DanF's Wind Turbine

[DanB]

We finished DanF's wind turbine on Monday.  A recap...

its a single rotor machine with 12 large 1/2" thick 2" tall wedge shaped magnets on a 12" diameter rotor.  The stator is wound with 55 windings of #13 wire per coil, there are 9 coils, it's wired in Star, for a cutin speed of 180 rpm.  We've mounted Art Randolfs 8' diameter fiberglass reinforced nylon blades to it.  We also worked on his top tower section Monday and got that pretty much finished.  We were planning to raise it next monday - but the weather was so nice yesterday -and we had some neighbors willing to help, so we tore into the project yesterday morning.

Here John and I are putting the top of the tower on while Rich bolts it from the bottom.  The base of the tower is in concrete, and the plan is to bracket it to his top rafters with a bit of a rubber cusion to dampen some vibration.  This is probably not advisable for most folks... DanF thinks he can live with the noise though.  His dog didn't get any say in the matter.

Here John and I are hoisting the alternator onto the tower stub.  Kind of scary - Im glad (so far) that this is only a single rotor machine.  As it is, it weighs about 40 pounds.

We're tightening down the blade set while Rich brings the tail up on the roof.

Once it was all balanced and assembled, we have a rope/pully setup that allows us to raise the machine about 6' above the top of the lattice tower.  So there it is all hoisted up ready to go (hopefully!).

There was almost 0 wind yesterday (and this morning) so we didn't get a very good show.  It did spin most of the time though in seemingly still air and every now and then we'd have a small 'gust' (perhaps 5-  10 mph.. hard to say) and it would take off.  It's very free spinning and starts turning very easily - it speeds up very quickly with only 1 rotor on it.  The cogging/drag caused by the magnet rotor facing the stator brackets is a none-issue evidently.  We saw lots of 1-3 amps from it (12 - 36 watts) and occasional 8 - 10 amps.  But it was a very still afternoon.  The blades are fairly quiet so far and it all looks good... so far.

Of course, any time after we raise a wind turbine we have a nice break and get sore necks looking up at it for an hour or two!  From left to right in the picture above we have... my vacant chair ('cause Im behind the camera), Captain Augustus Crook (The black and white dog), DanF, Rich (he works with us at the magnet shop), and Kodi (DanF's dog).  As usual - lots of fun, I'm dying to see some real wind on this thing/see if the stator melts!  I kind of think it'll be OK.  It furls early, and it seem fairly well behaved yesterday although we didnt have much wind to watch it in.  It did not seem to be stalling, or overspeeding - but we'll know more when we have some breeze.

[Gary D]

Looks neat! Hope it's high enough not to create a problem with the woodstove(backdrafts). Nice to have a crew to lighten the workload! Great pic's as usual. Hope Dan F. can find ways to use the extra juice!  Gary D.

[picmacmillan]

if he cooks some bacon on the woodstove, the blades will send the smell into the bush, and you will have black bears coming form miles pickster

[Peppyy]

Looks much better with the sky as the background and a slight blur on the blades. We had the same kind of day here yesterday and I re-arranged my schedule to get outside for the day. That looks very promising if it is starting to charge in such low wind. Better you guys on that roof, I get dizzy looking at the photos. Love the high-tec vibration damper halfway up the tower.

If mine dosn't meet me at ground level it can stay up there until it dosn't work anymore. Or I could send my boy uo after it

[nothing to lose]

Great job, love that tower, but is it real?

All that great blue sky! Are you sure you guys did not just paint these pictures on  large walls in the house to trick us??

 Ya'll do such great work, ever think about video taping the building and raising of a few of these? Serious, I bet they would sell! You can geuss the first guy to buy one!

[pyrocasto]

I know I deffinantly would!

[DanB]

Its actually a project in the works - itll be a while though.  We are hoping to produce a DVD here within a couple/few months though.

[nothing to lose]

Great!

 This is the kind of suff that needs to be on DVD's and such. Even TV

Any plans for that, or would that be secretive?

You and big bird building a gennie on PBS

 You and Red Green duct taping one to a tower. (You do know the Red Green show and duct tape right)

 Opra?

Sometimes I joke, sometimes not, you figure out when

You meaning the group or whatever,

 I suppose someone there can produce the DVDs for you, or would you like a bit of help?

And don't forget selling them as PPI on infomercails with a spokes person like Eon from the car polish, or the spray your head with paint guy for hiding bald spots

 You can sell almost anything that way, I mean really! Paint your head?? That was a real one in case someone out there never saw it!! That's not a joke, though I always thought of it as one.

[jimjjnn]

One of the best shows out of Canada is "Red Green"

[nothing to lose]

Yes, I use to watch it all the time when I lived in WI. but after moving to MO. I never set up a TV.

Yes that's right I think I have the only house in the USA that does not have TV braodcasts! Yes I have a couple TV sets, DVD players, VCR's etc..

But no regular TV.