Hi Art.
The Garbogen has been a work in progress 5 or so years. Many improvement have happened over this time.
There are a # of ways to build it. The best preforming magnets and the heart of its good preformance. These are the old #29 curved NEO magnets.
These magnets were surplus. There are some smaller version that work fairly well but with reduced output. It would be posable to have a magnet manufacture reproduce the original magnets and even make them better by increasing the width, thickness and reducing the lingth. This may even increase power output. However I've never persude this.
NTL a board member here has purchased and sells the slightly smaller version at a good price. His magnet is actully better suited for other ac motor conversions then the old # 29s are.
The first thing you do when building a Garbogen is to find a doaner disposal. Out of the hundreds I've collected only a few had burnt coils. 99.9 % of the units have bad food chopper section. You don't use that part anyway.
All units below the 1 hp are wound with aluminum wire. These will work but with much less power.
The 1 HP with copper wire is a very rare unit. The 3/4 hp are plentyfull and at 7.9 to 8.3 amps make for a close second.
After aquiering your garbage disposal you tear it down. The parts you don't use on this project are the armature and the food chopper end. These motors are designed for shot intermient use. As such the only have bushings, not bearings.
Bearings are a must. Bushings increase drage, wear, cogging. The shaft needs a rolling surface not a sliding draging surface.
The original armature is too short for the arch segment curved NEOs you may find.
This is why I've used the armature from a furnace blower motor. They are logner and typicaly have a much longer shaft also. The shaft on the original armature is short.
Another addvantage of the furnace motor armature is its smaller diameter. This means less machining to make room for the magnets to fit the stator bore.
In most cases the original bottom end cap it stamped thin steel. It has a bushing not a bearing. You could somehow make an adaptor that might support a bearing on the cheap end cap. I've not used this type yet.
The very best and expencive units come with a cast aluminum bottom end cap. It also has a bushing. I've hade some sucess machining these and installing bearings in these. It takes 2 so you have to collect 2 of the expencive unit to make 1.
I've also made new end caps from plywood. The best end caps I've made are machined 3/8" thick aluminum plate. This also makes a good heat sink for the rectifiers.
Next upgrade is to build an all new armature from solid steel. This makes conciderable more power then an ac motor armature wich has a high aluminum content
that reducees the flux path.
Another addvantage is the shaft can be made from much larger diameter steel. This provides better stringth to support the streeses the blades place on the shaft.
The stator is easyly removed and recentered. Befor disaembly the stator is at one end of the motor can. It must be moved to center.
The wireing mods are easy. If the unit is to be used at 24 volts no wire changes are need. The 12 volt mods are prety easy.
If the unit is use in very high wind area all the run coils can be perelelled the wired to there own and seperate fullwave bridge rectifier. Same with the start coils with there own and seperate fullwave bridge rectifiers. Then the DC outputs of both bridges are combined.
I've seen 1200 watts from this machine in this mod at 45 mph. Now 45 mph is not what we would design a machine for but if your area had alot of 20 to 30 mph winds it would be great. But who lives there?
So I wire it in what I call the middel wireing scheem. Its not the stock wireing we'd use at 24 volt and its not the all perelell we'd use in a constant hurican but inbetween. It a combo of sires perelell. This is best for everday use.
As far as my plastic blades. I'll will be testing my blades against the accepted carved wood blades and a set of plastic pipe blades made from scratch.
At this point I'm not sure but I think my blades will start up sooner and over the entier wind spectrum produce more power. I could be wrong about this, this is why I want to make this test in a wind tunnel setting with a # of small PMAs both motor conversions and dual rotor machines.
Everthing I've posted above has allredy been posted a # of times. Search my diary and stories.
I'm very busy at my retail car stereo store. This does not leave much time to do justice to explaining or writing things like the Garbogen story.
I promiss you as soon as I win the lotto I'll spend more time explaining a bunch of things I do. LOL.
I'll do my best with the limited time I have.
This unit could be built with minamul tools and skills or it can be made into a very nice and better preformer then several comercial units its size.
There are many garbage disposal motors along with many other types of motors in alot of recycle dumpsters and other places. I've allways felt its to bad this part of home brew wind gennies has not had more intrest. Most of the work has been done, they're easy and as small machines work quite well? OH Well.
JK TAS Jerry
Airheads Page
[ Parent ]