Wind energy to electric energy

[Vaibhav Birit]

I read somewhere that the motor used in a floppy drive has great potential for wind to electricity conversion. Anybody has more info on this.

 

[williB]

Youre right nigel cuz i had checked another motor last night ..
and had a vast inprovement in the output voltage..
spinning it by hand ,somewhat slowly, i was getting two Volts !!
which is plenty for our purpose , and with the torque this thing gives i think it will work fine..

I read somewhere that the motor used in a floppy drive has great potential for wind to electricity conversion. Anybody has more info on this.

dont know...

 

[williB]

Check out this site..!!

https://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_experiments.html

 

[bryan1]

Hey WilliB,
Eh mate that link to otherpower is the best thing since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned. It's good to find a heap of info on remote power systems especially on hydro as I'm looking at ways to produce power from water as I dont call my farm uppsndowns for nothing

Cheers Bryan1

 

[williB]

yeah they show you how to make generators/alternators out of old auto brake rotors..
very cool stuff..!!

 

[chemelec]

Why not just use a Good old Fashioned Bicycle Generator.

It will put out 6 volts at about 500 mA.

 

[williB]

**broken link removed**
this is from the site..

It seems were getting a good 100 watts around 10mph, which is quite reasonable for a 10' prop. We probably see about 500 watts or so at 25 mph and maybe 700 at 30 when it starts furling out of the wind. 500 watts in 25 mph is a bit less than we'd hope for from the 10' prop, and I believe it's because the alternator is a bit too powerful for it.

i plan on making a smaller version of this..
except with a savonius design..

 

[bryan1]

Eh WilliB,
I finally found what I was looking for and that was a full description on building an alternator both for wind and hydro. I found it on Hugh Piggots website and thank you very much again for the link. I'll certainly be posting some pictures once I've built one and have it working on hydro.


Cheers Bryan1

 

[williB]

I'm having a hard time finding a source of magnets..
Didnt old TV's have six or eight really strong magnets in them..?
I just took apart a pc monitor unfortunatly i did not find what i was looking for..
anyone have any sugestions..??

 

[FoxyRick]

The strongest magnets you'll get are in Hard Drives. Beg some really old ones and take them apart. Each will yield 2, sometimes 4, *seriously* strong Neodymium-Iron-Boron (iirc) magnets. Amazing things!

Don't let them snap together, they are brittle. Don't keep them in a stack together, the force can crush the middle ones.

Don't trap your fingers between them. Don't put them either side of your earlobe, as a friend of mine did. It really hurts (funny though if it isn't you!)

FoxyRick.

 

[williB]

thanks , i might have a 5.25 half hight drive floating around somewhere.. think that might have them in there?

 

[bryan1]

I'm having a hard time finding a source of magnets..
Didnt old TV's have six or eight really strong magnets in them..?
I just took apart a pc monitor unfortunatly i did not find what i was looking for..
anyone have any sugestions..??

Eh WilliB,
I'm looking for some magnets aswell and I wonder if 15mm dia x 20mm thick would be suitable as www.oatleye.com have them under the general items page. These magnets are "Very strong NEODYMIUM IRON BORON RARE EARTH MAGNETS" quote from the webpage.
anyway I'll keep looking over here in Oz for them and if I find any I'll let ya know straight away.

Cheers Bryan1

 

[FoxyRick]

Hi williB,

Not sure about one *that* old, I took a 5.25 inch HD apart once, had a very nice stepper motor (400 steps/rev iirc) for the head positioning instead of the magnets.

All the 3.5 inch HD's I've disassembled (about 10) have the magents, from old 120MB to new (dead) 40GB.

FoxyRick.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'm having a hard time finding a source of magnets..
Didnt old TV's have six or eight really strong magnets in them..?
I just took apart a pc monitor unfortunatly i did not find what i was looking for..

Only seriously OLD!! TV's had any magnets in them, only in B/W sets, and probably 1950's vintage.

They also weren't that strong!.

Magnetrons in microwaves have two strong magnets inside, but they are circular (as were the old TV magnets) - would they be any good?.

 

[williB]

Eh WilliB,
I'm looking for some magnets aswell and I wonder if 15mm dia x 20mm thick would be suitable as www.oatleye.com have them under the general items page. These magnets are "Very strong NEODYMIUM IRON BORON RARE EARTH MAGNETS" quote from the webpage.
anyway I'll keep looking over here in Oz for them and if I find any I'll let ya know straight away.

Cheers Bryan1

.. due to the size and shape of the ones on that site , if you stacked three in a line , with the same polarity facing up that would work..

 

[williB]

last night i ebay'd NEODYMIUM IRON BORON magnets and found a bunch
and i suppose that i should use them..but i went to home depot and fould some ceramic magnets , in the hardware section 1-7/8 x7/8x3/8" ..from what i was reading the rare earth magnets were 10 times stronger than the ones i bought.. but i could allways switch to NEODYMIUM IRON BORON

 

[williB]

Hi williB,

Not sure about one *that* old, I took a 5.25 inch HD apart once, had a very nice stepper motor (400 steps/rev iirc) for the head positioning instead of the magnets.

All the 3.5 inch HD's I've disassembled (about 10) have the magents, from old 120MB to new (dead) 40GB.

FoxyRick.

really? what shape are they?

 

[williB]

I'm having a hard time finding a source of magnets..
Didnt old TV's have six or eight really strong magnets in them..?
I just took apart a pc monitor unfortunatly i did not find what i was looking for..

Only seriously OLD!! TV's had any magnets in them, only in B/W sets, and probably 1950's vintage.

They also weren't that strong!.

Magnetrons in microwaves have two strong magnets inside, but they are circular (as were the old TV magnets) - would they be any good?.

when i was a kid we had a bunch of really strong magnets around the house , i thought they were from TV's .. maybe not..
it would be best if they were flat , for ease of construction .. the next time i see one thrown out, i will tear it apart and see whats inside..thanks for the info..

 

[williB]

Bryan1 , if you put them like this it would probably work very well..

Hugh Piggots site says to alternate the poles of the magnets like in the picture. the otherpower Site says also to alternate the winding direction...
CCW to CW to CCW..ect... But Hugh Piggot says during testing ... if the winding isnt working properly to just switch the connections on the coil...

 

[FoxyRick]

I have seen two basic shapes of HD magnet. They are used in the head positioning assembly, together with a voice-coil on the arm.

The magnets are flat, about 3mm thick, with poles on the flat faces. The shape of most varies from an arc to an elbow, intended to follow the arced movement of the arm from its pivot. Approximate size is 20mm on the long arc/elbow side to 15 mm on the short side, the width is about 10 to 12 mm. Somehat like the sketch below (don't laugh, I'm not an artist, that's why I teach science!)

Usually there are two of these. Sometimes I have seen a magnet nearly twice the size, but just one.

FoxyRick.