Pictured above is Scotty's new wind turbine which we finished in April. To go over it all again, it's a 12 Volt machine with an 11' dia blade. The blade, the airbrake (that big black thing on the front) and the tail are from an old '1000 Watt Wincharger Giant' which Scott got at auction years ago. The generator and bearings were shot (actually the generator was missing and the cast iron gear box was broken) so we built the alternator for it here. Unlike most machines we make - this has no furling system, we rely on the airbrake to keep the speed under control. The alternator is built with the normal 12" diameter rotors mounted to a dexter trailer hub. We used wedge shaped magnets in it, 12 per rotor. Cutin speed is about 125 rpm.
This is the site for the machine. The tower is too short (only about 20') but its up on a rock outcropping and totally clear to all directions except east, where he has some 'problem trees'.
This is the machine he took down. Its an old 90VDC motor (I think) with a home made 6' blade and a small wincharger airbrake. This machine has been up there for 10 years with no problems - but it didn't startup well or make much power except in really high winds. This is kind of a problematic spot - its 350' away from his batteries which is quite a long run at 12 Volts. He's got 3 strands of #2 wire running down.
There's a VAWT Scotty built in high school! It turns easily - theres not generator hooked to it. Not much power available here - probably about 3 square feet of swept area and it turns very slowly. Fun to watch though!
What not to do! This is a neighbor of Scotts about 1/4 mile away (I had to zoom way in on this one). This is a 6' dia wincharger completely surrounded by trees. I expect it's at least 10 - 15' below the tree tops on all sides. Needless to say - it didn't turn at all while we were working on Scotts project.
Copper tubing smashed and drilled out makes nice lugs for connecting wires to terminals. Lots easier than running to town!
Scott and Thomas get the machine assembled on the tower. All ready except for a blade and an airbrake!
As usual - there were lots of ambitious helpers.
There she is with all the parts on.
It went up easily and then it actually started to get breezy! Once it started it didn't stop all night - it was producing very steady power. The best I saw was about 1KW from it (80 amps), but it was producing a constant 300 - 600 watts all night in fairly light winds. Not bad for a 12V machine 350' from the batteries! Its interesting how much more slowly it accelerates and decelerates with that heavy airbrake on there.
Maya's good at catching humming birds!
This is the 'mini petter' diesel backup generator we built last year. It's still holding together fine after the last round of repairs a month ago.
Pictured above is Scott's little hydro plant that we built 2 years ago. The webpage about it is here.
These are Scott's really neat home-made ram pumps. They're down by his hydro plant. They run off about 3' head and the feed pipes about 20 - 30' long. They pump water way up the hill (perhaps 100') to tanks above his garden, and then he has a small controller (runs off 2 C batteries all summer long) that turns sprinklers on once a day and keeps the garden going well in an otherwise very dry spot up on the hill.
At the end of the day we cooked kids in the hot tub.
