PVC blades and a drill motor....

[nanotech]

Well, those PVC blades I was talking about a while ago do pretty well.




As you can see by the photos, they are VERY rough cut.  I didn't even sand them at all, just cut them to shape freehand with a jig saw.  They aren't even balanced!!  :p









This is the old cordless drill motor that just became my alternator.  I'm not sure what gear ratio that gearbox on it is, but it kicks the RPM up considerably.  To the point that in a 20 mph wind, the motor sounds like my circular saw!!  "AhhhhhREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"









And here you can see what I mean by rough-cut blades!!









And here you can see it all in action!!




I hooked up a 55W headlight bulb, but it took quite a bit of wind to get it spinning.  But the minute it started spinning, I saw the filament light up!!  With about a 25 mph gust I saw the bulb get pretty bright, so I'm thinking this thing was producing around 12-14V with about 45-55W of power.




I'm going to try it next without the gearbox on it, see how it does then.  I'm also going to see about getting a better set of blades going than what I have.  I've seen a shop about 2 miles away that has some of that green PVC pipe about 6 inches in diameter.  Going to try a set of 4 foot blades and mount them on a proper shaft etc instead of just sticking a bolt through them and clamping the drill chuck on the bolt!!  LOL

[henjulfox]

Well, it looks like your having fun, and that's half of what it's all about...

I believe that if you trimmed a little off of the leading edge of your blades at the

tips, tappering off to no trimming at the root, you would get higher RPM's. If you

search the board you should find a wonderful design for the blade shape. If you do

that, I wouldn't suggest trying to hold it by hand in a 25 MPH wind. Man, I'm

scared to get close to mine in a 10 MPH breeze!

Also looks like your blades are large enough to power a larger motor/generator than

 you're using.

But hey, whatever's fun...

-Henry

[domwild]

Great photos! Keep up the fun! Mine wobbled too much so I have to be a bit more precise with the next set and use alu templates to check the profiles to make them uniform.

Lots of posts here re PVC.

[Norm]

  Yep! You have to have a template....my template

was some white poster board....nice straight

lines...then slow speed on the sabersaw...sets

the mood to make nice straight cuts....fast speed

sets the mood and you feel like you have to

hurry and get it done our ancestors knew what

they were talking about when they said...Haste

makes waste!

  Okay...here's a little thought I came up with

for energy storage that you could use with your

little geared up motor:





  That orange pulley would be attached to your

gearbox input shaft....the orange pulley,pink

pulley and the weight underneath are all one unit

...the whole unit is rolling down the length,

causing the orange pulley to spin, in the meantime the windmill is winding the whole unit

up...depending on the size of the weight and the

speed of the windmill ...idealy the windmill will

crank it up faster than the unit will roll down

and you will have stored power. experimentation

would lead to a larger unit that would replace

a battery.(Didn't say what size battery.)

             Have Fun!

                 ( :>) Norm.

[nanotech]

You would have to have some sort of ratcheting system on the windmill, though or as soon as the wind died down enough, the weight would start spinning the windmill instead of the genny!!  :O

[Norm]

  One way clutch on the cable, belt or whatever

....forgot to mention that....other than that

...it would be a ...springless windup?

   Would work even windup by hand...heavy enough

weight...you could run a few LEDs overnight?

                  Have Fun!

                    ( :>) Norm.

[nothing to lose]

Yep those PVC blades are pretty good.

I had my test gennie flying above the house for awhile. Climb a latter walk acrossed tipout roof, across part of the trailer house roof, reach up and play with blades

Well when the trees bushed out and I lost wind, my gennie stopped turning

It is surrounded 3 sides with large trees. I  could stand outside and feel a nice breeze, look at trees rattling and swaying gently, look at mill not even wiggling let alone turn any. I thought, this just ain't right!

I had a set of barrel blades for a 2 blader on it. I dug around and found a 2 blade Zubbly I had made that turned in the same direction, stuck it on, now my 4 blader turns again even though surrounded by trees still

I like your setup with the drill! I have a couple rechargables here that are junk. Built in batteries are shot, not replacable, cheap things. I think I will use your idea there and build myself a mill just bolting pvc blades together and clamping in the chuck.

[nanotech]

Yeah, but you've GOT to have some pretty strong blades to make them turn.  I think I figured out that the gearbox in mine was somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 or 30 to 1 ratio.

Makes for a REALLY fast spinning motor when the blades get spinning in a 25mph wind!!  

[nothing to lose]

Grrr...

Ok, you got me started on another project I will never get finished I geuss!

I had an old dead rechargable drill. Took it apart, spun the chuck by hand, a real bear to get it to turn, I got tiny power. Took motor off, cogging is bad and the gearing multiples the cogging! Motor is fine, but coggs. Gearing is fine turns easy. Put together again, and I think it would take 10' blades and 30mph winds to get this one  turning. This was an older drill, rechargable, 5 Nicads, geuss supposed to be 6V or so.

Thanks though, you did get me started on something! This drill runs great on batteries still, so I got a nice motor, gearing, chuck, now to build a minnie lathe! This unit should work good for small hobby wood turning lathe I think.

I took the motor off a cordless rechargeable aircompressor also, it is 12V. Not much cogging, but no gear box. Motor gear runs a larger flywheel gear right on the compressor crankshaft. Since compressor works good just no battery, I think I will fix it to use as a direct connection 12V aircompresser instead of cordless. Just have to connect the wires. Tried the motor, but it would have to spin far too fast to get any usable power I think. If the compressor was bad and a person took out the crank and drove the large gear, then it might be ok and do something. Ever find a junk 12V aicompressor it's worth a try maybe. The piston or connecting rod/crank is what normally goes on those I think. Motor should still be fine in most cases.

What was your drill? Since my stuff isn't working so hot today, maybe I will look for a better junk drill. I normally find such things but pass them up as junk, mostly the ones with built in non-replacable batteries.

I did cut 4 new plastic sewer pipe blades today also. Got those messed up a bit too.

Just wanted 4 straight blades equal width 3' long. 2 are 2 3/4" wide, one is 3" wide, the other is just a tab over 3" wide

I geuss I will trim them all to 2 3/4" later tonight or tommorow.

 Actaully make the best of the bad, I will probably try 2 blades together at 2 3/4" and 2 at 3" for a 4 blader. Also use a little different pitch on the 2 sets. Only have to trim 1 blade down. Maybe make the 3" at 30degree angle and the other 2 at 25degree.

Next I will be cutting 3 equal width blades I geuss about 3 3/4" and 4"

[nanotech]

My drill was an 18V cordless one from KMart (Benchtop Pro).  The switch went bad on it and I waited too long to take it back under warranty.

Yeah, if you can find cordless drills that either the battery or switch, etc have gone out....

Of course, the higher the voltage, the better, but you already knew that.

[nothing to lose]

Yep, problem is most of the junk I got I think is low volts, but I have it anyway so free if I dig it out for some use.

 If that was 18V for yours then I see why the big difference between them! I think about all the junk tools with built in cells are 6V or 9V, maybe as high as 12V for the better ones. Stuff before the removeable packs became popular and cheap.

Looks like these will still make great motors for small projects.

After trying this drill and aircompressor I got another look at the compresser

 Nice open design should be easy to modify, I have a second one somehwere with a broke rod. I think fix the rod and mount 2 180 degree apart and I got a nice small 2 piston steam engine maybe. I will try that if I can find the second broke compressor

Or I do have a nice piston and cylinder I made if it will work for this.