NTL Designed blade hubs

[nothing to lose]

I designed these hubs and had them CNC cut from 1/8" plate steel.

 Y, because 3 blades are best, and we need hubs.

The Doughboy 5, when you want a bit more than a 3 blade set.

NTL SUPER 6,  The Daisy, functions as a 2 blade, 3 blade, and 6 blade hub. For those that want 6 blades or would like to try various number of blades.

The Magnificent Seven, a great movie and a great hub for those wanting 7 blades.

Comming soon, 2 blade, 4 blade hubs and for myself a few 1 blade hubs for fun.

The following is for the 3arm Hub but basically the same for all hubs except for extra holes. Subject to change, future hubs may have 0.75 ceneter hole, 1/4" holes maynot be cut at all, then I can drill any holes as needed any size in the same centered locations.

The hubs are 1/8" plate steel. The hub is 10"Dia., that is it fits in a 10" circle

From center of hub to tip the arms are 5" long

The arms are 3" wide

The end of arms are rounded with a 3" radius to remove corners or points that could gouge back of blades,

The radius also supports rear of blades better than a flat straight end

There is a radius where arms meet, prevents a sharp corner, adds strength.

The center hole is 0.68"-0.70" dia. (future hubs perhaps 0.75")

The 3 small holes in center are 120 degrees apart, rotated from arms to provide more room for blade root. (on 3 arm hub, others not applicable)

3 Center holes are on a 1.5" circle, that is 0.75" from hole center to hub center

The inner single hole in arm is 1.5" center of hole to center of hub (on 3" circle) and is centered in the arm.

The 2 outer holes are 1.4" apart center to center, they are 0.8" in from sides of arm, about 1.25" in from tip

There is plenty of room on this hub for additional holes if you need to drill more for your blades.

If you prefer larger bolts you can drill the holes larger, there is room.

These hubs will work well for many flat mounted blades, for blades needing mounted at an angle with a flat root you can slice a block of wood or metal at the mounting angle, sandwich the blade between the blocks and bolt securely.

For larger or heavy blades I would use 2 hubs one front and rear.

I had fun getting these made, more parts being drawn up for other stuff.

 If we would have had computers and CAD when I took Drafting in Highschool I might have had a nice career

[Norm]

If we would have had computers and CAD when I took Drafting in Highschool I would have

flunked the course ! LOL

               ( :>) Norm.

[FishbonzWV]

Very nice NTL.

Looks like a lot of effort went into it and it's good to have ready made hubs available. I have a five blade and a three blade up now and it's a lot of layout to get things right.

But what came to mind was the size of the center hole.

To be a universal hub I would think that the center should just be an indexing point so users could drill out for the size of the shaft they are using.

I'm thinking along the motor conversion lines and I have 3/4 , 1 , and 3 HP motors in the garage now and all have different size shafts.

If you used 2 of the plates the front plate would only need a hole the size of the mounting bolt.

Just something to think about.

Keep up the good work

Bonz

[dalibor]

i am interested to see how your`s one blade hub and blade will get together.

you do need opposite weight to keep balance, am i wrong?

that SUPER 6 looks like a good idea for experimenting, nice job indeed . just add a   blade or complete of them  to start it on lower speeds of wind :-).

with that 1/8 thick steel, what size of blade would be maximum? including also other measures, of course.

[nothing to lose]

Thanks

I am working on a shaft hub mount I will post here when I get it done also. Crazy weather has me tied up and slowed down

The hubs have the center hole large for the adapter I am making and also to kinda keep anyone from trying to use a cheap threaded motor arbor for a shaft mount, those things are not good and will snap off at the threads at times. There may be some better ones made, but the hardware store ones are about junk in my opion and certainly won't work for these 10" size hubs. Just the hubs weigh over l lb 4oz for the 3 blade and I think the 6 or 7 blade was about 2lb 4oz. Very nice solid blade hubs and strong.

The 3 center holes 1/4" are a very good mounting for using a weld on type hub adapter that can be bought at some farm stores if you find the correct size, get the correct bore for the shaft being used (with or without a keyway) and drill/tap the face for the 3 1/4" mounting holes to match the hub.

That is if you want it removable which I do like myself for swapping out blades fast for testing different things.

 With several hubs on hand, you can set up a new set of blades on a hub and have them ready, then just run out and back in the mounting bolts and you swaped out blades in just 2 minutes or less downtime on the genny (or in the rain/snow/sleet or other yuk), depending how you have to get to the genny to swap them. Also save a few dollars needing just one shaft mount per genny.

 For experimenting with several motors and lots of different blade stuff, size, type, number etc.. this is handy and fast as well as not too expensive. One extra spare blade hub would then fit most any motor your flying since the bolt on shaft mount is drilled the same way on each one to match the blade hubs. So no need to have a 6 blade hub for each of 3 different motors as spares just because the shafts are various sizes. Get 1 shaft hub mount for each motor, then use the same 6 blade hub as spare on any motor you have. Then of course you also can use the 6 blade as a 2 3 or 6 as you choose.

Since I change things so much myself here trying new things, I put allot of thought into making these and the above swapping info. In the past I did things the hard way because I did not have any hubs like these, but now that I had them made and making mounts for them life will be much simpler for me when swapping things out for testing.

Course some people might preffer to just get a weld on shaft hub mount and weld it permanant to one blade hub and be done with it.

[nothing to lose]

"with that 1/8 thick steel, what size of blade would be maximum?"

Far too many variables to actaully say. I think in normal use your motor shaft or blades would be more of a limiting factor than the hubs.

Say PVC blades you could make so long they flop like a wet noodle, but won't hurt the hub.

Large or heavy enough wood blades I think the motor shaft would bend as a weak point durring yawing force before anything else would give out. If a person was using real large/heavy wood blades I would use 2 hub plates to prevent any flexing. With a front and rear blade hub and wood blades in between I dought anything close to within reason would ever hurt the hubs.

[kenputer]

Hi NTL,

  I am waiting for one of your 3 blade hubs and have send you some info on the kind of hub adpt. I plan to use. Hope the info is helpful to you.

Ken

[ghurd]

I am very happy with the little ones, that have not been mentioned yet.

Makes things a lot easier for some of us (me).

I received 2 sizes for common sized lumber (1.5" and 2.5"), perfect for Rich Hagen's CNC blades.  The larger hub would probably be good for Ed's white blades too.

The blade shown is one of Rich's 18". The smaller hub matches his 12" blades.

G-

[nothing to lose]

Yes, thanks Ken.

 I just found the info e-mail

I found several other items on their site I may have an interest in as well as an Adpt. I may like.

E-mail me when you get your hub. I am wondering how long it takes to get to you there.  

[richhagen]

Ghurd, I will have to check those hubs out.  I had not seen them to date, only NTL's larger hubs.  I've made a pretty large number of the 12" blades (about a hundred sets) before the Fiji Expedition, I need to finish coating them and get them ready to send out.  I had started to play around with them so that I could write up a page on ways they can be used, but I haven't gotten very far on that yet.  I've had a few requests for the larger blades, so I'll probably carve up a few 18" blades, and a 24" version that I set up to better match the Ametek's that I have once I am done with the 12" ones.  I think it should also fit the larger hub there.  Rich

[nothing to lose]

I think the small hubs will work well with the 12" blades and the large work well with both 18" and 24" blades. That's what I made those hubs for really, your blades

But they should also work well for other blades too of course.

Those were the first ones I had made along with the 3 arm hubs. Been saving them till you got back. I hope to have the hub mounts for them Thusday or Friday when I make a trip to a distributor and see what they have in stock. Just set that account up the other day. Might be a place I can get shafts for motors, bearings, etc... also.

Maybe early next week I can send a package.

[nothing to lose]

Thanks for the picture Ghurd.

Basic info on those small hubs.

The small one fits inside about a 3.2" circle since the ends are flat.

Arms 1.5" wide, from arm edge to hub center 1.5", hub center to center of outer hole 1.25", small holes 0.135", center hole 0.25"

Larger one fits in 4.125" circle since the ends are flat.

 Arms 2.5" wide, from arm edge to hub center 1.75", small holes 0.185", center hole 0.5"

Sizes could be off slightly, I was planning to re-drill holes later.

[nothing to lose]

 Well no reason to have a 0 blade hub I geuss, so I have 1-7 now. Does anyone want 8-12?? LOL

I will change the pictures to better ones soon, delete these and upload new ones same names.

All hubs will be available with or without the holes in them same as the other hubs first listed, except for the center hole which will always be there. Most will be on E-bay often as "NTL wind hubs" if searched for, NTL175 is me of course.

Two of a kind, maybe use in pairs if large or heavy blades

One? We gotta ballance the load some how, by E-mail request only I expect.

Four, When 3's not enough and you just gotta have more.