School project

[Devo]

I am helping my daughters boyfriend with a school project , a wind mill. I have 17 gauge wire at 40 wraps a coil that is the max I can fit in , I need 400 wraps so 17 gauge 2 times gives me 23 gauge & 80 wraps then 26 gauge would be 160 wraps , 29 gauge 320 then 30 gauge would be 33 % more or  up to 524 wraps.

Am I doing this right?

Thanks

Devin  

[willib]

Devo , what size are your mags

what size rotors do ya have

[Flux]

Sounds about right. You will probably find that you can get more turns with the finer wire as there is less wasted space so you may be able to use a grade thicker than the calculated.

I assume this is a tiny project and you are not expecting a lot out.

Flux

[Devo]

Yes it's a tiny mill,18" blades the rotor is a touch under 5 inches , 16 mags single rotor. magnets are 1/2" round 1/2" thick neo's.

I had thought about using the 17 gauge & running a 120 to 12 volt wall transformer backwards but I may just get some fine wire.

I am hoping to wire some D or C cells in series to get 12 volts & run a zener diode to activate a small dump load. the 12volt battery will run a small 12 volt car lighter inverter & then a 10 watt bulb(maybe).

Not sure if a mill that small with those tiny mags will make that much juice but I'll find out,if not I'll go with led's or something...

Devin  

[willib]

for an alt that small , have ya considered using a VCR head ?

for reference i made an alt out of 1/2"dia by 1/2 inch mags

three phase 18 coils ( six per phase), but my rotor ( single) was 7.5" dia

If i was to do it again i would have used thinner wire than AWG 20

because although i got 10 watts out of it it was at 500+ rpm IIRC

this was before the origional minigen