Wind something up while you're spinning

[Norm]

   Yeah Look at that thing spin ...now the wind dies down for a few minutes and it stops now it's spinning again...now it isn't ..

    You could never make much amps this way but now if every revolution gradually wound up a weight to a certain height then released and engaged to a little generator.....

   Another way ...You could pump water up into a tank then release it onto a water wheel that would drive a generator....It might take a couple of hours to fill the 50 gallon barrel and only 5 minutes to dump onto a waterwheel....

  When we do have wind in our locality it is in the 10-15 mile range we have a few windmills in our area within 10 miles of each other.

http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/titanic/664/id16.htm

 I live about 2 miles away from Lake Erie,  the only windmill I have operating at present is an experimental 1 meter diameter HAWT made from  5 inch diameter plastic pipe as TomW once stated , they spin pretty fast but not much power ....with a string wrapped around the shaft it will wind up a small weight. Well time for a coffee break and back at it ...something wrong with E-Mail so might as well work on the windmills for now.

                    Havin Fun!

                      ( :>) Norm.  

[jacquesm]

an electrical analogy of your barrel scheme would be to charge a set of capacitors in parallel (low voltage) and then series them and 'dump' them all in one go into your battery, then restart again. That's called a charge pump.

Air-X by sw windpower uses a modified car alternator spinning at 2000 RPM (direct drive) with a 4 ft prop, it produces a maximum of 500 watts, so even a small turbine can work, but the engineering is pretty tough, and service life is probably short.

It makes lots of noise too !

[Jerry]

Hi jacquesm

I fly an AIR-403. It dose nothing at 10 mph and starts to do a little at 15 mph. as for max output.

I've tested it in my S-10 wind test truck and saw 535 watts at 40 mph.

SW rates it at 400 watts at 28.8 mph. Just my 2 cents?

                 JK TAS Jerry

[Jerry]

I must aree. The 403 is very noisy. Thats why its at my store in the industrial park and not at my my home. The 403 realy anoid the neighbors.

I've described it as. Lazy, expencive, noisy. Its strange I didn't see those atributs listed in the addvertizing?

                   JK TAS Jerry

[jacquesm]

Wow, I knew it was bad because a local dealer here refuses to sell them to people that live within 200ft of their neighbours, but I didn't realise that thing reaches it's rated power only at such ridiculous speeds.

[ghurd]

Not 'too' far from you, middle of Ashtabula County, a solar guy got a 403. They don't get much wind. Metered it up to see what it did for him. Tall tower. Didn't do much but make noise. Something about producing 50W sounded like an earthquake. He would have gotten a lot more for his money with solar. He was not happy. Thought it would be OK, maybe, if it was on the beach cliffs, like around Geneva-On-The-Lake.

That is what he said.

I thought of using a water pump as a load diversion for a solar system. Pump water up to a tank when the batteries are full then when the batteries get to 25% or something, drain the tank through a hydro system. The money didn't work out. Cost would have been a LOAD of PV watts.

Something on TV years ago got me thinking about it. It said dams can only make power related to rainfall, so why not solar power water pumps to put the water that is at the bottom back up to the top so it can make power again? If it was sunny, good, pump the water back up. If it was cloudy, its raining. Either way the hydro plant had more water. I guess their math didn't work out either.

The weight idea seems good to me. No water tanks, pumps, pipe, space...

A slew of gearing and pulleys, a gazillion pound weight, and it seems like there would be some power in a days worth of tiny winds. I'm sure someone will say the gearing losses are unsurmountable, and I don't know enough about it to argue either way, I just know this area hasn't got much water drop or wind most days. Excluding this weeks Ivan thing.

FYI / personal note / 'nobody else will get it' type thing: I do Amish solar and LED buggy lights in your neck of the woods! Geauga mostly. My Grandapa was a milker down in Mespo. I'm near Youngstown now. Kind of cool to see somebody from near by. Most people around here think I'm crazy doing this stuff.

G-

[hvirtane]

The weight idea seems good to me. No water tanks, pumps, pipe, space...

A slew of gearing and pulleys, a gazillion pound weight, and it seems like there would be some power in a days worth of tiny winds. I'm sure someone will say the gearing losses are unsurmountable...

I think that water is a cheaper weight anyway. Easier gearing with the water tank? You might make

as well some pressure in the water tank? Just

something like 3 atmospheres to keep it safe.

Maybe also making a hydrogen storage would work?

- Hannu