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My First Wind Turbine
By ezee, Section Wind Posted on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 01:59:03 PM MST
My First Wind Turbine

It's one of Ed Lenz's minigens with 3' pvc blades on it (OH doesnt produce enough wind to use the stock blades)
Right now I have it loaded with just an LED to keep from burning out the little coil in it.
I'll post output later when I have time to measure it.
Next, I'm going to replace the magnets in it with some similarly sized Neodymium magnets, and experiment with the coil.

My First Wind Turbine | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by ezee (3z33etm -at- gmail *dot* com) on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 12:22:40 PM MST
(User Info)

no comments? :(

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by DamonHD (d@hd.org) on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 12:33:12 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.earth.org.uk/

Pretty darn cool! I don't have the space, wind or skills for that!

The best I'm likely to be able to do in my tiny London garden is a Rutland 503 6ft up a washing-line pole!

Rgds

Damon

[ Parent ]

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by GeeMac (foxunc@telus.net) on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 12:44:31 PM MST
(User Info)

Hi Ezee. I just got my turbine running a few days ago. It feel pretty good eh?
Tell me a bit about the magnets you used and how you wired it. I'm having a bit of trouble with the electronic part of mine.

GeeMac

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by ezee (3z33etm -at- gmail *dot* com) on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 03:05:24 PM MST
(User Info)

Well...I kind of cheated. I am using one of ed lenz's "mini gens" as the heart of it, so i didn't choose the magnets or the coil, etc. I just fitted it with some longer PVC blades and the pvc chassis and pole.

You can learn more about the mini gen here

http://www.windstuffnow.com/main/minigen.htm

I got the one with the metal housing.

Its a low amp high voltage setup...but it shocked the CRAP out of me when I was putting alligator clips on the LED to provide a load.

I'm sure you could mod it with permanent magnets...and then fiddle with the wire size and # of turns of the single coil to tweak the output.

[ Parent ]

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by WindHarvester on Mon Jul 2nd, 2007 at 09:07:47 PM MST
(User Info)

Really cool project, looks great!

If you don't mind me asking, what part of Ohio are you from?

I'm from Knox county but now live in Southeastern along the Muskingum river.

Have a great one!

Lonnie

Re: My First Wind Turbine (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by Capt Slog (Capt.Slog(at this)gmail.com) on Tue Jul 3rd, 2007 at 02:37:25 AM MST
(User Info)

I've had one of these for a year now, although it's much modified.

I too made some PVC blades out of pipe after Mrs Slog broke the originals when the gen was on the floor one day, and it worked well for a while until I had some very strong winds one night. You will find that the metal case is not up to the job when you mount heavier blades on it, mine took a lot of punishment but eventually a blade mount tore. I think it was centrifugal force, the magnet housing looked distinctly triangular, and I lost several magnets!

I got around this by cutting a huge 'washer' of aluminium that went over the magnet housing and in diameter about 1/4" past the blade tabs. I then used this to mount the blades, drilling through the remaining original tabs.

I've also had to replace the bearing arrangement, I made a roller bearing housing and used that. And wound a coil that gives less volts/more amps.

Please note, I'm in no way criticising the build of the minigen I bought from Ed. I asked it to do stuff that it wasn't made for, and then had to modify to accomodate this.
"Slowly changing the world, one watt at a time!"

My First Wind Turbine | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 editorial)

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