electric power to batteries and accessories in the run as follow:

1) As the car coast this modified addapted onboard nicely integrate in car autobody frame these 'WindTurbineGenSet' will be turning as usual by wind propulsion providing electric energy to backup and supplement electric car demands on the fly.

2) It air intake will be protected from solids elements (Ice-Etc.) by a heating port mesh rigth upfront in order to duct air straigth into impellers for rotational effect application.

3) The car will be design to carrie two of this 'WindTurbineGenSet' as better square backup support and for longer running distances coverages between batteries recharge downtime. It's batteries bank charging status will be monitored with a device made for that purposes as well in order to control charging input with demands. This monitor migth be control the amount of air into impellers by modulating a damper opening/closing position again depending of loads demands from car electric system and comsuption.

4) Such 'WindTurbineGenSet' migth be installed sportly and discreetly given the car a nice furious look at same time.

Allset, nice to share some ideas here again and let me know how you think about it later then. Nice be around to share and learn with the CR-4 hi-tech groups.

Crank It Up,

MC

Total rubbish/fantasy from start to finish.

Another free energy person on CR4 (again!! again!! again!! again!! again!!)

brother it looks colder and wintrier there than up here in Canada! brrr.

so if you compulsively build wind turbines... I have a design looking for prototyping...

Chris

ps.. good work.. 5 stars.

In Europe, an average windmill runs effectively for aproximately 28% of the time......

Thought you might appreciate what this man is trying to achieve.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/22/the-bloom-box-a-power-plant-for-the-home-video/

Thank you Geo_Guy.

1)CR4 saw this one a couple of days ago here. and the subsequent discussion.

2) If you highlight a word in your text, and right click, you will find a "Create Link" menu, and that will allow you to paste your link as a hyperlink. (as I've done above)

Cheers,

Chris

So much for this part of the experiment. I had some wind today finally, 15+ MPH.

Unfortunately I am not happy to report it but Powermax blades I used are junk. These 9.5 foot turds have almost zero starting torque even at 15+ MPH wind speeds. What I found out so far is that without the alternator connected they can barely start up the gearbox by itself even though that can be turned just by the weight of a common vice grips hanging on the main shaft in a horizontal position. Plus once they do get spinning they don't have crap for power either and they are noisy as well which is most likely from the rough leading and trailing edge seams.

When I get a chance I am going to have to take the whole unit down and make an adjustable pitch hub so I can change the angle they sit at to try and improve the starting torque plus clean up the edges to see if that quiets them down, providing that it doesn't cause them rip open like the their competitors blades did last year.

Here is where they came from. Neodymium Magnets || NdFeB Magnets || Rare Earth Magnets - Industrial Magnets & Assemblies, Super Powerful Magnets, Wind Solar Power Unfortunately I can't even give them a properly written bad review due to their site only having a weak star rating system for their product.


For reference, last year, I had the Windmax blades from their competitor. APPLIED MAGNETS-Neodymium Magnets-Rare Earth Magnets-Ceramic Magnets-Industrial Magnets-Magnets Wholesale To The Public
Their blades had great low speed starting torque but where poorly weight matched and very noisy from the factory and died an early death from the seams opening up on two separate blade sets and a third set had one blade tare out at the root entirely. Their problem was that they had severe voids in the fiberglass and a poor finish due to sloppy production methods and craftsmanship which is why I quit using them and changed suppliers.

As far as I how rate both of these manufactures, basically I have made better blades out of old scrap 2 x 6 wood with a table saw and belt sander before that where more efficient, preformed far better, and lasted much longer.

So if you are going to build your own wind generator I highly suggest you don't buy blades from either of these manufactures.

Back before the REP ( Rural Electrification Program) My grandfather had purchased a Sears and Roebuck 32 Volt wind generator to run the milking equipment, (I believe it was built by the Zenith Corporation). My Dad told me when the wind was not strong enough to start the wind mill, they would flip a switch and use the battery power to power it to get the blades turning. (reverse). And once it was turning, uyou would switch it back, so it would start generating.

But it sounds like your blades are not very efficent.....did you install them correctly?

As far as lead or angle of attack?

Yes they are installed correctly. Their overall shape shows which way they turn and which side is the front or back. They just have a poor airfoil design or a sloppy build.

But looking at them from the end its hard to tell which side is the front side and which is the back side other than by the dip shape of the trailing edge at the root that would dictate that its the back when turning clockwise. Otherwise the overall airfoil shape is almost neutral as far is which side is the front or back. Basically they fly as well in reverse as forward. Not worth crap going either way.

The looks of it does look poorly made.

When at the shipyard, I received a project to do an experimental wing for a helicopter that had similar shap on both sides.

It was to be a high performance chopper. (nothing more was said, (fly upside down and the like. by changing the angle of attack.

like to talk more but I gotta go.

be back later

p911

A while back, a friend of mine bought a wind generator and an extra set of blades from a Chinese manufacturer, much better fabrication, based on your description of the blades here. Unfortunately, I no longer have the name of the source, and I have temporarily lost touch with my friend...I will see if I can't find somewhere in my old references about the outfit he bought from- I do remember it was direct from China...

Rather old thread but interesting! I too have a passion for alternative power. It seems I get heckled and have others try to tell me it cost to much, etc...

As a do it yourselfer I'm sure you've heard it all as well. I've been working on building up a solar power set up to power a battery bank. I had a grid tie inverter that I picked up on eBay and it worked great for about a year before frying. I toyed with the idea of building my own but couldn't find any decent schematics. I tried to follow your link but found no schematics.

In any case what I've started doing since they are doing away with incandescent bulbs is converting over to LED lighting, the first one was ok as a night light. My latest however is almost as good as being outside in the sun, brilliant white light unlike the CFLS.

I would like to add a small wind generator to the mix and was curious as to your thought on it. I have a good used 12volt generator from an old Harley Davidson. I had found a cooling fan from a semi truck that had been discarded. The wife had a 12' or so windmill for decoration but seeing as how it was cheaply made it didn't take long for our high winds to rip it to shreds. Half jokingly I repaired the cooling fan and put together a windmill for her using the generator, I haven't tried to hook it into my battery bank yet but think I should. It has withstood the test of time rather handily as it's been spinning for close to a year now, I've never locked it down and 60 to 100 mph gust are not uncommon here.

Although I must admit the howl it has at 45mph plus is a little hair raising and I plan to modify it like the old Aeromotor generators so it has a wind brake built in.

I was thinking I would wire it up exactly like it would have been on the bike and tie it in with my solar. Do you have any pointers that might make this easier or perhaps a little more efficient? Very good post by the way, thank you for sharing!