Wind energy to electric energy - Page 11 - Electronic Circuits Projects Diagrams Free

Vaibhav Birit · 15th February 2005, 05:09 AM

Willib and company have done well while i was 'away'

williB · 20th February 2005, 04:49 AM

There seems to be a neverending list of things that you can do with old hard drives.. This is a clycloturbine . (without the tail )
It is made from a piece of 2'' OD PVC tubing , and cost about $ 6.00 to make.. I got the idea from the windstuffnow site listed in my sig..
The trick to this one is to buy the coupler & end cap pieces because the coupler gives you a very good surface to hot glue to the HD spindle , i tried it before i had the coupler , and it wobbled a little bit , but with the coupler piece it wobbles not..the end cap is where i drilled & tapped a hole for for the HD Arm , which is a critical part of the whole mechinism..
For a size reference in pic 2 at the base is an old western digital 1170 HD ..
Comming out of the tube is two 10-32 Threaded rods 14 '' Dia. which is also the length of the two air foils..
the two rods support the wieght of the foils..
at the end of the rods are door hinges which i cut with my trusty dremmel if i had to do it again i would probably buy four more of the top two Home Depot hinges.. connected to the hinges are the wood air foils ..I carved these out of poplar , which btw is excellect wood for carving it has an extreamely tight grain.. the density was consistant , in any case, with no knots!!
i got the shape off one of the propeller sites..
this is a real fun project .. in the second pic the wind would be comming from the top of the pic..in the first pic the wind would be comming from the left , slightly ahead of the turbine..that is not a optical illusion , in pic one , that is really how it looks when the ' tail ' is pointing to the side like that .. if it was turned 180 degrees you would see the carving side of the foils..
the HD Arm is screwed into the top of the end cap, and then i drilled an offset of around 0.600 '' where the wood rods are connected which actually steer the foils as it turns ( when holding offset in one spot as the foils are spinning..)
the problem i am having right now is how to balance it , i suppose i could weigh each half , but when it really gets going , it still sort of wobbles a bit..
with the fan at low speed i get 124 RPM out of it , with a nice amount of torque..

williB · 20th February 2005, 10:59 PM

last night i made another wind anemometer , but this one is made out of a PC box fan ..
If you take out the armetures and connect it to 5V power and spin it this (below) is the output .. it has 4 negetive pulses per revolution ..
its normally high voltage is 4.323 V and its low is .322 V so it should be fun to hook it up to a PIC , i could use the comparators to count the pulses..and give me the RPMs, somehow i have to turn the RPMs into wind speed ..

williB · 21st February 2005, 08:32 PM

just a few things ..
the anemometer( pc box fan ) should be the ball bearing type ..
the cycloturbine should ( and will ) be connected to a larger 5 1/4 HD..the small HD plattens bend too much..
the tuna head anemometer is still going strong .. the other day it was spinning so fast , it was a blur..

williB · 22nd February 2005, 07:59 AM

wow i just got 25 Volts out of this little baby..Ya'll might recognize it as a head positioning coil fron an old HD.
Then the wires broke lol

.. and it wasnt even that close to the magnets i bet i could have gotten 30 V easy..
What is interresting is , the magnets are larger than the coil , and the wave form was a typical shape , just much larger
than i have been used to..( from one coil)
granted the .006 '' wire size couldent carry much current at all , but thats not the point.
The point is a lot of turns of wire , tightly wound in a coil , produces a lot of voltage..also i may have to rethink the way i wind my
coils the next time ..

williB · 24th February 2005, 01:15 AM

I just got back to researching your Synchronous rectifier idea..
It sounds like a cool item ..

Code:

News Story

Synchronous Rectifier suits power switching applications. 

February 1, 2005 07:42 - Self-contained BERS™ NIS6111 couples high-speed comparator and MOSFET driver with power MOSFET to create diode with same forward-drop characteristics as MOSFET, eliminating heat sinks. It is capable of blocking up to 24 V and has typical forward voltage drop of 0.1 V at forward current of 20 A. Offered in 9 x 9 mm QFN package, Model NIS6111 can be used as oring diode used in servers and telecom equipment. 

http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/459712

williB · 27th February 2005, 06:48 PM

These propellers are 11 inches in diameter..
I wanted to see if they could move the motor in pic2.. said motor has a lot of friction for them to overcome..
the thing behind the motor is my RPM Meter,( the pc box fan from a few posts back), ..hooked to the scope in the other room ..
Two prop blades would only turn the motor with the fan on high .
four prop blades , on medium speed were turning @ 241 RPM..
Six fan blades on high were spinning at 277RPM..
with no motor on there max speed was 500 rpm with one prop blade ( the third on from thr right in pic three..whicih i believe is the best shape i can come up with..as you can see they are not all identical , it took a while to come up with the best shape..i have ten more blank blocks of poly foam, which will become props..
The props are mounted to a Graphite fishing rod..
the motor is from a junk yard ,BMW , heater fan.. for such nice cars they have really crappy fan motors.. ie No ball bearings , and the current they draw is emence , from the looks of the thickness of the windings..anyway i also took out the brushes , less friction..
what i would like to do now is attach some better magnets to where the armatures are and wind some magnet wire in there .. that would be cool..

williB · 28th February 2005, 04:40 AM

this is what i used on the output on the test armature and it worked with a resistive load ..
by worked i mean it had a nice looking current wave ..
but i also hooked up two NiMH batteries , that didnt work as well, because the power mosfets didnt turn on as quickly as with a resistive load..
in fact just the top portion of of the center triplet was showing on the scope..picture pic 2 with the negative part inverted to make three positive going pulses..
the way my main generator works is eight single phase armatures and sixteen magnets.. so every eight of a turn is another triplet wave..
so i suppose i could ..what ?? use a zero crossing detector.. or something .. dont know..??

williB · 3rd March 2005, 06:08 AM

well i tested the cycloturbine and the multiple propellers today 8)
they both worked very well , as it was very windy today..its really hard to compare them , they both have their advantages..
the cycloturbine has the advantage of being fairly compact and omni-directional..
the multi-prop has the advantage of being able to add props to it , to a point..the way i tested it was with three propellers on the front half and four on the back..so they were much more spread out than the picture above showed..and it was fairly hard to stop it when the wind was blowing , the cycloturbine was a lot easier to stop by hand , but it also has the 5 1/4 '' platten and a 2'' dia. shaft ,so it is really hard to compare them..it is so windy outside right now if the cycloturbine was out there i know it would fly apart. :lol: .my tuna head anemometer is taking a beating..

williB · 4th March 2005, 08:16 PM

the nice thing about the multi prop design is its simplicity..
i also took the cyclo and the multi prop out again and both performed well, but the cyclo still needs some work, the tail which isnt pictured , is mounted on a hex screw , where the drill is in the picture.. the problem is the hole wasnt drilled perfectly perpendicular to the HD head positioning arm , so as it spins it gets tighter at one point in the rotation, and this tightness makes it wobble from the top.. sigh ..even thoogh it is centered at the base..
but the multiprop design worked flawlessly and i am going to hook a generator to it like the picture at the bottom of page 6..

williB · 7th March 2005, 12:03 AM

I was just thinking about when two magnets pass by an armature .. that the
problem is when one magnets flux is in the center and about to cut through, and
the other magnets flux is at the outside about to cut through .. that the flux
isnt cutting through the same loop..
even though it is the same winding, the outer magnet is cutting through the outer windings .. thats why there is a peak , only when the magnets flux is cutting through the core( and therefore the same physical loop) of the armature is there a peak ..
i was thinking that if you could shift the loops around , then the most flux would be cutting through a series of loops for a sustained peak..

i think it would be more efficient..

williB · 8th March 2005, 11:42 PM

this is sooo cool...
i have the propellers hooked to the tach device , and we are having a winter storm at this moment with very strong gusts ..
here is some data of the gusts..

Code:

Time   RPM 
______________
5:30    750 
6:15    857
6:25    1200

one problem is the wind is blowing smack at the side of the building so only when it blows from the north or the south does it really get going..
i think that they are predicting North west winds all night 26 MPH sustained with 39 MPH gusts 8) :lol:
just had two more 1200 RPM gusts
just had a gust that regestered 1500 RPM..

peterpan · 11th March 2005, 12:12 PM

cool, keep up the news I'm very interested!

williB · 11th March 2005, 06:25 PM

as far as converting the junk yard motor to a generator , i have given up on that..

:wink:

it was insanely complicated , the way i wanted to do it..because i only had .300 '' between the armature/rotor and the case..and winding coils that would fit proved more difficult than i had imagined..
but the propellers did turn my first generator ( the one with the saw blade ) at over 400 RPM , with the fan on high..

peterpan · 12th March 2005, 01:27 PM

Go with the steper motors from old printers and computer controlled machines as they make power at low rpm and it's alot easier than building your own alt for the mini gennies, try using a R/C aeroplane propeller adaptor to connect the prop to the motor shaft, use diodes to convert to dc power and wallah it works!

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15th February 2005, 05:09 AM	(permalink)
Vaibhav Birit	Willib and company have done well while i was 'away' __________________ www.vaibhavbirit.bravehost.com

21st February 2005, 08:32 PM	(permalink)
williB	just a few things .. the anemometer( pc box fan ) should be the ball bearing type .. the cycloturbine should ( and will ) be connected to a larger 5 1/4 HD..the small HD plattens bend too much.. the tuna head anemometer is still going strong .. the other day it was spinning so fast , it was a blur..

3rd March 2005, 06:08 AM	(permalink)
williB	well i tested the cycloturbine and the multiple propellers today 8) they both worked very well , as it was very windy today..its really hard to compare them , they both have their advantages.. the cycloturbine has the advantage of being fairly compact and omni-directional.. the multi-prop has the advantage of being able to add props to it , to a point..the way i tested it was with three propellers on the front half and four on the back..so they were much more spread out than the picture above showed..and it was fairly hard to stop it when the wind was blowing , the cycloturbine was a lot easier to stop by hand , but it also has the 5 1/4 '' platten and a 2'' dia. shaft ,so it is really hard to compare them..it is so windy outside right now if the cycloturbine was out there i know it would fly apart. :lol: .my tuna head anemometer is taking a beating..

4th March 2005, 08:16 PM	(permalink)
williB	the nice thing about the multi prop design is its simplicity.. i also took the cyclo and the multi prop out again and both performed well, but the cyclo still needs some work, the tail which isnt pictured , is mounted on a hex screw , where the drill is in the picture.. the problem is the hole wasnt drilled perfectly perpendicular to the HD head positioning arm , so as it spins it gets tighter at one point in the rotation, and this tightness makes it wobble from the top.. sigh ..even thoogh it is centered at the base.. but the multiprop design worked flawlessly and i am going to hook a generator to it like the picture at the bottom of page 6..

7th March 2005, 12:03 AM	(permalink)
williB	I was just thinking about when two magnets pass by an armature .. that the problem is when one magnets flux is in the center and about to cut through, and the other magnets flux is at the outside about to cut through .. that the flux isnt cutting through the same loop.. even though it is the same winding, the outer magnet is cutting through the outer windings .. thats why there is a peak , only when the magnets flux is cutting through the core( and therefore the same physical loop) of the armature is there a peak .. i was thinking that if you could shift the loops around , then the most flux would be cutting through a series of loops for a sustained peak.. i think it would be more efficient..

8th March 2005, 11:42 PM	(permalink)
williB	this is sooo cool... i have the propellers hooked to the tach device , and we are having a winter storm at this moment with very strong gusts .. here is some data of the gusts.. Code: Time RPM ______________ 5:30 750 6:15 857 6:25 1200 one problem is the wind is blowing smack at the side of the building so only when it blows from the north or the south does it really get going.. i think that they are predicting North west winds all night 26 MPH sustained with 39 MPH gusts 8) :lol: just had two more 1200 RPM gusts just had a gust that regestered 1500 RPM..

11th March 2005, 12:12 PM	(permalink)
peterpan	wind power cool, keep up the news I'm very interested!

11th March 2005, 06:25 PM	(permalink)
williB	as far as converting the junk yard motor to a generator , i have given up on that.. :wink: it was insanely complicated , the way i wanted to do it..because i only had .300 '' between the armature/rotor and the case..and winding coils that would fit proved more difficult than i had imagined.. but the propellers did turn my first generator ( the one with the saw blade ) at over 400 RPM , with the fan on high..

12th March 2005, 01:27 PM	(permalink)
peterpan	re: motors Go with the steper motors from old printers and computer controlled machines as they make power at low rpm and it's alot easier than building your own alt for the mini gennies, try using a R/C aeroplane propeller adaptor to connect the prop to the motor shaft, use diodes to convert to dc power and wallah it works!