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Homemade Windmill with CNC machined blades | 10 comments (10 topical)
Re: Homemade Windmill with CNC machined blades (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by taylorp035 on Tue Jun 30, 2009 at 08:38:30 PM MST

I also have video that I haven't uploaded yet, that shows the tower bend significantly in heavy winds (it also shows me being surprised by the large gust of wind...lol).  It is rather long (3 min and 200+ megabytes), and my upload internet speed is very slow (approximately a 4 hour job).  I will try to upload it tonight and give you guys a link when it is ready.

By the way, I was wondering if you guys think I would get more power out of the windmill if I was charging two batteries instead of three?  I have done as high as 4, but the voltage rarely gets that high.  I have also charged just one cell.

I would think someone out there would have hooked up a 24v windmill to a 12volt battery bank.



Re: Homemade Windmill with CNC machined blades (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by ghurd on Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 08:38:01 AM MST

There is a magic point where everything comes together.
The voltage, amps, RPM, blades, wind speed, etc.

Connecting a decent 24V windmill to a 12V battery will make it reach cut in too soon.
Then amps start to flow, which puts load on the blades before there is enough energy in the wind to remove any energy from the wind.
The generator wants to extract 20W where there is not 20W available.
This causes stall.

A simple demonstration of stall is with almost a 0V load.  Shorted output.
A decent windmill will violently slow down, like it has brakes.  It will rotate at a very low RPM.  This is the extreme example of stall.

I expect the motor in your windmill is fairly high resistance, which makes stall less obvious, and makes the windmill less efficient.
The blades are overly powerful for the output, so the blades sort of use brute force to keep pushing when stalled.

Typically, the magic point should be when it is charging at 1ma in 6.5MPH wind.  Whatever voltage that happens to be is the voltage the system should work best.

Your blades seem pretty fast.  The 6.5MPH RPM is about 600RPM, so cut in voltage should be reached at about 600RPM.
The generator makes about 5.1V at 600RPM.
Therefor, working with what we have in hand, the optimum battery voltage should be 5.1V.

All that assumes the blades are a good match for the motor (they most probably are not)
and the motor is relatively efficient as a generator (it most probably is not).

That is greatly over simplified.
G-

[ Parent ]



Re: Homemade Windmill with CNC machined blades (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by taylorp035 on Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 10:01:08 AM MST

Thanks for the input.

With my observations, I did not see a difference between a no load situation and when I connect the batteries.  When I short it out, it stops the blades very fast.  I think I will experiment with 3 or 4 cells in parallel to make a 1.2v pack and see if it makes a difference.

Here are some more videos that I uploaded last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5pBxgW4duM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjHCulkKFwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N0PWif6jtw

The last one has a very windy moment at about 2:50.

Unfortunately, I can't go outside today because it rained 6" yesterday in 4 hours.
I'm going to work with a spare alternator today to see if it is any good for a turbine.

[ Parent ]



Homemade Windmill with CNC machined blades | 10 comments (10 topical)

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