Yesterday was interesting for me- I put this contraption
up, and it works!
The support is the central tube/driveshaft from a Porsche 944 (a friend owns a porsche repair shop and allows me to scrounge in the scrap pile), the tube is about six feet in length with a bell housing on one end and a square steel flange on the other. Inside the tube is a 24mm (1 inch) torsion driveshaft mounted in 4 very heavy (but very smooth) bearings, drive shaft has splines on each end. I drove the driveshaft half way out of the tube so that only two of the bearings support it. On the square end flange, I made a duplicate flange with a 1 1/8in central hole for the drive shaft to go through. This plate is the thrust bearing support. The thrust bearing is from a 930 turbo. You can see a bike rim mounted to the bottom, and another smaller rim dangling. Those are the belt drive rings, two different sizes for trying a number of drive ratios.
This is the motor (curbside treadmill) I'll try first, driven at 10/1.
With my cordless drill at what I think was about 200rpm, this makes about 19v open, and when connected to a 12volt battery (at 12.4v) made 4+ amps. We'll see what happens. I also have a baldor PM dc 1/2hp I may try also.
So far, I've got nothing invested in this but my time, but already I've been rewarded with the fact that it spins very well. It rotated all day yesterday, not bad considering there was no wind. An occasional breeze (maybe 5mph) would accelerate it to what I counted (1 mississippi, 2 mississippi) to be 50 to 60 rpm. The neighbor came over to see what I was doing, and watched the thing in amazement. He thought I was powering it with a motor somehow. Nope, just the wind I told him. He says "but there's no wind!" I just looked at him. He came back three times throughout the day and just watched it.
I need to get an anemometer up and a tach on this thing to get real readings. I also have another drum that goes atop, but have not placed it yet. Thought I would see how one drum does first. Starts by itself just fine, but probably will need some extra torque once the gen is attached. I'm having a great time!
The first time I ever sailed a Sunfish and it jumped up on plane and started hauling butt was the same rush I got yesterday when it spun to 60rpm. Why didn't someone tell me!?
Gotta work today, so no play. Update coming when the gen is attached.
David
