PTO Alternators or Gas Powered Welders

[Batdude]

Are pto alternators or gas powedred welders worth considering for producing power from a wind turbine?

My father in law has pto alternator for backup power on a chicken farm Located on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Anyone else in this are?

A friend gave me the welder.

The farm has great potential for wind generation, large open area for hopefully multiple towes.

I've been following this site for a year. Many thanks to all who contribute to it!

Batdude

[electronbaby]

both items you mentioned require much higher operating speed than would be normally found in a direct drive wind turbine setup. Im not saying they wont work, but be prepared to start designing gearboxes to get your RPM up. Im not sure what size turbine you are looking for. If the size is below 25kw, then you might look towards a low speed alternator. If it is higher, then maybe a geared up induction machine is best with regards to efficiency. Its hard to know exactly where your existing equipment will fit in (if at all).

What is your power requirement? (in KWH)

What is the power density in the wind in your area? and at what elevation? (or maybe what is the Mean Annual Wind speed?)

[Batdude]

Thanks for your reply.

I am checking to see what my mother in law's kw usage has been.

It should be pretty low. She heats with wood, gas fired hot water.

The equipment is there and just wondering if it could be used.

The pto alternator rated at

PTO 540 rpm

cont kw 20

kva 20

amps 85.3

volts 120/240

phase 1

hz 60

rpm 1800

PF 100

Exciter satic

Would this unit only make power at an input shaft speed of 540 rpm?

If worth using blades would be designed as required, I will study the web site and learn about hp available from wind, sizes, etc.

I am hoping there will power available to sell back to power co. Multiple turbines are a possibility.

I bought "Homebrew Wind Power" and read it cover to cover and will re-read several times. Lots of great material.

Thanks

Batdude

[sk windpirate]

Batdude

What  you have there is a typical farm setup.

It is only ment to run powered by a tractor. The power take of (PTO)

turns 540 rpm's at full throtle. You will need a 40+ h.p. tractor to power this unit. 40hp tractor needs 4 gals fuel a hour.

The generator inside turns about 3,500 rpm's. It is geared at 6:1 ratio Wind might getit to turn, but you would need blades to big to mention.

[Batdude]

Thank you Pirate Ron

It was a thought and I appreciate your input.

I will problably follow the designs in the book and build from scratch.

I used to work in a machine shop, and still work with gentleman that has CNC routers.

Hopefully they will help.

Is there some guidance on finding CAD drawings they could use to make the different components?

Thanks

Batdude

[Janne]

If  you would like to harness the full power potential from the pto generator you would need a rotor in the range of 30-40 feet and use another gearbox to speed it up to 540rpm.

I'd say keep the pto generator (those are handy) and get some other form of generator for your windmill.

[trader dutch]

Hello batdude . I to am on the shore and as well am infested with the chicken house relics. Just what part of the shore are you at. I got good wind be I am on the shore line just north of Wallops Island. since your here why not with the genny your looking at go to our next abundent source of RE ! Wood chips and a gasifer for your heavy stuff and save the wind for your electronics and back ups. By all means do get in touch

Bob

[Batdude]

Trader Dutch

Thanks for your input.

I live in Easton, MD.

Not familiar with what a gasifier is, a wood furnace or steam plant?

A whole nother realm to learn about, learning is fun.

Batdude

[trader dutch]

 Easton ! well if you hurry you may catch one of the old tenders from the town gas works. A few of the towns here long ago made wood gas for street lighting and houses  that could afford the hook ups. There are maybe still 2 ICE gasifyed machines on rt 50 at the steam museum and do let me know if there still doing the shows this summer. Gasifers  Gasogens many a name for the system have been around longer then the petro car and WW2 most of Europe's transportation was wood gas and the Philippians are maybe the largest on the globe making electricity with gasification.  Its not rocket science. I'm hopefully building and other big one this summer at a small saw mill here in Pocomoke. the ICE can be switched on the fly back to gasoline with out missing a beat ,but there is a 20 percent power lose as like with LPG. You have a challenge over there with them winds zero to 40 sivral times in a day, Remember now ? DMV is Maryland,,,if you don't like the weather,, wait a minute. Hope its ok to post this and I believe the FEMA page is floating around here on the other power some place http://www.green-trust.org/woodgas.htm

PS you know, Horns point has that old 40 foot grist mill, a little gearing and Va La! What other RE projects you getting into up there?

[Batdude]

You mentioned Pcomoke, I spent the last two tears remodeling houses in Princess Anne, Westover, and Crisfield. The house in Crisfield has a nice tower that I can get, somewhere between 60 and 100 feet tall. just need to follow the book a build a 10 footer to start.

I spent a couple weeks in February playing with some solar air heaters made from old sliding glass door panels. Got upto 70 degree temp rise at approx 150 cfm out of 2 panels. Very cheap to build. Will post details when I get system working. Thinking about using air heaters as water heaters aswell, Meaning putting water heating absorbers inside air boxes.

I like the idea of micro hydro also but not much head avaialable when ypour only 12 ft above sea level. Spoke to Queen Anne's county council to see if they would consider a system at the old Wye Mill site, a nice dam already in place. Same thing at Tuckaho State park.

Speaking to my brother who used to work a Calvert Cliffs Nuc plant, I asked how to store excess wind energy that could be used when there was no wind and he had a good answer, pump water. This adds another thing to figure into the whole system. Why not use water pumpimng as a dump load.

The steam and gas show is still an annual event. It will be the second week in July, I think, the same time as the Talbot county fair which where youll find me. Just look for the snowball booth.

Do you have aRE system?

Batdude

[trader dutch]

I have no choice so I ran a few projects. I to was busy in renovation and like you use sliding glass panels and can tell you Stick to one or the other or face the fact both in one , there just isn't enough sun light in a day to get you 50 percent of what your getting now. One cancels the other or you can look at it each cools down the other.  I'm a stubborn ole fool and I did manage to keep a good bit of hot air using black plastic water supply line but it took all day to bring the water from 52 to 70 and I suspect more ambient air blocked from the elements had a lot to do with that. My panels use soda can's painted with grill black paint from ole Wally's world. Works  good but as luck has it I have evergreens to my southwest and west. This also lead me down the vwat road tell just the other year where lightning completely tore out the entire top end bearings and all of my tower. It also blew the bark off the majority of the Lob Lollys in my path but sadly to report ! The bugger trees survived. Since the entire system was used splitting water to run my glass torches and smelting ovens the risk of imploding hydrogen racked my nerves a tad so the tower sits on my trailer tell I rebuild the top and I match my assorted magnets to useable system. I have 16 lb of hard drive magnets all ready freed up and 120 plus microwave donuts. more then enough steel plates and my weakest point is not to much wire below 21awg . 21 an 24 I have over 60 pounds . This was easy to get from CRT's any you guys reading this ,  got cases of heat sink fins . and the price in recycle I'd rather see them put to practical use. You think you have it tough with head drop for hydro. All I have is the tide. To long a power lead to home so back to my own lot. My system ran at a 85 percent loss in conversions but beet the coast of bottled gas , availability here it was fine and I cooked for free. My nitch was vacuum tubed devices due I detonated hydro in one massive regent bottle and could make tubed components with a higher value then some of the big boy's. The past years nothing sells and to store hydro in 275 ag tanks is not likely. First off I over shot how much water the electrolizer could displace water in the storage tanks and then the molecule be so small 2 weeks at a 3rd capacity the hold would all escape . Phooey !  

   To lift water , your best to use a direct mill to pump simply due each conversion you loss about a 3rd your harvest going wind to electric then kinetics and finally gravity and then what were you going to do with the head water any way?  With the tanks I have on hand I am thinking solar converting steam that climbs on its own by nature and in the roof condensing through a old set of coils then have both heat supplied and hot water with adequate head pressure. Done right I should have no moving parts ! Good luck getting Maryland's parks to let you tamper with there water flow.We butted heads and in WE this includes Supreme Justice EPA at the time Eddy Finch about a large steel vwat at the mouth of west river. Panorama view sent it up to a hill between Davidsonville and Churchton where you can see it sitting to this day . That's all it dose to, just sits LOL.

  I fool around with satellite dish collators and scared the paints off myself with what can come of that with water. Had us a unintended missile one day with a Kiddies House extinguisher. With that under my belt and a 60 gallon still and wood chips up the ying yang I come to think the dish is my key to releasing the legume getting to the sugars of wood to produce alcohol fuel and still then feed the spent stock to a gasifer generator. Steam exploding the woods and biomass. It should work like a recoiled self feeding charge and leave heated water to use how ever, such as the still.

  With your PTO it would be more practical to go direct to gasification due it is easy and few steps to useable power so less loss in conversions due your feeding the chips directly to destructive distillation and feeding the gas then direct to you PTO generator. Myself I want auto fuel as well and wood and biomass are a plenty in our neck of the woods.

  A warning word for you. Be careful following links with gasification. its near as bad as surfing the net about hydrogen and there are sites designed to draw you in and launch embedded cookies that then block you from sites you need to see. some expire in a few weeks but more are well fixed and report your ISP address back home then flooding spam to attempt reentry to your computer. Sorry but the fed says this is legal. The Dan's run a worthy tight ship here and are to be commended as with the administers and moderators . But only you can control what you download venturing to fare off the pages here. In the gasification distillation and hydrogen production searches you don't even need click some links, These drive by cookies are all ways on the cutting edge or your secuity methods. Me on dialup , this can be a real bear.

My email is  here should you want to explore more ideas to our local resources. I know Easton well enough and know it from my own birds eye view using the airpark often, You should be fare enough from town that you wont have to wade through restriction , Unless your that Farm on the road to Saint Martins. Good luck and watch your meter. except no upgrades, these sneaks are using ones that read consumption or point blank read your feeding the grid as your drawing. Virginia just stopped ANEC aka The TVA..

Once the meter is replaced the old is destroyed and there reasoning to some extent is legal . it dose squash the grid gorilla forcing you to comply with the legist's to code  and moneys in there pockets. Funny this meter has no safety protecting there line men though. hummm??