power in the flag

[pepa]

Went to bed thinking about swaying trees after reading a recent post about capturing power from the movement of trees in the wind. This ruff drawing came out of that line of thought and it might work with some experimenting as there is almost always a light wind movement across the horse pasture at my place.  a centrifugal clutch pulley is mounted to the generator to give the flywheel a chance to start turning before the clutch engages. Also a small pm motor can be put inline with the flywheel to give it a temporary boost to keep it spinning and the pm motor could be controlled by the rpm of the flywheel. This design could (if it works) be the answer for those that are not allowed to put up a windmill in their yard. Who could complain about you flying a flag in your yard? By using two recoil starts and replacing the pull rope with small cable, there will be more turns for a longer pull time on each cable and with the coil spring retracting whenever the wind varies there should be some movement most of the time to keep the flywheel turning. The clutch on the generator  will release the flywheel to spin in low wind movement so that it will not have to restart as often, which takes a lot more force than sustained rotation.  I am to tied up at the moment to try this by someone else may want to see if it will work. Enjoying myself, pepa.

[thefinis]

LOL Thanks for the offer Pepa but I have more things lined up to try than I will get to in 2 lifetimes. You are one of the ones who seem to find a way to try lots of different approaches.

I think that the same problem with the trees will happen with the flag. Mainly that once it is spring loaded/harnessed that the amount of movement will be very minumal. This and the trees I think tend to try and harvest the turblence or differences in wind speed not the actual power in the wind.

Finis

[Kwazai]

its almost like you would want a little parachute that would deflate at maximum extension, releive the slack to the flywheel/drive unit and then inflate again to spin the flywheel...

Mike

[Kwazai]

almost like a watts linkage....

[pepa]

i haven't put a lot of thought into this but the idea has some merit if the bugs are worked out. i was thanking that when the sail is blown to a full out position that the pole will spring back and the sail will fall and fill again to restart the cycle. in a light wind the pvc pole will bend and pull back to activate the recoil start spring. almost any movement of the pole or sail will cause some power to the flywheel. the unit should track the wind by the force on the sail causing the whole unit to rotate. i also thank that if the sail is hinged slightly off center at the top that it will yaw in and out of the wind causing some action in the recoil system. i just had two twelve inch strap hinges broken on one of my shops bouble doors when it was cought by a heavt gust of wind and slammed into the stop that i was holding the door open with while working inside, the wind has some real force against a solid object. this is just something to try one day because i have lots of room for windmills and some folks reading this post dont have any. enjoying myself, pepa.