Beach Wind toy producing power

[moodyalex]

Firstly a big thank you to all on the board, wouldn't have got this far without your help.

Put a post up a while back about this and have been persevering since. Picture of my first wind turbine below.

Got the blades from a toy bought on the seaside.

Alt uses 24 mags 19mm diameter by 9mm deep, 9 coils 110 turns.

Got the bearings from hard drives.

It all runs very smoothly, obviously not much power out of it, blades 40cm diameter and 15cm is lost to the alt. But getting enough here to run the speakers in probably 4m/s windspeed.

Now I know it can be done I am working on the full size version. These blades are about 1.2m diameter. I am going to use the same alternator but with some bigger plates, as I managed to cast the coils about 10mm wider that intended.

Is going to be a while before I get this flying, but any ideas about a tower and furling tail?

I have Hugh's book but not sure if this is going to behave like a normal turbine.

As always, your comments appreciated.

Alex.

[nothing to lose]

Now I have seen everything!!

That is something I never would have thought about myself. Glad it worked so far, best of luck with the Larger one.  

[stevesteve]

FANTASTIC!

And (if you're in the UK) you can always claim that is is just a decoration and the local planning office may not try to stop you putting up a nasty environmentally friendly wind turbine.

[BeenzMeenzWind]

Yeah, you'd probably get away with that! Or disguise it as one of those stupid windmills that power a little wooden guy chopping wood. There are tons of those around here and no-one complains. lol

[moodyalex]

Mouting it to the chimney stack is a option I'm considering.

On the planning front someone told me that you dont need planning permission for anything less than 10m, don't know if its true or not.

Saw this article in the paper recently

http://www.guardian.co.uk/renewable/Story/0,2763,1475222,00.html

Some people must think plannings not an issue. Also makes intersting reading about the 10 million meters that already work 2 ways.

alex.

[BeenzMeenzWind]

Yeah? Think I'll stick a 25-footer up and watch what happens. I expect I'd get a week out of it before the Planning Office letter came.

We're building an eco-home a a couple of years, out of 3 surplus static caravans (under £1000 each delivered), a LOT of insulation and brick walls. Want to put it somewhere with a nice breeze. At the moment you can still drop on bargain land in places no-one wants to develop, so the equity from this suburban dump should pretty much sort us out. (about £80,000, so far) Nice thing about remote living, no-one really cares if you stick a bunch of little wind turbines in your back yard.

I hope the UK government have come up with some kind of policy on renewable energy by then. It might actually make it worthwhile to have a grid connection, so we can SELL our electricity. I'm hoping to get somewhere with a close enough phoneline that we can have broadband, though. I can live without electric and gas. Not sure about t'interweb?

Nice windmill though. Might make one myself. It's pretty.

[electrondady1]

that looks really nice alex. 20 million more required.

[Norm]

    You have potential for some serious

electrical output...even this small one has the

capability of charging a couple of rechargable

batteries using an alternator like Ed (windstuffnow)

 has in his educational kit.

    In my opinion this style of VAWT (pinwheel)

doesn't have a very high TSR....with 8(?) blades

it just looks like it's going fast...but they do

seem to have some torque and low speed startup

in their favor so all you have to do is make a

low speed alternator to hook on to it.

              Fun!

                      ( :>) Norm.

           

[ghurd]

Looks cool!

Furling. That kind of looks like a VAWT. Maybe it still turns when furled?

Temporary towers don't need to be too fancy for something like that.

I didn't cut a thing. All stray stuff in the garage.

Mine was a 3' piece of electricial conduit half drove in the yard, a 4' piece of 1-1/4" gas pipe over it, The alternator on a block of wood with a hole in the bottom for a piece of stray pipe that fit in the gas pipe, slid a CPVC 'T' on that, set it in the gas pipe. Took some big wind (for here) without troubles.

Half hour from bare motor conversion to flying with a tail on a tower. It looks like it only took a half hour too.

It was easy too move the conduit around the yard for the wind direction.

(still is actually- 'temporary')

With a 2nd piece of conduit, I can grab the battery in 1 hand, tower in the other, and move it while it is running.

The biggest suprise for me was how much better it works with the tail aiming it instead of me.

Wonderful stone buildings there.

G-

[johnlm]

Maybe the key for you folks that seem to have regulation problems with small windmills is the paint the blades and tail very bright colors - even if its a serious 3 blade carved prop.  That would give the impression it was just toys or decorations or ornamental which seems to be acceptable to everyone.

The real trick is to never give up all your money (taxes) to the gov so that they can dole back to you what they see fit, and take control of your lives with rules and regulations that make everybody equal.  In other words stay away from socialism.

John

[Norm]

  The neighbors assume it's a lawn-ornament!

             Norm.

[wooferhound]

TomW was making these out of metal awhile back . . .

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2003/6/24/181634/764

[learning]

I went looking for some plastic to make one of these...but came a bit stuck. What sort of plastic is it made from and anybody know where I can get some from in the UK.

Thanks

[coldspot]

Hello

2-Liter Pop Bottles

Can be cut and used for many more things than most people think.

Right now I'm looking at adding to my "Ceiling Fan" blades using material from them.

Last summer, I made a couple "Hornet" traps at lunch, came home that night to find them very full, made a few more and just about got rid of them totaly!