update on the blue machine, built some websites

[jacquesm]

So, yesterday we had to take it down... We had a pretty vicious storm, and it looked like things were starting to go out of control so I decided to hit the kill switch. The machine stopped, but then the wind picked up and blew it right through the stops ! It looked like we had lost the stator, so against all odds we took it down spinning and all in a fairly high wind. Pretty dangerous ! It worked ok, though, even though the 'landing' was less than perfect. We tied the machine down so it would stop spinning. Later, when the wind had died down a bit we measured all the windings and to my surprise they seemed to be ok. I figure that the resistance in the wiring is not low enough to keep it shorted out properly and once the blades manage to build up sufficient efficiency it simply starts making power into the short... go figure... next machine will have a mechanical override

On the web front there is some news, I have just completed two small sites, the one is a straightforward 'linkdump', it's at urlspotter.com, the other is a bit more elaborate, it's an online 'grapevine', where you can pass urls to your friends. You can play around with it if you like at wwgrapevine.com, it's pretty fresh but everything should work as advertised.

Thanks for all the notes of support regarding the IBill nastyness !

[monte350c]

Hi Jacques,

Nice job on those new sites. Looks like a prime candidate for a bit of paid advertisement hosting. Good Luck with that - I like the grapes idea - very innovative!

I always liked that blue machine you built.

I wonder if the efficiency would improve with use of motor laminates in the stator - you know - like the ones you find in an induction motor. I found a place that will do limited runs of these. They will take your dxf drawing, laser cut out of lamination grade steel, then cook them in an oven which gives the steel its proper bh curve. They want about $1 per laminate for prototypes.

That will come down the road for me though, because I just carried my new free Baldor 215T high efficiency motor (in pieces) up from the car. Wow that thing's heavy - 100lb or so for the frame without the rotor in it.

I'll do a story on the 1.5 hp conversion I did last week after I get some test numbers on it. I want to see how close the 'real' results come to the simulations done in FEMM.

I have a preliminary reading of 120 volts AC at 620 rpm with a 100 watt light bulb as a load. That's about all my drill could handle. So I'm working on attaching it to my Briggs powered test stand and when it's on there I'll load it up and see what the actual loaded numbers look like.

Hope the I bill thing works out...

Ted.

[Garry]

Ted,

Could you give contact info on this laminate company?

Thanks

Garry

[monte350c]

Yes -

Sorry for the delay, I wanted to double check on the pricing before posting.

The last time I talked to these guys it was about $1 per lam, that was for a pretty small alternator I was working on.

I just contacted them, and asked for a quote for a lam stack with a 5" center hole, 9" OD out of .0185 lam stock, oven annealed.

They came back with about $3 a lam which is still not too bad in this size.

That would mean around $800 for a 5" high lam stack.

The site is: http://www.mesa-eg.com/laminations.htm

and the contact is Ed Sloan.

They will need your design in a dxf file to quote on it.

You can email them with your drawing from the web address above.

Best of luck with your designs!

Ted.

[Flux]

Jaques

I think that when it wouldn't stop it was in the reactance limited region, this can always happen with slotted iron cores.

A mechanical shut down is a good idea for any big machine as a reassurance when something goes wrong.

You may have held it down with a big dump load rather than a short, then the short may have stopped it in a lull in the wind, but there is never time to think when things are going wild.

Flux

[Reno]

This company might sell pre made lams

Don't know if they have the configuration you want but might be cheaper

They are in canada

http://www.etimotors.com/index.htm