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Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers


By dynaman, Section Wind
Posted on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 06:27:31 PM MST
using 3 phase transformers

Last year I built an 12' axial flux generator based on Hugh Piggots design. The unit has performed well and averages 250Kwh per month. I am wanting to experiment with this unit further and would like some of the great input I see on this board. The generator is three phase wired delta the coils are wound with #16 magnet wire with 75 turns two in hand. it is used to charge a 24v battery bank. My plan is this: first to keep from having to build/purchase new blades I am thinking to fabricate a new hub that moves the existing blades out 16". Since not much power is made at the root I figure I can get more power out of the rotor this way even though it will be less efficient than it could be if I went to a true 13'6" rotor. I want to wind a new stator with 150 turns of #16 wire and thus double the unloaded voltage. This power will be run through a 15Kva 3 phase thransformer I have. The transformer is a 480/208vac wired star/delta with 5.1% impedance. Am I on a workable track or am I nuts?

For all the techies out there keep the answers simple as I am a meathead.

Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers | 18 comments (18 topical)

Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by Flux on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 01:18:23 PM MST

"Am I on a workable track or am I nuts?"

Not sure at present. If you change the winding as you suggest you would double the voltage with the same blades. Now you have increased the blade diameter so you have less than 2:1 increase in volts. If your transformer is 480:208 then again you have more than 2:1 step down. You will need the blades to actually run faster at their new diameter than before. If you can live with the increased speed then you may gain to some extent. Probably your transformer will handle the low frequency but it will be de rated to about 1.5kVA and the 5.1% impedance figure will go out the window.

Why do you want to mess with the transformer? the only reason I can think of is to reduce line loss but the gain will not be great. As you have the transformer then it it is not completely crazy but it certainly would be if you had to buy the thing.

You are trying to extract more power from the same size alternator at a lower speed so you need to think seriously about what your present limitations are. If it is cable trouble then the transformer may help. Otherwise it seems an unnecessary complication for no gain.

You need to supply much more information to really see where you are going. Certainly increasing blade size will increase power capture. If you want to keep the same low wind performance then you ought to lower the cut in speed. If you are not too worried about the lowest winds then your larger blades will run up to the present cut in speed in slightly higher wind.

If you are at present running near stall then you will come away from stall with the increase in blade size and that may gain you quite a lot in the mid winds. You will still be limited to the same peak power if heating is your final limitation and you keep the same winding. If you wind for the lower cut in speed you will reduce maximum safe power out.

You will need to satisfy yourself that you are still safe with larger blades and the same offset.

If you are running away because of excessive line resistance then the transformer may help you in that respect and that one only.

Basically I am saying that you can certainly increase your power capture with larger blades but you will not increase the maximum power and in fact you may decrease it.

I hope you haven't falling into the trap of thinking that if you double the volts you can increase the power out for the same magnets and copper, that just doesn't work.

Flux



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by oztules on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 04:08:31 PM MST

Flux,
While I am in agreement with nearly everything you have said, this statement has me puzzled
"I hope you haven't falling into the trap of thinking that if you double the volts you can increase the power out for the same magnets and copper, that just doesn't work."

I don't have the experience you have (most don't), but our experience with the AWP is different.

The 24v version has a max output into batteries of only 900w The 240v version with the same magnets, and the same iron core but different windings (same fill I expect) puts out around 1.5kw. (currently for the last 2 weeks, 1.5kw 24/7... windy as hell here ... and even windier up the mountain where the mill is).

Considering the transformer loss in the HV version as well, thats a considerable improvement for nothing but a voltage increase and a transformer.

Is there something I have missed here?

Is it just stator loss for the 24v version or something else more sinister.

......oztules



[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 08:10:03 PM MST

The maximum amount of power you can generate from a given amount of flux motion through copper is constant.

You can increase the voltage by dividing the copper finer - more turns of finer wire.  But you decrease the current in proportion.  So you DON'T increase power.  With the same magnets and RPM you still get the same power and the same resistive losses.

Even if you're changing the thickness of the coils there's an optimum point:  Adding copper increases voltage, but the necessary increase in gap reduces flux and thus reduces voltage.  There's a peak to the curve, which is where you want to be.  With any particular thickness of stator and gap between magnets you get a given amount of power at a given RPM, regardless of how you run your current/voltage tradeoff.  (At least to a very good first approximation.)

You CAN increase power by increasing the RPM - raising the voltage without changing the current.

You CAN increase power by "paving" more of the space between the magnets with copper - filling in the gaps with another phase coil, splitting the magnets into more poles and adding more turns (providing they're in space that would otherwise would not have had copper), etc.

But absent an RPM change or a "paving with copper" change you get zilch.

Having said that, there are other things about voltage changes that can change power delivered to the batteries:

 - Raising voltage means you lower current in the wiring.  That makes no difference to the limits from thermal losses and burnout risk limiting in the genny itself.  But in the transmission lines from the jenny to the batteries you gain big-time.  Multiplying the voltage by 10 divides the current by 10 and divides the line losses by a factor of 100.  On even a moderate run with wires thick enough for welding this will make up for transformer losses with a lot left over to charge batteries faster.  If you built two mills that are identical except for 10 turns in the high-voltage model for each turn in the low voltage one, that's probably where your gain came from.

 - More turns of finer wire means a drop in eddy-current losses in the genny, which reduces load and heating, which lets the prop spin a bit faster, which increases voltage a bit.  Even a small voltage rise can map to a significant rise in charging current, while the lowered thermal losses allow the mill to run the bit faster without burning up.  So you'll see this improvement even without adjusting furling.  But this is a rather small effect in the 24-240 volt change.

(You can also recover some rectifier losses from running the battery bank at a higher voltage.  But if you're transformer-converting down to the same voltage as the lower-volt mill that's not an issue.)

[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by oztules on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 10:24:34 PM MST

Thanks for that ULR.
I follow your argument, and find it difficult to find a flaw in it. In this case the device is this:



So no room to change gap, only wire thickness and count. The prop is the same, the 30 feeble ceramic magnets are the same, the stator core is the same, and still here is the graph of the 24v AWP direct to batteries power curve:



The unit we have is the 240v transformer version, and as you can see there is not much room to modify anything other than wire thickness and turns.

So although I see your theory, something else must be at work here which I can't figure. We get 1.5kw a lot of the time. (the site is 1000 feet above the surrounding countryside it's windy there when it is still elsewhere)

Current is measured in two places and KWH is done by the $9000 odd dollar inverter / system manager (8000w max). So I have complete faith in the figures it gives and the independent ones from the AWP  controller.

I notice that the grid tied version also does 1.5kw... also a high voltage version (probably the same one but grid tied to a windyboy with crowbar clamping to stop overvoltage).

Hopefully an old hand with experience with iron cored machines will know why the huge difference. The mill and alt are designed by Hugh Piggott I think.

Still a mystery for me



[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by Flux on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 01:55:53 AM MST

For the air gap machine that dynaman was discussing, there should be no real difference between his two windings, the 2 in hand at 75 turns should directly equal the 150 turns single strand.

If there was no line resistance the 24v one should perform the same as the 48v version.

If there is significant line resistance then the 48v version will behave differently. What actually happens depends on how the prop is matched. If well stalled in the 48v case the 24v one may perform better with the same cables. If the 24v one is above stall then the 48v one may may manage to capture some of the power lost in the line and do better as long as it doesn't stall.

It is not easy to capture much of this line loss unless it is really excessive.

The 2:1 voltage difference will not make a spectacular difference to the power lost in a given cable and the included transformer loss may more than offset any gain.

Now if you seriously raise the voltage ( not just double it) then the line loss becomes negligible for the high voltage machine and you can ignore it. On a short run with heavy cables the low voltage machine could have a chance of beating the hv one unless the transformer was big and efficient. On a long cable run the transformer would win as the cable cost for low voltage would make it impractical.

Now to deal with Oztules question we have to start moving into unproven territory to try and puzzle out why the high voltage AWP does better than its low voltage version.

You are right that this is the case and we are forced to accept that it is just not caused by line loss, although the low voltage version will need very expensive cable and will not be able to be used far from the batteries, the line loss can be kept to within reason and still there is a difference.

The grid tie version should indeed be able to beat a battery charger version as the inverter should be able to track the peak power point far better.

Now why the difference between the high voltage and the low voltage version?

We are into the realms of speculation here, I don't have enough direct evidence to prove any of this, but this is my theory for what it's worth.

The AWP alternator has low flux density from the ceramic magnets and needs lots of turns to produce the volts. All slotted iron cored machines have a higher leakage reactance than the axial air gap machines and under certain circumstances the reactance component dominates and determines the output rather than the resistance.

The large number of turns on this machine and the long core teeth makes me think that reactance is starting to come into the region of approaching the resistance at the top end of the working range. I suspect that on a bench test the curve is turning over somewhere about half load and not rising linearly as for the air gap machine. the result is that the blades run clear of stall in the higher winds and line resistance is not so great a factor as for the air gap alternator.

This almost certainly gives the AWP a better match to the prop at full load than the air gap machine without having to resort to line resistance to prevent stall. For this reason the difference between grid tie and direct battery charging may not be as marked as for an air gap machine.

So far so good, but now why does the hv version of the AWP behave differently from its lv version. Now this is real guesswork but I think it must have something to do with the deep slots and the way the low version is connected. Coils buried at the bottom of the slots will see far higer leakage than the coils near the air gap an I suspect that all the windings connected in parallel for the low voltage version don't share current equally and the reactance ( and probably effective resistance) is greater on the low voltage machine. Now add its additional loss from less ideal leads then you may have your answer.

Unless someone is in a position to do a bench load test on the two versions of the alternator and compare like for like then this must just stay a theory but it is the only answer I can come up with.

Flux

[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by oztules on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 03:07:58 AM MST

Thanks for that Flux.

It is the only theory that comes close to explaining the difference.

Yes the difference is real and quite marked. I couldn't begin to guess why it was so.

Now the bugs have been ironed out and we have dispensed with the slip rings entirely, built a new upper yaw bearing (and lower previously ) it has performed very well in very trying conditions for the last few months.

Thanks again Flux

.........oztules



[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by dynaman on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 09:40:27 AM MST

Thanks flux and everyone else for all the great input. Yes I probably am falling into the trap of thinking I can up the power by doubling the voltage. My thinking in doing this was to try and capture more power out of low winds. I am in northern MO. and the winds at the site average in the 9-10mph range. The alt that I have does a fairly good jobs considering this. I figured to up the windings and put on a larger rotor then run it through the transformer to let it run faster. What I failed to remember is that a given rotor is capable of producing a given amount of power in a given wind. Thanks for knocking me back into reality. That being said I would still like to build a larger alt using as much of the old alt as I can ( my wife does not have the same passion as I for this kind of thing, she likes to spend the money on frivalous things like food and shelter). So I am open to any ideas you have out there. How about stacking on another stator? Magnet rotor, stator, magnet rotor, stator, magnet rotor kind of thing? Thinking too far out of the box? Do I can the whole thing and just build a bigger axial flux, or build a genny to better utilize the magnetic flux of my existing magnets? Is there any way change my alt to an iron core without creating cogging issues? Also would someone explain to me how to recognize if the blades are stalling?  Any recomended reading on figuring wire size for coils. I have Hugh Piggots wind turbine books, but I hear people building larger output units that use small wire in the windings. How do you get away with that without a melt down? As I stated earlier I have limited knowledge of these things, but I know I can learn it, heck I've inly been married 32 years and the wife has already taught me how to use the TV remote. Thanks for all the input, I will put up some pictures of the system on the diary section.

[ Parent ]


Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by Flux on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 10:25:56 AM MST

If you want better low wind performance and are prepared to limit the maximum power then you are on the right lines.

Your blade extensions will increase the energy capture in low winds. What we really need to know is how well you are performing at present.

Do you have any idea of cut in speed at present?. I am reasonably happy with the blade extensions, it does reduce the solidity and that will help you to get a bit more speed than building a new prop to the same tsr and with the new diameter.

If cut in speed is your issue then you need a few more turns on the coils. If your cut in is ok at about 7 mph and you are reaching stall then the new blades may get you out of it and things may really come to life. If you are not stalled now then the improvement may not be spectacular but you will pick up the extra power from the increased diameter.

If the thing works well at cut in and then fails to increase current rapidly with wind speed and the prop fails to speed up then you must suspect stall. If the thing picks up speed rapidly then stall is unlikely.

I think you said it was 24v. Try it at 30 or 36v by temporarily adding an extra 6v or 12v battery. If the top end power ( not amps, volts x Amps) increases then that will indicate stall.

I don't think you will see any benefit from the transformer unless you have a very long cable run with thin wire. If you need lower cut in then just increase the number of turns a bit and use slightly thinner wire and accept a lower maximum safe output.

If you are too slow now and you are trying to cut in at too low a wind speed ( below 7 mph) then you would do better with a few less turns of thicker wire.

You don't have enough magnet to drastically alter the maximum safe output of the alternator so don't try for too big an increase in blade diameter. it may work well enough in light winds but you may not be able to control it in higher winds. Any increase in blade size may require an increase of alternator offset.

Flux

If you give all the details of magnets, size and number, coils blades and everything else I will have a look at it. I assume you have 16 poles if you are using the 2 x 1 x1/2 magnets to load a 12 ft prop.

[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by dynaman on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 06:47:47 PM MST

The unit is indeed 16 pole using 2x1x1/2 magnets. Again the coils are 75 turns of #16 2 in hand. The rotor is actually 11'6" with a TSR of 8. When I was building the unit I data loged windspeed from the last of Feb to the first part of March. Wind averaged around 9mph. I will have to say I don't log output as often as I should but I have seen it make 675 watts in a 20mph wind.

[ Parent ]


Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by Flux on Sun Oct 07, 2007 at 02:56:52 AM MST

I strongly suspect you are stalled unless you have lots of line resistance. I would have thought that 50 turns would be nearer for a match at 24v. I have some figures from Hugh suggesting 25 turns for 12v.

With the prop at tsr 8 I think you may be in stall from the start.

For now you could try adding some line resistance, but a larger air gap to lower cut in speed may be needed for the best results./

With that winding I think you will match much better with the blade extensions but you must watch the maximum power out. I don't think you ought to let that winding run at much over 500W for long periods. The odd quick flip up to 1kW may not hurt but it wont stand that continuously.

Try adding 2 ohms ohms in the dc line from the rectifier to the battery and see if you can get it out of stall. You will not need the resistor with the larger blades.

Flux

[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 01:44:41 PM MST

Moving the blades out fouls up the twist.  While you'll gain power from the increased swept area of the outer parts of the blades you'll throw some of it away as drag and lost power further in.  Better to carve new, larger, blades with a proper twist profile.



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Usman on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 07:11:10 AM MST

Something on the blade extenders,

there nothing wrong with extending the blades up to 1/4 of the original length of the blade, as long as the blade extender is either a straight 'no profile/no twist' flat piece of wood, fiberglass or another light weight composite. Or a cylindrical PVC pipe.

A cylindrical PVC pipe is a much better option since due to it's low weight and high strength. Also easy to cut and machine like metal, easily epoxied (especially between wood and PVC) but that mainly depends on your original blade material and design.

Blade extenders are put onto machines as small as 600w (hornet), cyclone 15KW (bad I-beam design) or as large as 450KW (Bonus 450), GE 3.5MW offshore, absolutely no problems – tried and tested to increase power output in the most economical way.

You would only loose a small portion of efficiency (5-10%) compared to designing and carving new set of blades, which is much more costly and time-consuming process.  

Hope that helps.


[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by finnsawyer on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 09:44:48 AM MST

Why not increase the TSR with the extension so all points from the existing tip toward the root behave the same?  That is, if the tip currently has 4 degrees of twist the extension would have somewhat less.  There doesn't seem to be anything magical about a TSR of 7.  Going to one of 8 or 9 with the extension might be acceptable.
GeoM
[ Parent ]


Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by Usman on Fri Oct 05, 2007 at 11:34:02 AM MST

Something on the blade extenders,

there nothing wrong with extending the blades up to 2/3 of the original length of the blade, as long as the blade extender is either a straight 'no profile/no twist' flat piece of wood, fiberglass or another light weight composite. Or a cylindrical PVC pipe. A cylindrical PVC pipe is a much better option since due to it's low weight and high strength. Also easy to cut and machine like metal, easily epoxied (especially between wood and PVC) but that mainly depends on your original blade material and design.

Blade extenders are put onto machines as small as 600w (hornet), cyclone 15KW (bad I-beam design) or as large as 450KW (Bonus 450), GE 3.5MW offshore, absolutely no problems - tried and tested to increase power output in the most economical way.

You would only loose a small portion of efficiency (5-10%) compared to designing and carving new set of blades, which is much more costly and time-consuming process.  

Hope that helps.

[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by jmk on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 06:37:40 AM MST

 The plans I got from Hugh call for 25 turns two in hand # 13 for 12 volt. 24 volt would be 50 turns of # 13. You have two in hand of # 16 which is like one # 13 with 25 extra turns added above the plans. The plans call N-35 grade magnets. If that's what you used then you could go with a higher grade magnet and gain more power. I would think you need more magnet power then copper especially seeing you have 33% increase of copper in there already.
jmk


Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by wdyasq on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 05:51:11 PM MST

What haven't been mentioned is transformers usually only work in a small Hz range - common for commercially available transformers is ~40Hz-75Hz.

If the transformer is not suited to the use it will not properly 'transform' the current to a higher voltage efficiently.

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by oztules on Sat Oct 06, 2007 at 08:50:14 PM MST

Your probably technically correct with that Ron, but my experience with building guitar amps was a little more forgiving.
 It was not uncommon for me to grab a large power tranny from an old black and white valve TV and rewind it for the output stage on guitar amps (800v on some old 807 valves) in AB1 or B class. The freq response was alright for bass guitar (20hz and up) and for PA work as well.... probably up to 13000hz and above.

So it may not be terribly critical to be a bit poor in the lower frequencies, and in fact it may help to get the blades past stall before it loads the mill up properly. (this bit is idle speculation on my part though).

I doubt the drop off in the higher mill freq would help let the blades run a bit harder though (like line resistance).... may be good if they did to better match the power curve of the blades.....more idle speculation here.

Conversely, I have used audio out transformers almost "as is" for power transformers.... only littles ones though ...before wall warts came about. So those designed for supposedly high fidelity ( not by todays standards though) application worked very nicely at 50hz for the rest of their lives.

Just food for thought

......oztules



[ Parent ]



Re: Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers (3.00 / 0) (#18)
by Flux on Sun Oct 07, 2007 at 03:11:59 AM MST

Neglecting high frequencies where core loss starts to be an issue ( above 300Hz for common cheap core material) you can run a transformer at any frequency you like. The requirement is that you keep the peak flux density in the core to the same limiting value. If you lower the frequency you need more turns. If you run a 50 Hz transformer at 10 Hz you need 5 times the turns for the same volts. If you start with say 100v at 50 Hz then it will only handle 20v at 10 Hz, the rating has been reduced to 1/5 as you have reduced the volts but the winding will limit your current to the same value.

This makes low frequency transformers large and costly. For windmill alternators intending to use transformers you really need to start with lots of poles. Things such as AWP don't work out too badly but starting with 12 poles on a machine over about 8ft makes it highly unlikely that you will see benefit from a transformer unless you have hundreds of yards of cable.

Digressing a little, transformers work perfectly well over the audio range as long as you choose the flux density at the lowest frequency. The flux density then becomes inversely proportional to frequency and the low flux at the higher frequencies prevents the core loss being a problem. For decent high frequency response you need to sectionalise the windings to reduce leakage reactance, but this is not really about audio transformer design.

Flux

[ Parent ]



Blade Extenders and 3 phase transformers | 18 comments (18 topical)
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