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Magnet rotor dia


By daleh007, Section Wind
Posted on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 09:02:30 AM MST
Affect of increased dia.

I am considering using some disk brake rotors off of a truck to mount the magnets. The rotors are 13" and the plans show a 12" dia. Assuming that I increase the stator dia to match are there any side affects? I do see that per rev. of the rotor blades the mags. will be traveling at an increased speed which I think is good but what happens as you increase the spacing between each magnet and between each coil as you evenly space them around this increased dia.?
Daleh
Magnet rotor dia | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Magnet rotor dia (4.00 / 1) (#1)
by Flux on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 10:14:44 AM MST
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If you increase the rotors from 12 to 13" you could increase the output. If you are using Hugh's plans this may not be an advantage unless you are prepared to increase the prop diameter. The whole thing is chosen carefully and if you make significant increases in alternator output you will most likely stall the blades.

I would suggest that if you keep the 8 ft prop you would be better off mounting the magnets at 12" on your discs.  If you go for the larger diameter you ought to consider a 9 or even 10 ft prop to keep things matched.

Flux



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by DanB (danb@*no spam*otherpower.com) on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 10:26:01 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.com/

At some point... with a given size magnet and a given number of them - I think increasing diameter would hurt you - the coils would have to be larger...  you'd have lots of 'dead' copper in there only  serving to add resistance.  At some point, that added resistance will outweigh the gains from the increased velocity of the magnets - the output from a coil would have higher voltage peaks but spend more time down near 0.  My guess, is with the 1" x 2" magnets... there may not be much advantage (it might actually hurt) to increasing the diameter over 12" for 12 magnets.

I could be wrong...  this is just kind of my guess.  I think ideally - to make best use of the magnets and the wire, we should probably have about half the rotor filled with magnets.  And I believe - that filling perhaps 3/4 of the rotor with magnets will cost us very little.  But I've not tested all this... just speculating.  If it were me, I'd not go with 13" rotors unless you also went with larger magnets and larger coils.

Im dying to test the newest wind turbines we've made.  They basicly have the same thing - 12 of these magnets on each rotor with a 3 phase stator, the rotors are 12" in diameter.  The power curve I seem to get when testing on my truck suggests that a 10' prop is quite reasonable, so long as the line is not too resistive.  The power curve seems like it would stall an 8' prop kind of badly.

[ Parent ]



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by daleh007 on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 02:54:51 PM MST
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More clarification please.
The 13" dia. automotive disk brake rotors were not an effort to increase output they are just available and I was thinking maybe close enough to the 12" design target. After all, this is only moving the magnets & coils in the stator out an additional 1/2". The available area or width on the brake rotor to mount the magnets is 2" which matches the magnet size too. I don't think I would want to reduce the effective magnet placement dia. to 12" as this would leave 1/2" on each magnet hanging in air or at least not in contact with the rotor metal.

Now some of my questions. Why would I get an increased output going from 12" to 13"? Is this due to the increased magnet velocity? It was stated that the coils would have to be bigger using a larger dia. and that I'd have lots of "dead" copper adding resistance. Is this due to the magnets being moved out which effectively changes their spacing which would require the coils be changed in width to match the magnet spacing?

And finally, this ties into another posting of mine regarding the leading and trailing edges of adjacently placed magnets as they pass over a single coil. Seems like if you have 12 magnets and 10 coils aligned over the same dia. this isn't going to happen regardless of the dia.

Daleh

[ Parent ]



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by Flux on Thu Sep 23rd, 2004 at 01:28:26 AM MST
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Daleh
I am not surprised you are confused. It is not easy to predict any change to a winding as so many factors come into play.

If you don't want to increase the output, just use the same coils and either mount the magnets at 12" and keep the coils the same or mount the magnets at 13" and move the coils out to the new radius. You may have to increase the stator moulding diameter to bring the fixing points clear of the discs.

Regarding the coil centres and magnet spacing, for a single turn coil you can put the turn in exactly the right place. You can add more turns on top of each other and still keep them in the right place, but to use more of the available you are forced to put turns side by side, now you can no longer have the ideal condition for maximum voltage from all the turns and those turns that are longer or shorter than the pole pitch will have less voltage induced in them.  It may seem logical to keep the centre of the coil sides on the pole pitch, but in practice it is better to keep the outsides on the pole pitch and then the centres of the coils come inside the ideal. the reason is that long turns have a higher proportion of inactive copper at the inside and outside and give an increase in resistance that out weighs any advantage from the gain in voltage.

With single phase windings the spacing is such that you normally end up with the centre of the coil legs on the pole pitch, but it would possibly be better to leave alternate coils out and wind the remainder with a shorter pitch.

With 3 or 5 phase i.e 9 or 10 coils for 12 magnets you end up with a compromise that is not perfect from the voltage consideration alone, but will give more output power as the winding resistance is less.  Voltage alone is not the thing to aim for, that is why it is difficult to predict what will happen if you change something on a winding.

Hope this helps
Flux

[ Parent ]



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by Victor on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 01:09:55 PM MST
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With all due respect to the other posters. I would not expect much difference at all (this is based on theory and not experiece).

 Hugh has a very useful formula ( which I don't recall off of the top of my head) that estimates voltage  based on the number of turns, the surface area and flux density of the magnetic circut, and the rpm of the alternator. The diameter of the magnet ring is not even entered in the formula.

 Granted a larger magnet ring will  increase the center to center distance of the magnets which will affect leakage (possibly  favorably) and increase the size and resistance of the coils slightly. I would think going from 12 to 13 inches would be pretty minor.

 Also you could still put the magnets on a 12 inch circle and just enlarge the mounting ears of the stator so you would not be changing the alternator at all with the exception of an increase in spinning mass.

Make the wind fun!
Victor



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by Flux on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 02:53:08 PM MST
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Victor
You are probably right, the change is not likely to be enough to worry about.

Using the same coils spaced out to 13" would result in no significant difference.

It may be possible to use slightly thicker wire for the same number of turns but the increase in length will nearly offset the reduction in resistance from the increase in section.

Flux

[ Parent ]



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by sh123469 (sh123469 at yahoo dot com) on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 01:59:22 PM MST
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Looks like the circumference difference between the two is only around 1.085 times for the larger rotor.  I doubt there will be much difference in output.  At 48v output for the 12", 1.08*48 should get you around 51v for output on the 13".  I think this is right...someone please correct me if I am way off-base here.

I have always heard that an increase in velocity will give an increase in output. Is there some formula for determining this?  I figure a 1.085 increase in circumference will give the same velocity increase at the same RPM.  Unless my math is way off, this is correct isn't it?  Is the output increase linear with velocity increase?



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by fuzz on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 06:12:22 PM MST
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My 2 cents worth theoretical approach  :

If  U=N.(dFlux / dTime) and velocity of magnet = pi.d.RPM :
dFlux and N stays the same
dTime will be shorter > dTime .(pi.12.RPM / pi.13.RPM)

So Voltage increase with 13/12 in each coil and is linear with velocity increase. However, when you place the coils on a larger diameter and the coil shape isn't change then in theory 1pi/12pi of the circumference is a dead spot if the flux is very concentrated ( dual magnet rotors).
Then the new total Voltage will be 48.(13/12 - (1.pi/ 12.pi)) = 48 Volts.

IMHO not much change ,

fuzz




Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 06:42:18 PM MST
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Let me suggest a couple minor tweaks:

... Voltage increase with 13/12 in each coil and is linear with velocity increase.

Actually the approximate center of the magnet, rather than the edge of the disk, is the appropriate radius to examine.  Daleh007 didn't say what the magnet diameter was, but assuming it's about 2" (putting the center about an inch in from the edge of the disk) the correct ratio would be 12/11 rather than 13/12.

However, when you place the coils on a larger diameter and the coil shape isn't change then in theory 1pi/12pi of the circumference is a dead spot if the flux is very concentrated ( dual magnet rotors).  Then the new total Voltage will be 48.(13/12 - (1.pi/ 12.pi)) = 48 Volts.

But that assumes he's interested in an average voltage.  I'm presuming this is for a battery-charging service, so the peak is more interesting and the (1.pi/12.pi) term goes away.  That makes the voltage of interest 48 * 12/11 = about 53.3.

That assumes the coils have the same number of turns but are expanded to match the overall spacing of the magnets, so that the incoming magnet still starts entering one side just as the outgoing magnet starts leaving the other.

If the width of the winding is kept the same as the OLD gap between consecutive magnets, and the gap between the rotors is kept the same, you'll get that break in the waveform.  But if you spread out the coil to match the new gap, while you get slower rise and fall slopes you'll be able to make your coil thinner.  This will let you decrease the gap between the rotors, which will increase the field.  That will raise your peak voltage further (although the gentler slopes will reduce the fraction of time per cycle that the voltage is near the peak).

By the way:  Even if he was driving a resistive load the average voltage is not what is interesting.  Power into a resistive load goes with the square of the voltage, so what he wants is the square root of the average of the square (i.e. RMS) voltage.  The raised peak will more than compensate for the gap, so the RMS still goes up even if the average doesn't.

[ Parent ]



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by fuzz on Wed Sep 22nd, 2004 at 08:42:39 PM MST
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Hi ULR,

It was just a theoretical approach, with same coil.

By the way( little nit picking):
If the magnet diameter was 2", the correct ratio would be 11/10
If some one says 48 volts AC it is always RMS not average, peak or peak-peak.
With the same coil shape the total gap between coils would be 11pi-10pi.
Because of this gap the 48+x Volts RMS is not delivered the full 360 degrees.  
If the inner diameter of the coil was the same as the magnet outer diameter and the coil was expand you will lose efficiency.
Power = U square/ R where U was 48 RMS , no peak to add.  

With respect,
fuzz




Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by tecker on Thu Sep 23rd, 2004 at 07:46:35 AM MST
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   There are low speed applications tp the larger rotors  



Re: Magnet rotor dia (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by daleh007 on Thu Sep 23rd, 2004 at 01:00:33 PM MST
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The magnets I was considering using are the 1"x2"x0.5"
Daleh

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Magnet rotor dia | 12 comments (12 topical, 0 editorial)
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