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Portable wind power options?
By Ron VE8RT, Section Wind Posted on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 04:30:04 AM MST
What are the available options for a portable wind gen to maintain battery charge.

The online research I've done so far hasn't turned up the battery charging wind generator I'm looking for. What I'd like to find, in kit, plans, or affordable commercial form is a wind charger that would: 1) Provide at least 20 watts (14Volts) in a moderate wind, 2) could be carried and set up temporarily, for example fixed to the roof rack of a parked vehicle, 3) could be partially dismantled for transport. A vertical windmill may be better for roof rack mounting. Is there anything out there that would come close to this?

Portable wind power options? | 21 comments (21 topical)

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by simfun on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 01:40:14 AM MST

http://www.gotwind.org/diy/Orange_Wind_Generator.htm

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by AbyssUnderground on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 04:37:58 AM MST

That puts out about 1 watt, not 20 watts. Its way off what he needs.

http://www.repowered.co.uk - My Renewable Energy site.
msn[at]m3ezw.co.uk - my msn if you want a chat.
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by Ron VE8RT on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 07:27:33 AM MST

I had found the orange wind generator on a previous search, which is very much along the line of what I was looking for. Unfortunately the power output is too low to operate any electronic equipment from. If there is no commercially made affordable solutions then, how difficult would it be to build something? Would some of the more difficult to make machined part be available?
Ron VE8RT

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by ghurd on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 11:02:27 AM MST

What do you call "Portable", and "Moderate wind"?

If the Orange wind generator is along the lines you were thinking,
might read this...
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/10/4/41123/4912

There just isn't much power available in a small area,
and low height has very poor wind most days.
Moderate wind is it's own can of worms. 8MPH here is darn windy at that height. 6MPH is useless.

You can't find one because it isn't practicle and affordable at the same time.
And I don't believe it is practical, at all.
G-

Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by wdyasq on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 06:31:11 PM MST

Now ghurd,

Be careful with the truth....

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by Ron VE8RT on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 10:41:07 PM MST

Well what is not practical is PV. The days are too short for half of the year, the half of the year when power requirements are highest (here at 62 degrees North). The majority of the wind projects are too large to be carried and set up easily, or back packed. The link / project you posted is very similar to what I had in mind, but it seems to fall into the void between science project scale models and those made for cottages and RV's. Finding web posted projects in this power range has been challenging.

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by wdyasq on Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 06:27:43 AM MST

Ron,

The real problem is the 'energy budget' of a small wind turbine. You have the very limited power of the swept area of the turbine. Then, Mr. Betz comes in and puts a hickey on nearly half of it. From that, the bearing drag and inefficiencies get their 'tax'.

One of the ways to increase generator efficiency and keep weight down is to gear things up. But, all gears have drag and several more bearings to support. With the small energy budget, where is the power to overcome these parasitic forces?

This leaves one to build a direct drive generator. The direct drive units require weight of iron, magnets and copper to work efficiently. These are counter to a 'small, light weight unit to be used for camping'.

For the same dollars and time to build a small unit, one can build one that actually produces power.

The tower has yet to be addressed. It will also be counter indicative of small and simple.

Ron
Adventure is just bad planning." -- Roald Amundsen
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by ghurd on Sun Jun 15, 2008 at 08:58:23 PM MST

"What do you call "Portable", and "Moderate wind"? "
No answer? Give us a number to work with.
Buy a wind gauge. Then do the math.

"Well what is not practical is PV."
Buy a wind gauge. Then do the math.

"back packed"?
Back packing "with the roof rack of a parked vehicle"?

A PV will make power almost every day.
If there is some crazy requirement to be above 62N, mention it instead of let us guess. (Helsinki?)
Been there, done that. Gave up on wind, we use solar.

"Finding web posted projects in this power range has been challenging."
Yes. Because there is nothing practicle in between them.
Do the math. It's all that darn Mr. Betz's fault.
If the windmill is workable, the tower is not.

Still, most of this depends on your defination of "moderate wind".
Do the math. 6, 8, and 10 MPH.
G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by Ron VE8RT on Sun Jun 15, 2008 at 10:12:23 PM MST

"What do you call "Portable", and "Moderate wind"? "
No answer? Give us a number to work with.
Buy a wind gauge. Then do the math.

Portable - under 15kg, not overly difficult to carry and set up by one person.

Moderate wind - 15 to 20 KPH, 5 to 6 metres/sec

Wind gauge - maybe worthwhile for a fixed permanent installation, I do have one, but I'm not trying to justify a large off the grid installation.

"back packed"?
Back packing "with the roof rack of a parked vehicle"?

The roof rack would serve as a temporary base for the windmill support. Getting clear of or above the trees isn't much of a problem here. The vehicle is a Land Rover Discovery, height of the roof above the road is roughly 2 metres. It has a roof rack and some things not found on modern cars such as good solid rain gutters along the roof line, and metal, not plastic, bumpers that things could be bolted to. This not for hiking or camping, back packed portable if I want to move it and set it up elsewhere.

A PV will make power almost every day.
If there is some crazy requirement to be above 62N, mention it instead of let us guess. (Helsinki?)
Been there, done that. Gave up on wind, we use solar.

We get a lot of sun, during the summer, but daylight is about 4 hours long in December and the sun is so low to the sky that obstructions on the horizon may block it out, and there isn't much power available. The "crazy requirement to be above 62N" is that I live and work here. 62 degrees 28.060 minutes N, 114 deg 20.648 minutes W. In Google maps type in the postal code X1A 2H5, there is a yellow float plane in the cove above the parking lot, I'm in the house just to the left of that airplane. OK, I think I've made my case for not using PV for half of the year, so I'll take whatever I can get out of the wind, any day of the year.

The goal is to maintain a charge on sealed lead acid batteries, about 20AH rating, with a maximum intermittent load of 20 AMPS, 5% of the time, 1 AMP 95% of the time when in (occasional) use. There is no target load, if power is available the battery will charge, if not that's fine too, there is a noisy noxious generator if need be.

If more information would be helpful, I'll do what I can to provide it.

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by ghurd on Mon Jun 16, 2008 at 10:54:43 AM MST

Unusual situation. Sray thoughts...
It should be easy with that kind of wind. It will be some trial and error.

Might try a 1/4HP or 200W class 90VDC motor with blades a bit under a meter and hope for the best. Maybe 1/2HP 180VDC.
Maybe a DC 3-phase servo motor.
Might get that kind of thing removed from service in the mines?
Maybe do a quicky AC conversion if there is a milling machine or lathe available.

A couple easy examples I made from 'junk'.
The ugly 20" would just about do what you want, little low on output. The ugly 30" is too much. The 3phHD is still far more than you asked for.
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/2050/ugly20.jpg
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/2050/ugly30efkabuckt.jpg
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/2050/3phHD.jpg

It'll need a lot bigger battery to be worth the effort.
Might try the local Beaver mechanic for a used battery. They must replace the battery Before it is bad. No idea what size that would be, just figured there would be a lot of them locally, cheap, lots of life left, and a lot bigger.

If it was me, I'd move south 9 months a year!
Can't imagine how cold it must get.
G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by Ron VE8RT on Mon Jun 16, 2008 at 10:36:39 PM MST

The Ugly 20 looks very interesting. The 3PH rotor assembly looks like a piece of art, an interesting way to use varied size and shapes of hard drive magnets. BTW, its not quite true that chilling hard drive magnets to -40 will release the cement that holds them to their mounting plate. For a couple of nights I left a collection of hard drive magnets out at -47C (-50F) and less than 10% of them came loose from the mounting plate. This last winter we had a few nights of -47C, generally a colder winter than normal, very hard on vehicles - new and old alike.

Not much that goes into the mine sites comes back out, not into Yellowknife. The territorial government surplus does come up for auction, but its sold by the pallet load not the piece. Unless you have some way to pick it up and dispose of what you don't need or want it can be a problem.

If you did check out Google maps for my postal code, widen the view and look half a kilometre and more to the south. There are quite a few houseboats out there, year round residences. They're using a variety of power sources, mostly wind with some solar for their electrical needs.

So what is at the heart of the Ugly 20?

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#18)
by ghurd on Tue Jun 17, 2008 at 09:44:52 AM MST

"Work of art"? Thanks. Nobody discribed it quite like that before.
I never considered the properties of epoxy at -47C. When it hits -20C (here) nobody goes outside.

Ugly 20. A ~86mm dia x ~88mm long, single phase, 115V, cap run, 0.5A, 1625RPM, 1/30HP motor.
And four 1 x 1/2 x 1/8" neo magnets, placed N-S-N-S.
Three wires went in, and they were seperated like this (then to 2 bridge rectifiers),
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/2050/forGuruji.jpg
That's it.
It makes 25~50ma (wow?) in a breeze, 250ma is common but about where it hits some kind of peak, 500ma at maybe 12MPH /5.4 meters per second or a little faster (that's darn windy at that height here), broke 750ma a time or 2.
The coil resistance is too high, and the size of everything is too small to work with.
It would be better suited to a 24 or 48V system.
A bigger motor is much easier (room to work, space for magnets) and gives more output (lower resistance and more magnet volume).

A 3-ph is far better. A 1/4 or 1/3 HP, 1650~1750RPM, 220V in Star (Not 440 in star and 220 in Delta), some neo magnets in 4 groups (NSNS), bit of re-connecting the coils... and a milling machine or lathe (or a full day or 2 with a saw, file and a case of Blue for elbow lubricant).

It's simply not that hard to get a few amps out of a conversion.
Certainly not the most efficient, but cheap and easy.
Need to get to about 0.75M dia blades before there is much power, even small scale, and thats about where the power shoots up from almost nothing to more than I wanted.

The standard problems are people want to set up a windmill in the woods, think a 4MPH wind is 10MPH, and believe there is power in a 0.5 meter dia blade.

Just my experiences, in general.
G-
Ghurd.info
[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#20)
by Ron VE8RT on Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 10:33:24 PM MST

Well I had wondered if there would be an advantage in taking the AC, at a higher voltage, single or polyphase, and running into the battery site for rectification and voltage conversion / regulation. Then a higher impedance/ higher voltage / lower current output could be used to its fullest advantage along with lower IR losses in the wiring. If there were an advantage to switching between star and delta 3ph windings then it could be done (although you'd need to run 6 lighter wires instead of 2 heavy wires) at the battery site end instead of building it into the generator.

I'll need to get back to this, been working too much overtime to make much progress on anything else. Of course there is the option of turning some of the overtime into a commercially made mill if one is out there.

Ron

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by CG on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 03:58:30 AM MST

The Rutland wind generator is use by nomadic Mongols for use in their yurts, but it costs over £400. You could try making your own turbine, and you at the right place for ideas.

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by electronbaby on Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 07:39:05 AM MST

no luck yet i see. If you dont feel like building from scratch, than maybe try some of the tape drive motors everyone seems to be playing with. It could be made very portable, (because a while ago, I made one myself for the same reason you are doing it), and they seem to work ok. Dont expect too long a life from them, but they work ok.
Have Fun!! RoyR KB2UHF

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#21)
by Ron VE8RT on Wed Jun 18, 2008 at 10:36:49 PM MST

I've heard about the tape drive motors, but I don't think I've come across one. I have collected a few HD magnets just in case I had no alternative to building my own. How long do they last, and how much power output could I expect?

Ron VE8RT

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by electronbaby on Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 07:41:36 AM MST

and yes, Ghurds right, not much power available in those wind speeds, especially at that height.
Have Fun!! RoyR KB2UHF

Re: Tiny diesel-gen option? (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by spinningmagnets on Sat Jun 14, 2008 at 08:51:06 AM MST

I am still learning, but some of the most frequent questions are about how to get more power from the most common light winds.

Apparently its very difficult with a HAWT, and near to impossible with a lower-RPM VAWT. I like VAWTs, they look like fun. However, "Windstuffnow ED" tried Star-Delta switching and also a self-adjusting air gap to squeeze out a few more Watts from low winds, and even he sounded like he felt it just wasn't worth the effort.

Ron, (WDYASQ) once posted a link to tiny diesels (the size of a lawn mower) from a Chinese supplier called Yanmar.

http://www.yanmar.com/store/item.asp?ITEM_ID=33&DEPARTMENT_ID=61

~220 cc, 4-ish HP, max 3600 RPM, 68 lbs (without fuel or PMA)

A custom PMA would act as a flywheel and give you the voltage you choose. Just a thought for your consideration...

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by nothing to lose on Sun Jun 15, 2008 at 07:51:37 PM MST

Look into small homemade stuff here. Motor conversions and dual rotor.
Questions are,

"1) Provide at least 20 watts (14Volts) in a moderate wind,"
What is that and where is it? In the woods at low height will probably be turbulent and hard to get much power from. On the other hand camping on a beach at a large lake or ocean front may be goods winds.

2) could be carried and set up temporarily, for example fixed to the roof rack of a parked vehicle, , "
How tall a vehicle? Large motorhome is about 12' so add extra tower off the rear and you could easy get 15-20' high. Small mini van is only maybe 5' high so height depends on vehicle used.
I assume we are not talking about taking this into the woods while hiking and camping in a tent being the part about "fixed to the roof rack of a parked vehicle" so the weight and tower parts are not a problem to carry around in the vehicle.

"3) could be partially dismantled for transport. A vertical windmill may be better for roof rack mounting."
I would not trust a roof rack for much here. You could make a mount for the rear of the vehicle to hold a small tower. Again depends what the vehicle is your using. For a small wind genny this should work well but I would not try anything large or heavy like a 10' daul rotor like this of course.

If you really mean 20 watts I think you could find some homemade stuff on this site that would work well. I think it's Hiker that has a camper he does this same thing with.
.
nothing to lose

Spelin and tpying are my strong points, not electronics.

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by Ron VE8RT on Sun Jun 15, 2008 at 11:09:43 PM MST

Someone has done this already? I could certainly benefit from their experience. Another search of the archives is in order then. Thanks.

[ Parent ]

Re: Portable wind power options? (3.00 / 0) (#19)
by elvin1949 on Tue Jun 17, 2008 at 11:51:16 PM MST

Be sure to Google search the board.Get more hits that way.
Hiker is in AK.He built several small wind machines.I think he has one he uses on his camper that puts out 400 watts.And can be dismantled and put inside while on the road.

Look up Hiker then check his files lots of good stuff there.
later
Elvin

[ Parent ]

Portable wind power options? | 21 comments (21 topical)

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