Low power vawt

[superdave]

I have recently recieved a 9.99 motor from surplus center. It was the large one rated @ 260vdc and 2.25 hp. I'm trying to build a small vawt turbine for testing. The turbine will be about 4' tall by 1' wide and be up and running in a few weeks. If it stops snowing soon!

[electrondady1]

do me a favor superdave, get on the good side of your wife so she will let you comlete this project. i'm into vawt if for no other reason than i like the way they look.the fact the geni is on the ground were it belongs, they make no noise and produce massive torque . also they dont break down.  ive got one little one up(spining for a year now)  and i'm in the process of turning the coils for my next. a gearing system might also be in the works to get the revs up. but this conversion of motors process is very interesting to me.

[nvmike]

Would you share more information on the design of your 4' by 1' turbine?  Do you have any ideas on maybe the Darrieus type blades for a VAWT?  

[superdave]

The design i'm using is based on the picoturbine it can be seen at

www.picoturbine.com. I am building the frame tommorow hopefully. I'm building the frame

out hemlock lumber left over from our house. I'm building the blades out of 6" dia schedule 40 pvc cut lengthwise. I want to try out some of those roller blade bearings for the blades as well.

[nvmike]

Keep us informed on how it goes.  I hope to have my VAWT going in a week to two.

[superdave]

New update:

As of monday I have the support frame built and was in the process of cutting out the blade supports when it started to rain! Boy the weather is crazy this year. It was 64 degrees yesterday and today we have 3" of snow! Hopefully next week I'll have time to get the turbine up for rpm testing. What koind of vawt are you building? How big etc?