2HP Motor conversion Finished and flying

[ruddycrazy]

Hiya guys,

          Well finally I got the 2hp conversion finished and up and flying.Rather than go the skewed method I went with the offset method not only to save on the amount of magnets to use but increase the sq/inch of mags in the rotor. Using 8off 2x1x1/2 N45 epoxy(painted)neo's with the countersunk hole in the centre I ended up with 8sq/inchs of mags on the new rotor. Many thanks to Dinges who did the design work for the mag spacing and although I was pretty peeved off when I found it cogged slightly I've found my 3 metre bladeset overcomes the cogging no worries.

The rotor in place in the motor

 The output shaft on the new rotor I machined to 24mm and used a dual taperlock to secure the bladeset to the shaft

The taperlock

The taperlock all tightened on the shaft, although this dual taperlock can hold over 25hp for added safety I used a washer and setscrew incase the blades decide to want to walk off the shaft

A Rear veiw of the genny

A front veiw of the genny

The blades do start with just a breath of wind and the best I saw was 10 VAC and I just just about count the turns the blades were doing. When I lathe tested the motor the best I could get out of my 1/2hp 3 phase toolroom lathe was about 140 rpm and the output was @29.5 volts about 9.5 amps. I used 2 heavyduty auto batteries for my test where 1 battery was near dead but the otherone was fine.

Well hopefully this genny will perform for me but time will tell.

Cheers Bryan

[tecker]

 Weight to over come the cog works for the most part if your in good wind . It will sing a little under load but will start making power right away . Post the numbers under load and what the combo does at furl .Nice project

[FishbonzWV]

Hello Bryan,

Good to see you got it in the air with no Vaseline on it. ;-}

Is that delta, wye, or parallel hook up?

Hope it performs well for you.

Bonz

[wpowokal]

Bryan, have you changed you ISP 'e' mails don't get through, wondering about the seeds. Seems like a good little runner you have made there.

allan down under

[oztules]

Good to see this up in the air Bryan, will be interested to see how it performs when the real wind finally turns up.

Obviously the cogging is not an issue, as it seems to start up in winds it can't even get up to charging voltage in..... so it would appear the cogging is not an issue at all.... grins all round.

Well done and looks good too. Hope it performs well for you.

........oztules

[ghurd]

Looks great!

G-

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Wpowokal,

               Yep last year telsux decided to can the isdn so I decided to go sat and my user name is the same but just put westnet.com.au on the end. My missus tried several times to raise the seeds with no luck

Cheers Bryan

[SparWeb]

Congratulations, Bryan!

Do you seriously have 3 meter blades on a 2HP conversion?  It solves the cogging but watch out for high speed in strong winds.  Peter's probably got you on the right track.

Let us know how it goes as you see it perform.

Thanks.

[ruddycrazy]

Congratulations, Bryan!<p>
Do you seriously have 3 meter blades on a 2HP conversion?  It solves the cogging but watch out for high speed in strong winds.  Peter's probably got you on the right track.<p>
Let us know how it goes as you see it perform.<p>
Thanks.

Hehehe well only time has told how this wind genny has performed and it finally came down yesterday as it appeared one of the bearings was on the way out. The rear dual ball bearing had just about seized up(5203) and the front 6205 bearing is still in reasonable nic but got another to replace it. Looking thru one of my bearing box's I found that spare 5203 and my mate gave me a new 6205 as he reckoned that was the front bearing and he was spoton.

Now I did find when a real strong gale was blowing the 20 amp gauge was topped out and with my clamp meter saw 31 amps tops on a few occasions. I am thinking of the 'sore finger tradition' and giving this a rewind as I do have the wire and new insulation here.

The blades have held up pretty well with the epoxy paint the main problem to repair. Also the leading edge has copped some damage so after all repairs I'll get some gorilla tape and see how long that lasts.

I will take some pic's tomorrow.

Cheers Bryan

[oztules]

Thats a few years under the belt now Bryan..How has it performed for you?

Has it helped greatly..... not much or usefully with your charging regime.... was it a raging success or just sso in other words.

I'm solar only now (13kw or more ), so don't need the mill anymore and it has been down for years now,.... but I still might do a Sparweb/Zubbly conversion... just to have something back up in the air... I miss seeing it turn, but don't need the power at all.
Would you consider it a worthwhile addition to your power regime?

............oztules

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Oz,
                Eh long time eh mate  that wind genny is on my shed array which only has about 500 watts of PV and now I got a 24 volt 735AH traction pack for shed power and no matter what I throw at the batteries they always seem to be above 2400 sg so I'd say yea that wind genny has been the main power producer over the years.

              Now I do have some 1mm and 1.6mm wire here and I do wonder if doing a rewind will get that many more amps out or is it better just to get it back up in the air for another 6 years.

Cheers Bryan

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Guy's,
                     Well took a few pic's just before dark

The Blades



The leading edge on one of the blades (the worst)



A pic of the front of the motor



and a final pic of the rear of the motor



In the end with the rear bearing I ended up cutting it off with my 4" angle grinder, so I will need to get the rotor out to polish up the rear shaft and checkout the magnets etc.

All up the conversion still looks in good condition so I reckon I will get a few more years out it.

Cheers Bryan

[oztules]

Don't mess with a good thing... bearings .... a kiss and a promise,... and back into service.

Well done it was all worthwhile.

The blades look surprisingly good for that period. As I expect that this thing spent a lot of time above it's max current point.. so the blades were spinning fast, yet the damage is not too bad from here.

...............oztules

[ruddycrazy]

Well had a couple of hours this arvo so got the wind genny back in the air just as dark was approaching, still got the gin pole on there but that will come off in the morning.

Anyway did an ohm check on the winding and as I had it in star 14 ohms so decided to dig in and find the star point and hooked it up in delta 7.8 ohms. So hopefully it should perform a tad better but time will tell.

O'well wasn't a huge job and it was good to see the conversion was still in pretty well new condition inside so time to sit back a sip a few homebrew moonshine shots tonight.

Cheers Bryan

[SparWeb]

Long may it turn.  Here's to another 6 years! 

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Guy's,
                    Well the low pressure system going our area was this motor conversion really shined as it busted that 50 amp guage I got on ebay so took the sg meter up to test the shed batteries and 2.6 is just about charged. Then as I was looking at the analogue amp I still had and it dropped to nothing then I saw the tail flying thru the air ( did need to fix that). Anyway waited for a lull and fixed the tail and guess what the wind died down so that Murphy guy proves the fact raise a wind tower and the wind will fail. Anyway got a bit of tig welding done to use some power. With the weather front on the way may even get a pic of snow, but eh my farm is in the Adelaide Hills NOT in the snow fields.

Well when the doesn't shine this ol' motor conversion just keeps going and I do need to get the beast going but with 100 metre run of welding size cable just to get to the shearing shed then another 75 meters to the house array may need to check some clearing sales.

Cheers Bryan

[ruddycrazy]

Well got home this evening after going upto the Clare valley today and looked up at the wind genny  going wobble wobble with only 2 blades. .

So duly got the tower down as we are execting some high winds and it was windy when lowering with the blades still spinning.

So 8 years out of set of old Oregon fence posts wasn't a bad run me thinks.

Anyway I do have a 2 metre blade sitting in the shed so I'll take out the conlock and fit it to the 2 metre blades and see how it performs.

Cheers Bryan

[SparWeb]

Oh dear - sorry to hear about that.
Any sign of where the shed blade went off to?

[ruddycrazy]

Oh dear - sorry to hear about that.
Any sign of where the shed blade went off to?

I found the blade on the other side of the fence about 20 metres away, it does look like the side broke away where a retaining bolt was and with the other it had torn out where the hole in the wood was. O'well considering I only paid $8 each for the oregon posts they did have a good run.

Cheers Bryan

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Guy's,
                   Well got the F&P setup I did many years ago along with those 2 metre blades I made. Using a corolla tailshaft flange along with a 1/4" plate welded to makes for an easy setup for mounting the blades. I found in the pile a rewired one and thought yea thats the one I was using. Only to find out 2 weeks later when the blades were finally turning when I got home from work. So went upto the shed and put my Fluke 865 Scope meter on only to find with the blades spinning around 300 rpm only 8 volts AC.  . Then the memory kicked in and I found that old 100 series stator thats untouched and just wired up in delta and that one was the one I used with the caps in series and got a nice boost in the current.

               The 2hp motor conversion is going to get a rewire and I'll cram as much 1mm in as I can and make a new set of 3 metre blades and even think about moving to the house array. Which will mean a nice long wire run and be the first genny in the new site and when funds allow the 'beast' 4Kw motor conversion with 88 16x13mm N50 grade neo's will finally go up.

              I don't really need a wind genny on the shed array now as with my 16hp listeriod with a 5KW ST head along with a 40 amp forklift charger running on vege oil can charge the batteries nicely with no costs involved.

            It has proven handy as after my ol' Lincoln caddy welder went out in fashion throwing 1 metre blue sparks and the 5Kw genset blowing a nice hole in the secondary. Now my new Lincoln 131i caddy welder will let me use the 3Kw inverter to arc weld also tig weld after a hard days work running the 16hp for a couple of hours gets the 735Ah traction battery back to fully charged.

         With a storm due over night and high winds expected I'll have that bank of caps ready to redo what I did so many years ago.

          I do know 2 metre blades are a tad small and it will be interesting to see how they handle the high winds and current produced.

          Still got that huge redgum branch out back and 10 years of seasoning should be right, just gotta make a jig for the chainsaw to cut some planks and another jig to cut the blades as there's no easy way to cut seasoned redgum and I do reckon they will make an awesum set of blades.

        Wind generation to me now is purely fun and teaching younger people from the local area can keep the dream going. Wind generation and motor conversions.

Cheers Bryan