Hugh Piggot 4 ft genny.

[Jerry]

This has been a 3 year SAGA. In 2006 a discusion was going on about Hughs 4ft wind generator.

I was one of the discusers as well as Flux. I quote Flux from that thred. He was refuring to Hughs 4ft wind generator.

"you can't beat it with those magnets" Thank Flux I love a chalange. Even though its been a long one.

I've I've finnaly completed Hughs 4ft diameter wind generator and I've been testing it in my wind tunnel.

I've tested it with all stock star wireing as well as "Jerry Rigged" wireing scheem.

I've also tested it with several blade types.

The most resent test have been with 4 diferant blades. Today test was with the unit "Jerry Rigged".

Here are the test #s all stock wired star and with Hughs carved wood blades.

  5.9  mph      .7 watts

   7   mph    2.34 watts

  7.5  mph    3.87 watts

    9  mph    6.58 watts

   9.3 mph    7.29 watts

   10  mph    10.6 watts

  10.9 mph    11.68 watts

    11 mph    11.8  watts

Here are the test #s with "Jerry Blades" and stock star wireing.

  5  mph     1.52 watts

 5.3 mph     2.93 watts

 5.7 mph     4.7  watts

 6.4 mph       9  watts

 7.5 mph      12  watts

   9 mph     17.8 watts

 10  mph    23.82 watts

10.3 mph    24.56 watts

Here are todays test #s wired "Jerry Rigged" and with "Jerry Blades"

  4.7 mph     2.34 watts

  5.3 mph     3.28 watts

  5.5 mph     5.17 watts

  8.9 mph    22.89 watts

  9.7 mph    24.46 watts

  10  mph    24.7  watts

I'll just show the 10 mph #s for my littel 8" duel rotor wind generator with the same 4ft diameter "Jerry Blades"

 10 mph   35.8 watts.

AS far as the 4ft machine with stock blades and star wireing. The Garbogen motor conversion and the 14-11 ceramic duel rotor did a littel  better also.

Thank for the inspiration Flux.

                            Jerry

[Jerry]

Oh heres a few pictures of todays set up.

                        Jerry

[Flux]

Interesting work Jerry. You have caused a lot of head scratching over the years with your ideas and you have always seemed to get outputs from those 4ft Jerry blades that I thought was impossible.

Few of your methods would stand up to absolute measurement, even the present wind tunnel tests couldn't be relied on for absolute wind speed.

All your tests though have always been good comparisons of things under the same conditions so even if the absolute figures are not accurate then they are valid comparisons.

From your recent tests it seems that your blades suit Hugh's alternator better than the intended ones at least under those wind tunnel tests.

Some interesting things have come out of those tests which probably shows that blade matching is still the main thing that determines the output rather than alternator design as long as the alternator is reasonable.

With Hugh's alternator your blades give almost identical results with Star & Jerry connection so it seems that at 10 mph you are not matched to either configuration.

It is near impossible to know how things would work out in higher wind speeds where the matching would change.

It seems that the wooden blades are too slow for that alternator under your test conditions but it would be interesting if you could do the test with Hugh's blades with star and jerry connection.

I wish I had your energy and enthusiasm to follow up your work, you certainly have raised issues that would be worth following up.

I did some actual wind tests on one of Hugh's 4ft machine several years ago and I have managed to find the results. I never tried with any other blades. I don't have a suitable site for decent wind power measurements so don't take my results as absolute either. Normally wind tunnel tests give optimistic figures but your tunnel tests are below mine. Someone ( was it Ed Lenz?) got a Hugh 4ft machine tested in the big tunnel at some research places and the results were better than mine.

For what it is worth here are my figures.

Keep up the good work, you certainly keep the rest of us on our toes, you will beta Betz yet

Flux

[Flux]

On second thoughts Jerry did you use 2 strands in series for your jerry rig test?

If so then the cut in speed would be similar and the match to the blades would be similar. That would explain why the results were so close.

I was assuming that you used the same winding and had a 1.7 ratio in the cut in speed.

With your blades and the parallel ones you could change the setting angle, that would give a lot more information. Unfortunately you can't do that with Hugh's prop.

From your pictures of Hugh's prop it looks different from the one I did the tests with. Did you build it from a later book?, mine was from the early book with 8ft and 4ft machines only. I am not sure if he has changed things over the years.

Flux

[Jerry]

Hi Flux.

Thanks for your coments. I've thought of doing truck testing also. Although the mph #s would be scewed from the cab over thing it would bring in some real wind and higher wind speeds for compairison.

As per my carved wood blades. This is the first carve blades I've built.

I have Hughs book from several years ago and I tryed to follow it as best I could.

I would like to test a set that Hugh built himself. That would be nice.

I did a post the question and asked Hugh if the blade I carved was good enough but I got no responce. It looked correct to me and ran very smooth.

As per my coils. Hugh asks for in the 12 volt version 85 turns of 16 ga. wire.

I wound 2 in hand 85 turns of 19 ga. 19ga. is 1/2 the circular mils. of 16 ga.

I brought all 4 ends out seperatly so the coils can be perelelled for star conection or siresed for Jerry rigged conection.

This was great. One stator that can be configure either way. There was a slight increase in power in the Jerry rigged conection. I'm convince there is also less heat. I also think there will be less coil burn outs with my configureation.

My thermal test indicated that. Over 1600 watts in the big NW storm a few years ago with my littel 8" duel rotor without a burn out helped in that belife.

It does seem no matter what I do I do get taken to task from other board members.

Thats good and OK. I don't mind. This keeps the chalange and the research going.

First the truck mounted test were deemed inacurate and I agree. Now the wind tunnel is deemed not real world and again I agree.

But what these test do show is a preformance diferances at specific wind speeds of diferant blades and alternators.

I do wish some other people were doing the same tests so they could get some of the responces I get.

I would love to share in the agree or disagree or your a ginius or your a nut case responces.

But I don't mind. I'll just keep doin what I'm doin till they kick me off the board LOL?

I think at least I'm trying to find the answer to the question.   What works best?

Thanks agian Flux your my guiding light and mentor.

                       Jerry

[ghurd]

I have an idea why the Hugh Blades didn't do as well.

Turbulence.

Did you get something in the wind tunnel to tame down the fan turbulence?

I think the wider, concave front, blades do better in turbulent wind.

My stuff often can't get up to cut in with good blades, but do pretty decent with Zub-Woofers in the same bad wind conditions.  Thats with the wind at 6' coming through trees and between houses, changing angles by 25 degrees every 15 seconds.

I second the thanks to Flux.

G-

[Flux]

Jerry the dual winding is an excellent idea. The cut in with jerry should be slightly slower than with star as you are using a ratio of 2 for Jerry but 1.73 for star. It is certainly close enough for all practical purposes.

You seem to have a lot of equipment hanging around and there is a very useful test you could do. Do you have some resistors ( and preferably one variable one) that you could load the alternator into instead of batteries. If you could adjust the load resistor, measuring volts and amps, to get the maximum power from each blade at say 10 mph we could eliminate much of the blade matching issues.

This would run each blade at its best tsr. The alternator efficiency isn't going to change much with a small change in speed. It doesn't matter much whether you have it Star or jerry connected as long as it stays the same.

This would give a fair indication of the various blade performances. There is still a question whether free air conditions will be the same for each blade compared with the wind tunnel conditions but  when you have found the best blade conditions for the better ones then a truck test would be very useful even if the actual wind speed was not accurate, it would be the same for all the blades.

Don't give up and don't let anyone put you off, you are doing a great job, if I was 30 years younger I would be trying to repeat all your results.

As it is I have too many projects and things take much longer than when I was younger.

Here are some pictures of the prop I did my tests with. It has got knocked about a bit at the tips but was still working well when I replaced with a 5ft 6" one with a second disc added to the alternator.

[Flux]

There may be a lot in this turbulence idea.

The curve I posted was all taken with the wind in a direction that was clear upwind for at least 800ft. There were nearer obstructions down wind and on the occasions the wind came from those directions the results were bad and not repeatable.

I think at a much greater height and with no obstructions the results would have been better than my curve.

If the air flow is not the same all over the blade area then it is near impossible to get much idea what is happening.I suspect that the lower the solidity the worse it is likely to be with turbulence.

Flux

[Jerry]

Thanks for all your help and kind words Flux.

I do have many resistores to choose from. Today I set up My E-Truck with all the wind test stuff, 7ft mast, batteries, meters ECT. I'm going to mount the hand held anamometer on the hood.

In the truck I'm sure I can take the alt up to 40 amps. I'm thinking 20 amps into a resistor might do the tric. I'm thinking I would see around 15 volts so I'd need 300 watts of resistor or to be safe 500 watts. This would be a .75 ohm resistor.

I've got large resistor banks I used when building the big KW audio power amps.

I'll be able to cofigure any value and up to several KW if needed.

I'll do my first tests with the 2 golf cart 6 volt batteries I have onboard now.

I'll test the Hugh blades, Jerry blades and the foam pipe blades.

The #s will be scewed because of the cab over wind but Flux you are right, all blades will be tested the same way under the same conditions.

I wish my wind tunnel had straight air to 50 mph.

Thanks again for your help.

                      Jerry

[Jerry]

I see a few nots in yours. I had a couple also. The big diferance is in our trailing edges. Your curves mine is straight.

Not sure what effect that would have. The rest looks very simular.

                  Jerry

[jimjjnn]

Jerry

Keep doing your thing.

I really enjoy all that you have done.

It looks like others are following your experimentation as I see their posts with your ideas.

Keep up the good work and keep having fun