Vertical axis wind turbine

Just google "vertical axis wind turbine" and you'll get lots of hits. Unfortunately, I can't help you with calculations. Not my expertise. However, I saw one several years ago in a science fair.

It had a hoop to which were mounted about 6 sails (like in sail boat?). When the wind blew, it looked like 6 sail boats chasing each other in a circle. It was simple and cheap and it worked! I can't tell you how efficient it was but it shouldn't be difficult to build and experiment.

The 'Best of British' to the effort. Please publish the results of this development upon completion.

A british company not long ago featured here in the CR4 blogs sells a ready made package. Not certain as to the cost but it looks like a cylinder mowers blades turned verticle.

You will need a 12 or 24vdc input for excitation depending upon whether it is a 12v or 24v alternator. Are you going use the direct DC output from the alternator or are you going to dispense with the internal rectifier and use the AC output.

A standard 12v - 60A car alternator will generate maximum of 70VA at 3000rpm but they lid not encounter this output in normal, duty so there may a continuous rating issue.

The shaft resistance will be severe at this output and consideration of the drive transmission will have to be given some thought in terms of belt slip.

Use a bearing block at the bottom and put the alternator at the top use some gearing to get the best performance and a clutch to disengage if the wind speed is too high. A lorry type alternator 24V 100A is most likely to stand the wear and tear. Then you need the batteries and inverters. Just buy a ready made unit you will get the better deal.

On the heels of the previous problems mentioned, you will need to find out at what rpm you can you can get out of your wind turbine. The automotive alternators don't begin to produce power at all till they reach 1000 rpm. Best of luck with your project and more power to you and anyone that can brake from what is considered the norm.

Certain VW Diesel engines of a few years ago had a 120 amp alternator as they used a huge heating element in the engines cooling water to help heat up the water in winter, to unfreeze the passengers......

Savonius rotor.

milo

5-7 kW is huge by 'home fabricator work shop standards'. Good luck (I'm part of a wind turbine group and even I wouldn't attempt this at home owner level except as a interesting hobby, but not expected to pay off).

If time sensitive, just buy one ready made. Look at a 15 year life cycle cost analysis and don't forget to crank into your formula if you would have invested the money spent on this and utilise that growth to reduce your bill. i.e. net present value calculation. I just did a study to reduce my heating bill, and found the cost is basically even after 3 years (wood stove) so 3 year pay off. But, if I took that same block of money I'd spend to break even after 3 years, and invested it in a simple safe growth fund, and use the earned income, after tax, to help pay my bill (which is what I doing with wood instead of natural gas) then I'm better off. But, it would be fun and educational so good luck.

George

Lindsay Publications have a booklet called "Alternator Secrets" for $ 3.00 it tells you how to rewind for windmill use and 110 volt AC. www.lindsaybks.com

The American Wind Energy Association used to have a pretty lively list/discussion board, and they probably still do, so I would post to the list and sign up. A couple noteable industry and homebrew folks paid attention and contributed as well.

As I recall, the consensus was that the slight increase in complication of using a horizontal axis wind turbine got you a lot more out of your installation. I seem to recall that savonius rotors had fatigue problems as well.

The wind won't come because you built it, so before you flush time and money down the toilet, do an energy and incentive availability study. Size your rotor based on a year round distribution of wind speed based on your site.

Incentives may make a difference as well a local contractor is pushing 2.2 kW solar cell installs (Buffalo, NY area) at $17k before incentives and tax breaks and $4k after. Really good considering a grid tie is $2k.

If you are on the grid, you might be better off with carbon offsets.

Check you desk for missing decimals- the alternator rigs and domestic installs I remember reading about were typically <1kW.

Greetings,

If you where to get your hands on a 100A Alt at 12V the most POWER you could relize would 1,200WATTS.

E X I = P 12 Volts X 100Amps = 1200 Watts

To reach the target of 5Kw, you will need 416.66A at 12 V.

P / E = I 5000Watts / 12 Volts = 416.66 Amps

LOL, that's the first thing I thought of when I read the OPs post. 5kW at 12V!

Batteries are always a problem to take care of. You need a voltage regulator and keep them watered and balanced.

Is it better to spend the money on a wind turbine or on better insulation and heat exchange units? Assuming that this is not already done. The wind turbine would then be alot more effective in terms of power generated to power dissipated.

Such a Turbine will be quite loud when operating, you may not mind, but if you have near neighbours (500 yards or less) you might wish you never started!

If that is the case go for better insulation, capture Sun energy and pump it up with a heat pump to give you hot water and heating.....

A friend of mine dug up his lawn of 100 x 75 meters to a depth of about 30 cm. He then laid underfloor central heating pipe on a bed of fine sand, covered with sand and then earth. The water is filled with antifreeze and he manages to keep his house warm and heat the hot water all year round except when snow is actually laying on the grass....which in the Cologne area is never for very long.

I must admit he did lay a lot of pipe, God only knows how many meters but one hell of a lot!!! You must never forget and drive a fork into the ground either!!! But it has celibrated its 25 year of operation recently!

This is an almost completely noise free system.....

Mr Nage,

please feel free to sending your E-mailadress to me and I´ll sending u back the info during my patented solutions for vertical axel working wind and water Power.

lemak@telia.com

Leopold...

I saw these at an energy fair not long ago. A fantastic piece of engineering. With the helical design, these turbines operate either horizontal or vertical, regardless of wind direction. I think they recommended a minimum installation height of only 6 feet off the ground. I thought you might like to check out the photos on the site to give you some ideas.

http://www.aerotecture.com/

Why do you think a vertical axis is better?

Another way to get free energy is from Sun, using black metal panels covered by thin glass windows, with copper tubes filled with transformer oil. The glass windows are important to prevent wind taking away the heat. The transformer oil has a high thermal capacity. The panels should be mounted over a thermal isolated foundation. The average inclination angle of the panels is the latitude angle.

The oil tubes routed underground should have thermal isolation all along towards a heat exchanger attached right outside the walls of your home. The heat exchanger generates warm water and circulates it through a thermal isolated tank of about 2 or 3 cubic meters mounted on top of a 4-meter high tower, from which the warm water is distributed to the radiators in each room or bathroom outlet. The exposed section of the water tubes from the tank should have thermal isolation. A flotation system in the tank assures the restoration of the water level after each shower.

It is not safe to circulate transformer oil directly to the radiators inside the rooms, because of the danger of oil spills; the heat exchanger prevents this danger inside your home.

Jaime Soto Figueroa

http://www.matharts.cl/

You can design a horizontal axis turbine such that the apparent wind hits the airfoil at or near the angle that maximizes the coefficient of lift over the envelope of intended operation. To me, it seems each airfoil on a vertical axis turbine is at this sweet spot for maybe 15 degrees each of the advancing and retreating parts of the rotation. As such it seems the productive portions of the sweep area or volume are pretty small. I'd be interested in how VAWT designs deal with or work around the problem.

Nage, stop tinkering, trying to invent the wheel again! This things are ready available on the market, including all the neccessary safety, just googel windturbines.

You may wish to lose some of natures acts of defiance and crate an environment with out pressure to build power. Second the need to change your magnets to rare earth type will up the current, and keep the system in earths natural form D/C. But alot of us think that rather than harness power it's better to use low power utility's. LED,Solar,Underground homes, and not save it.

As to you turbine just look to the design of the tornado.

Bradley

Hi. just get a Ambulance alt. 120 vac 60 Hz at 240 amps-- feed 6 volts to the field post-- at least 800 rpm needed-- your in the biz.–Mr X

Thank you for your very kind offer of assistance which I appreciate and will be delighted to receive. I already have a radiator system which I intend changing to "underfloor hydronic system" I have a heatpump 1.3 KW and I collect Solar heat by spraying water on the Sunny side of the roof of my 2 metal clad sheds and store it in an insulated container which is then used at night-time. I also have access to another water supply which I intend using soon on a continuous basis to heat an insulated storage tank of 550 gallons capacity in order to supplement my existing system in the absence of sunshine which is a regular occurance in Western Ireland. With a wind generator I hope to operate occasionl domestic items, produce enough power to operate my heatpump, circulating pumps, and charge the batteries of my battery powered car (if I can ever own one) I hope to use 5--7 automobile alternators (120 amps + capacity)in conjunction with storage batteries and an inverter. Please tell me what would be the the most suitable design of vawt to suit my purpose Nage

Now I understand that a vertical axis wind turbine with vertical blades with some 30º helicoidal aperture angle eliminates the problem of adaptive orientation to wind direction, because regardless of wind direction it rotates forever in the same sense. It is a sound idea that eliminates a lot of useless complications.

Here in Chile, in the extreme South, around Punta Arenas, where I was born, and the whole austral territory in general, there is a lot of free wind energy roaring year round, often above 100Km/h sustained for long long long hours.

A high power electric plant should consist in an array of vertical turbines mounted on top of concrete cones some 20 meters high with a top conic angle of some 90º, thus preventing the turbulences close to the ground reaching the turbine blades. The turbines should be some 50 m in diameter and some 50 m high. The alternatos should be placed inside the concrete cone, and at some prudent distance from the turbine array should be installed the building with the battery banks and an array of DC to AC converters with synchronism electronics to match the angle of the general interconnected system with minimum error.

The question would be how much time would take to recover the investment.

Jaime Soto Figueroa

http://www.matharts.cl/

Nage wrote: I hope to use 5--7 automobile alternators (120 amps + capacity)in conjunction with storage batteries and an inverter. Please tell me what would be the the most suitable design of vawt to suit my purpose Nage

REPLY: My suggestion would be to modify the alternators for highest possible voltage output. I have found that good quality 12V alternators can in fact produce 24V - actually 27.6V for charging purposes. Just remember that wattage is a function of volts times amps, so your wattage is the same but your amperage is going to be half as much if you push the unit to double the normal 12V. Watch the stator temps and cut back on field current if case temp reaches 180F. Failure to do so will result in burnt windings.

If your time is freely available, I would also suggest removing the diode matrix from the inside back of the alternators and mounting them externally with additonal heat dissipating fins.

You can also install cooling fans on these diode blocks for high load conditions. Cooler stator coils will have less losses. Higher system voltage will also produce less voltage drops due to wire resistance. Removing the diode matrix block from the air stream inside the alternator also gives you better volume cooling air flow. Electrodyne does this on their 8kW alternators.

For the most effective charging I recommend you remove the internal single stage regulator and substitute a good quality external 3 stage regulator. My favourite is the MC612 or MC624 from Balmar www.balmar.net These are sold in the UK. Mastervolt sells an analog vesion, which is a copy of the Heart Interface Alpha controller.

BTW you can control two alternators with a single regulator. Typically the field current on automotive alternators is only 5 amp DC maximum regardless of being 12V or 24V nominal. If you are handy with electronics you can even devise a current amplifier to control more alternators with one single regulator. The reason for going 3 stage is to maximize charging current when wind is available, despite the state of charge in the battery. Unless the battery bank is charged to 75% - 80% of full capacity the regulator will produce full output amps. A single stage regulator will by comparison produce much less on a partially charged bank.

Secondly; with an external regulator you have additional control over loading or unloading the wind turbine. You can reduce the field current until the wind turbine and rotors comes up to speed.

Under light wind conditions you may end up with excessive low speed inertia if all of the alternators are full fielded because the batteries are depleted too much. In such a situation you need to have a load dumping scheme to reduce the drag of the alternators on the wind turbine shaft. Once the starting inertia is overcome, then you can begin to bring more alternators online and fine tune the field current for charging.

What you are doing is in effect a double control loop. Automotive alternators only regulate according to voltage. We found with wind generators that too light a wind will cause the turbine to stall if the connected generator load is excessive. You can unload the wind turbine in light wind conditions and only maintain a charge current from one of the multiple alternators. My guess is you will need a tacho driven controller or if you are going simple mechanical, some kind of fly ball governor with a make and break contactor that in turn controls the field current cicuits to the alternators.

I'm also assuming you cannot always be there to manually adjust all the controls. Or that you need some automation to handle changing wind conditions during the night.

House based systems often use 48V systems to reduce losses due to cable and winding resistance.. My own experience with inverters indicates Victron products are technically better than Mastevolt's for equivalent claimed wattage performance. If you are totally off grid, the inverter only designs are probably a more cost effective choice than the combination units typically sold for caravan and marine use.

For batteries, see if you can locate a source of supply for traction motor batteries. In the US these are often called deep cycle or golf car batteries and you will see this nomenclature used on many websites. The best system would be individual 2V cells wired in series for the desired system voltage.

If your local wind condition is highly variable, chances are your batteries will always be in a state of partial charge rather than fully charged at the float voltage stage. This will lead to sulfation build up. I recommend you consider incorporating a desulphation device to minimize problems with hardeneed lead sulfate. My favourite product is from www.pulsetech,com.

Five years of satisfied customer with not one failure so far. Incidentally the Pulsetech Redipulse product is very good at salvaging sulfated batteries. My own house bank consist entirely of such salvaged batteries scrounged for free at the local marinas every spring when owners discover their winter storage has produced "dead" batteries from lack of charging.

Good luck

Arild elnav@telus.net

Automotive type alternators have bearings designed to support loads when the shaft is horizontal. If you attempt to mount the alternator with the shaft vertical, to match the vertical wind turbine, the weight of the rotor will cause premature bearing wear. A special thrust bearing would be needed to adequately support the rotor shaft. I was unsucessful in finding such a bearing for a commercial project involving hundred of units.

I have a 7kW alternator on my bench. Its a monster designed for locomotive use for 24V@200+ amps. Are you fully aware of just what is required to mount such a mechanism so it will last more than a week?

Dear Elnav (what a name, what does it mean?), I cannot really see that this problem you describe is a problem for an amateur just having fun. It might be a problem for a production line though as cost is the highest God of course, I agree with you there fully.

For an amateur like me for instance, I would accept that I needed to turn the drive thru 90° so that the alternator could be run in a horizontal position, this might even be possible using a belt drive and let the belt go thru a slight figure of 8 from the horizontal to the vertical, I have seen that done on old farmyard equipment....whether it would work here or not I could not say for certain.

But even if the alternator is mounted vertically, but driven by a vee belt from a pulley on the windmill rotor, a short extension of the shaft and a suitable bearing added would not appear to be too difficult to achieve, or even better, remove the old pulley and design a new pulley but including a thrust bearing in it to take the vertical load off the original bearings.....something like a Timken tapered roller bearing would do the job well.....two of them back to back being just short of perfect!!!

I feel that an amateur with access to a lathe could do a good solid job in that area, what do you think of that idea?

ELNAV is a contraction of my business name, ELectronic NAVigator. I do electrical designs for large yachts. The original stated power requirement was for 7kW using an automotive alternator. I have such an alternator on my bench right now and it weighs a lot. The rotor alone is about 10kg. In addition these alternators require a rotor spin of several thousand RPM to achieve that power output level. A wind generator wil not have such a fast spin rate so a speed up gear ratio is required. Considerable torque and stresses in mounting will develop as the unit turns. A typical automotive 12V alternator simply will not suffice.

From past experience, I know it is not easy to find a suitable thrust bearing that will fit existing alternator housings. Even for a talented amateur with access to a lathe it could be a challenge. Someone else posted a similar comment about a wind gen of this size being a challenge.

I used to work for an enginering development firm where we had to do our own machining and assembly of our prototype designs. I also designed automated controllers for 12kW wind generators while working for that firm. I am not saying it can't be done; merely pointing out the real world dificulties he will encounter. As have many others who have already been there and done that, forewarned is forearmed.

You could use several alternators, driven by a common jack-shaft.

Each alt could power a single breaker [circuit], each serviced by an independant bank of batteries.

this would complicate some things [wiring] & simplfy others [finding cheap alts] & the dificulty of syncronizing the phases.

increasing the # of inverters would make for several independant systems, allowing staged phasein of a total solution. Starting out w/lower draw circuits lighting, ventilation, moving up to washing machines & other hi current uses.

one way bearings would allow several turbines to feed the jackshaft, or even separate turbines for each circuit.

let your imagination & access to good junk guide your design!

Garth you are making it too complicated. No need to have independent circuits and battery banks for each alternator.

If the heat pump is 1.3kW and seveal other loads also approach a kilowatt or more, then you really don't need too many independent inverters. Victron makes an inverter than can be stacked up to five in parallel for a total capacity of 15kW Each unit is only 3kw and synch cords keep the phases in step. Better to have one single battery bank for charging purposes.

I agree that really light loads at 600 watts or less are better seved with dedicated small individual inverters.

regards

Elnav

you are certainly "the Man' on this subject.

I was really just trying to encorage creativity & recycling of used equipment, to economically deploy this endeavor.

A bit more explanation about optimum battery pack size, would be great!

Why are more cells in parallel better?

other than less longruns of wire

& higher voltage = more bang for the $ [series]

Garth wrote:

A bit more explanation about optimum battery pack size, would be great! Why are more cells in parallel better? other than less long runs of wire & higher voltage = more bang for the $ [series]

REPLY

Its the other way round. Series wired cells are better than parallel because charging current will divide among various parallel paths in proportion to resistance of each path. Small differences in battery resistance will result in unbalanced charge at the end of the charge cycle. The regulator will typically read the highest cell voltage and adjust accordingly, leaving some batteries under charged. Conversely if you place a remote sensing lead on a battery that gets the lowest charge you may end up with over charging some of the others.

A series circuit has the same charging current in all parts of the circuit. Therefore all series cells will be equally charged.

Do the math for ohms law and wire resistance losses and you will see how much less percentage losses you get at higher voltage and lower current for the same power in watts.

Compare 12V vs 24V. Half the current means half the voltage drop. But that smaller voltage drop as a pecentage of twice the voltage is now one quarter as much loss.

AS to optimum battery size, that is harder to quantify. Battery life increases exponentially as you reduce the depth of discharge. that suggest that bigger is better. But if your charging source is not capable of delivering a substantial charge current you will still end up with sulfated batteries if you had let them sit for a prolonged period partially discharged.

Lead sulfate hardens with time. The longer you wait before recharging the harder it is to reverse back to lead oxide and sulphuric acid. Wind chargers can be problematic if the wind is not blowing consistently. Hence the need to install desulfators.

For a house I would get as large a bank as I could afford and have room for. I would employ as many alternative charging sources as possible. I would also reduce my dependence on electric power for fans etc in the heating system. If on a well I think I would rely on a wind powered pump instead of an electric pump.

Heating and ventilation would be passive solar if possible with supplemental pumped heat only as emergency backup.

I'm not a big advocate of burning wood since the air pollution from wood stoves can get really bad.

regards

Arild

There must be something in the air for after I thought of a new design I found they had already made the movie. See www.fuellessflight.com/windturbine.htm

To stop the effects of sulphation and to get the maximum life of your storage batteries follow the following rules as best you can:-

1) never discharge below 12.6 volts a standard lead acid battery (car battery for example). Buy an electronic unit that removes battery power and warns you, they do not cost much. (Try a camping store.) If that is a probability, only buy "leisure" batteries from a good manufacturer which will handle being deeply discharged much better. But even these will reward you with a longer life if you follow the 12.6 volt rule..... Bad point is that true leisure batteries cost about twice the equivalent car battery. Do not buy sealed or gel no matter what the salesman tells you!!

2) Always use an electronic activator on all batteries, from new. This is a small, relatively cheap device that uses a tiny part of the batteries capacity to jolt it from time to time with high voltage/current pulse, which keeps the dreaded "sulphation fairy" away.....the extra life and therefore capacity will be far more than the cost of the activator! Good ones cost about €20,- and should last forever. Negative side is that make sure that any electronic equipment is a long way away lead/cable wise as you may hear the jolt on a radio or TV connnected to that battery, or just switch the activator off when the TV is connected (who has time for TV??)

3) Store your batteries where they are well ventilated in case of gassing (but not near open flames (candles etc) or electrical switchgear that produces sparks (normal wall switches for example!). Use a brushless fan (from a computer store) if you are ventilating with 12 volts!!! Or specially designed fans for motor boats & yachts fuel areas that are sealed to prevent the ingress of flammable gases....

4) Store them where the temperature does not go below 0°C (32°F) or above 25°C if possible. (less temperature change is even better with a middle value of around 15°C)

5) Keep the tops of the batteries clean, dry and free of dirt and battery fluid. Keep poles gelled with battery gel. Top up with distilled water, but only cover plates, never overfill! If you accidently overfill and you do not gas (overcharge) it will gradually get used up over a long period, do not remove fluid unless it is overflowing. Keep removed fluid in a clean sealed glass bottle and ONLY use it to top up THAT CELL on that battery and no other!!! (mark the cell!)

6) Never overcharge, that is keep the charge current below 1/5 Capacity = 50 amp battery, maximum of 5 amp charge. Stop charge if battery starts to warm up. This is an extremely safe value, if you go above it, make sure that you do not exceed even 13.2 volts as a max.... check in cell for gassing!! Stop if there are bubbles.....

7) Never charge above 13.3volts, this will reduce gassing to an absolute minimum, it also means that the battery will never get a completely full charge - accept that!! If you need more capacity, buy bigger batteries in the first place!!!

8) If your battery gets to be 5 years old and has never needed distilled water, accept this as a good sign, not a problem. I have such a leisure battery in my caravan, which I also built the charger for....I am expecting at least a 10 year life expectancy, hopefully more. In the past, some submarine batteries have exceeded the life of the submarine they were on several times!!! The old GPO (Telekcom) in the UK had (has?) batteries that were 50 years old or more when I was young and learning!!!

9) Remember that this fluid is corrosive, use eye protection and never smoke (stop smoking it is bad for your health anyway) near to the batteries. Have clean fresh water in that compartment to wash any body part that gets acid on it immediately in a squeezy type bottle, then seek a doctor or hospital. At least two pints or 1 liter of water, more is better! Flood your eyes if they get any in them. Keep some alkali crystals handy to neutralize any acid spills on your flooring, before it gets rotted thru, can take months.... talk to your local chemist as I have forgotten the names of suitable products....buy them before you buy a battery!!!

10) Wear old work clothes (a rubber apron/gloves are good in this respect too) when handling batteries and wash the clothes immediately (or at least place immediately in water), if you are lugging batteries about, especially new (heavy) batteries that may have traces of acid on them, otherwise you will find that at the next wash (or before!) you only have rags to put on!!! Even being careful you will be surprised at how quickly you get pin holes in the clothes that you wear for this job!!!

11) Keep children well away from the battery area.

12) Cover batter poles with non-conductive material or use battery connectors that cover the poles so that no short circuits can happen when something drops on a battery. You will be surprised at how quickly a screwdriver glows red hot on even a relatively small battery!!!! Fuse/Circuit breakers everything wherever possible. Cover long metallic tools with as much tape or plastic tubing as possible, to reduce the possibility of a short. Only leave the end of a screwdriver free for use.

Hope I have not forgotten anything important, my apologies if I have and have fun!

Andy Germany wrote:

1) never discharge below 12.6 volts a standard lead acid battery (car battery for example).

REPLY

In that case you can't use any battery since 12.6V is a fully charged battery. I suspect you meant to write 12.1V or may be 12.2V This is the generally accepted half way point of discharge for ordinary lead acid cells. 10.5V is absolute zero or 100% discharge.

Concerning the desulfators. I personally have never seen any problems with RFI from the commercially available units, although some of the home brew very high power units have reportedly caused RFI.

Andy wrote: Never charge above 13.3volts, this will reduce gassing to an absolute minimum, it also means that the battery will never get a completely full charge - accept that!!

REPLY: Here I would argue that is too low a value. 13.3V is the float value for a hot mediteranean or Florida location. In Ireland you can go much higher except during the hottest part of the summer. But so what? I assume you are going to get a decent quality temperature compensated alternator regulator like I recommended in a previous post. But if not, then derate by 27 millivolt per degree F above a room (ambient) temp of 70F

Typically you need to run a higher float voltage in winter and a lower temp in summer. The caution of never charge if battery gets warm needs quantifying with real numbers. Warm should mean a delt T of 20 F from ambient. In other words if you are chaging at room temp of 70F then a battery temp of 90F is okay.

This is assuming you manage to fully charge the batteyr bank to a point of reaching a float voltage stage. In many systems where charge and discharge take place concurrently, batery voltag enever reach a high level because comsumption often equal or exceed charging source.

However if you are bulk charging in 95F ambient temp then you are geting awfully close to the max limit of 120F beyond which lead acid batteries really do begin to deteriorate.

And speaking of bulk charge, don't even think about using a single stage regulator. These will not be very effective and will waste a lot of time. The only time you need to cut back on a 3 stage regulator is if the max output of the alternator places such a large torque load on the wind generator during light winds so as to stall it completely.

however a properly designed and matched system should not have much of a problem.

Arild

I thank you most kindly for your highly accurate and exact input (except in one particular area) but I feel that the values and suggestions I quoted are easily understood by someone who does not want follow every degree of temperature change with a different charging pattern etc., but conversely also wants to not accelerate any aging of the battery and in fact achieve the longest life possible!

I would like to draw your attention to the following web page, which is not alone in these comments and facts, but is representative and easily read / understood by almost anyone:-

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-13.htm

Quoting from their page (I would recommend that everyone go there and read it fully themselves, it is well presented and accurate):-

"Lead-acid batteries must always be stored in a charged state. A topping charge should be applied every six months to avoid the voltage from dropping below 2.10V/cell on an SLA. Prolonged storage below the critical voltage causes sulfation, a condition that is difficult to reverse. (See also: "How to restore and prolong lead-acid batteries")"

Funnily enough, the 2.10V/Cell recommended minimum voltage is exactly 12.6 volts on a normal "12volt" battery, and is the well documented point at which sulfation and cell corrosion starts! So I stand by my value completely, exactly as I wrote it.....anyone who does not mind a shorter battery life can of course use the values you quoted....

Furthermore, although you are technically correct that the charging voltage achieved should be changed to suit the temperature of the battery etc....this is too much info for most people and staying within safe bounds is easily understood by all.....that is what I did....

Anyone who has the slightest interest in following these well documented battery infos slavishly has a wealth of information available on both the internet and any public library, as you seem to have, but for 99.999% of the people who want to charge a battery and have a long life from it, following my suggestions and values will achieve just that, without approaching any boundaries of possible damage..... but simply put and I hope easily understood!

Designing a charger for all parameters is not an easy job, although I expect that someone has put a chip out with most if not all of the features needed, but with my own version, I just stay well within the documented envelope and never go near the edges....it works just as well....

As I mentioned previously, I have a 120 A/H Leisure Battery that is 5 years old, spends the most of year either connected to a charger of my own design (that does not mean that it is under charge the whole year!!!!), or the car alternator when driving.

This charger "exercises" the battery and does not "float" or overcharge it as many others of (to my mind!) inferior design do....

The 12 volt components of the caravan are all connected to this battery, the charger taking the first load each time, with the battery filling in, except when we are underway, but parked, (the car engine only charges when running up to about 14.1 volts - due to a long cable run from the car, when underway) when the battery handles the whole load. This battery has NEVER required distilled water since new!! Even today, the electrolyte level in each cell is still well up to the top mark visible on the sides of the battery!! 120 A/H is a much larger battery than most would say is needed.....it was the largest A/H leisure battery that still fitted in the battery compartment! But I have not regretted this purchase in any way or form (86 Pounds Sterling!)

When on holiday in southern Europe, we have occasionally experienced day temperatures of up to 48°C, but I have not measured the actual battery temperature at that time, but I would expect it to get to at least 25-30° on some days, but as it is well insulated (against cold for winter holidays!), I may actually have named a figure higher than it actually is.....but with my charging rates and it being a leisure design, I do not expect any problems.....

I hope that this message goes in some ways to show the major differences in approach possible to lead acid battery charging and that each person can and should decide how he wants to "skin the cat".....

I personally find that the simpler a charging unit is allows:- a) I understand it better when something goes wrong (that has not yet happened!), b) less likely to go wrong c) cheaper in the long run.

I would appreciate any further input that you have as I am always ready to learn something useful from someone who understands his job and also please have a great day on CR4!!

Mr Nage,

on this Section I was asking for help to finishing my technique VERTICAL AXIS driving the generator for producing Electricity.

Rotating vertical axis and on top or on bottom I like to place some sort of gear-wheel/cog-wheel for moving the power over to the generator.

By what the axis is been driven has nothing to do with my questiens at all.

If there will be need for some sort of gearbox was one other problem.

All the time people are talking arround and do not answhering the main things.

This wind turbine is now ready for the world, the solutions is there but still I need more technique and solutions and I´m ready to pay for it and I do need investors to, this is one large help for the people of the world.

Thank you for your interest in my project and this applies to all people who have contributed. I must emphasise that I am not technically gifted like all of you who have contributed to this forum, I am a retired person with many interests and experiences and as you have read in my previous contributions I intend harnessing the abundant wind power at my home to generate power using Automobile alternators and a VAWT the design of which I would welcome assistance with.----- what dimensions (diameter and height) would be reqiured to Produce 5-7 KW of power ?

My sincere thanks and best wishes to all contributors --- Please keep up the good Advice JOE.

Mr. Nage wrote: <I must emphasise that I am not technically gifted like all of you who have contributed to this forum, I am a retired person with many interests and experiences>

REPLY

Mr Nage if you lack technical skills and knowledge, I would assume you plan to buy a factory made system. Given the typical losses of any mechanical drive system etc. your 5-7kw electrical output system is going to involve something equivalent to a 15 HP motor with attendant torque.

That is not something you can cobble together with baling wire and zip ties or duct tape.

As a preliminary I suggest you investigate the available commercial products to see how a commercial design is done. As someone else previously posted, why reinvent the wheel? If it was so easy to do for low cost, don't you think most of us would already have such a generator built and running in our back yard. I used to build wind generators commercially and already have a shop full of most of the equipment required to build a system such as you desire. Even so it is a considerable project involving money, well equipped shop facility and of course technical know how by someone who has done similar before. I lack the money at the moment. A neighbor built a wind genreator and discovered the local wind conditions simply isn't enough to produce useable power fo9r long enough time period.

Where is your location? We may supply this machine to you. Please contact with us. Henryzhang1@hotmail.com

Guest wrote: Where is your location? We may supply this machine to you. Please contact with us. Henryzhang1@hotmail.com

REPLY

Are you asking me (Elnav) or Nage who is in Tralee Ireland. I'm in Canada, province of British Columbia.

elnav

Hello...I have been developing a vertical wind turbine for the last 2 years and have now built a second working prototype that has proven the concept. The result is a working prototype of wind blades that are...I'm not going to lie to you...totally awesome! Well at least I think so because it feels so good to see a new working model of what started as a wonky looking contraption on my work bench.

Project Code Name: BIG JIBBY - _{^{its a long story}}

is a flexible vertical wind turbine design that can fit into several rural and urban settings.

It has been a lot of fun designing and building this invention. I am lucky to have such great friends as team members that have been key to the whole project.

I have put almost everything I have into this invention and am now looking for others that want to get involved with the project. First round of funding has been from my own pocket and while I may have deep pockets...they are currently not very full...if you know what I mean.

Anyone interested and wants to build a bigger, better, badder, prototype... lets do it! I'm just sitting here in my office trying to get this project off the ground and let the wind turbine fly.

"to build a bigger, better, badder, prototype"

What size is the one you have?

In my experience, even the smallest, easily available turbines need planning permission, are available for only a small proportion of the time, and have long pay-back periods (sometimes longer than the warranty). Are you sure that is the way to go?

The wind blade is about 3-4 feet tall and has two of them on the shaft for a total of 7 Feet. The design is open ended so that you can just keep going as tall as you want...I have a drafted drawing of a 100 foot model and can easily draw it taller. They more blades you add the more power, and the farther you go up the stronger the wind...right? So I plan on building some wind walls and put hundreds if not thousands of these things out there in the air all working together to crank a larger generator then one could by itself.

I would love to show a photo of the design to you but am currently looking into all the patent type stuff needed to do things right...I guess I'm not ready to release this to the public...yet...but could do some kind of non-disclosure agreement to anyone interested. I have invested so much of my life, time, energy, and money into it that I don't want to get taken for the wrong kind of ride. I'm new to this turning an invention into an actual global marketplace ready product...its crazy business.

I really just want to get these things out there at the right price where they can be made in our own shop here in Canada and to do something for the renewable energy market for the whole world.

The generator is the current part of the design I am building. I am working with a couple of different generator configurations and gearbox ideas to get the most out of the wind. holy smokes is copper ever expensive! I have posted a 3-phase coil design, like a pancake generator that I am working with and going to be build a larger version next.

Forward Motion

JT

I would leave out the gearbox as generally speaking you lose efficiency that way.....

JesterTerrestial wrote: I have posted a 3-phase coil design, like a pancake generator that I am working with and going to be build a larger version next.

REPLY: A 3 phase design! Right there I see a potential problem. Given the variability of wind in many locations, you are not going to have much luck unless the design includes some form of storage method to even out between peaks and lulls.

AC cannot be stored directly. Only pumped storage works with AC and that is not very efficient. In the smaller sizes for independent homes and small business the ability to store energy is more important. Larger sizes, that are intended for grid-tie applications also tend to be more expensive, so you will have greater difficulty finding investors with deep enough pockets. That is as much of a catch-22 as the Patent trap.

Can you give us a video link to see it in action?

I would love to show some pictures and videos...however...I don't have a patent on this thing yet and am worried about letting it out in the open before I cover myself.

I am just starting to read on patents and the likes...what a bunch of bull $%@*

I hear that it can take years to get one and costs alot of money. It makes me wonder how anything gets done...

What is the best to way protect myself and get this project out in the open? A patnet...dose this mean I need to sit on my design and project for upto 2 years???

I have a freind who said that he is still waiting for a reply about a patent request and it has been almost 10 years!!!

Well now you are caught in the well known "Patent-Trap", you are not allowed to divulge anything or the patent is invalid and people will not invest unless you divulge.

Been there and still got the T-Shirt!!

How about a CR4 investment team to help people with good ideas?????

If any body has a design of "vertical axis water turbine" plz share.

you may be interested in the magwind design at www, enviro-energies.com it looks something like what is being described here, colin.