I took the windmill down, and yes definitely need to improve the tower, at the moment I am using part of a old tower with a piece of 1X1 sq. tubing dropped down inside it, basically to check my results, also right now I have some nylon rope I am using for guy wires, I sure am glad I took it down before the ice storm and the snow storm hit, other wise like you all said would probably have a bunch of pieces now!
Anyway I ordered a pulley from mcmaster carr web site, cheapest price I could find, 4.20 for 3/4 bore X 1 3/4 pulley, I put the pulley on the motor, found out the bore was a little big,oopsie, I don't have mics, I am guessing its metric or 11/16 shaft. On the other end I took a pulley of an old riding lawnmower, its 8 1/2 diameter, and mounted it on the prop end put a belt on and gave it a few spins, unfortunately not as fast as I would like it to be. I was getting about 6-8 volts, to get to 12 volts I had to really crank on it.
I then took off the pulley on the motor and put the belt directly on the motor shaft, was kind of tough to hold it on and keep tension and spin by hand but I got the 12 volts actually varied, 10 -12 13 volts, that I liked.
Whilest rummaging around I found an old starter gear off a starter motor, looks like I can tap it and thread it on the end of the shaft, I sort of stuck it on and wrenched in on the shaft some, and I took the old riding mower, briggs 8 hp and pulled the flywheel off and removed the ring gear. I bolted the ring gear on the pulley its about 8 inch dia. and tried that and it looks like it will put out what i am looking for.
So now I am going to mount the motor on so everything is lined up, and see how much power it is going to take to get it spinning, from what I saw doing it by hand, it took quite a bit so at this point I am kind of doubting if it will work, the ratio is 11 to 1 using the gears. I was wondering about how it was going to turn connected to battery's becouse like you said connecting it to headlight, it was a bear to turn, I read in the forum that it won't be like that once connected to batteries but still wasn't sure , thanks again for the info, I feel a little better! Anyway thats where its at now, I will post again when I find out how it works out once I get it mounted on properly, kind of tough doing it by hand LOL. Also I was wondering if I keep pretty much the same gear ratio, but go with larger gears, will it be easier to start to spin, or will I still have the same problem? Thanks again, Tony
