10' Wind Turbine stator

[hpj9]

I'm building the 12 volt stator for my 10' wind turbine. I have a spool of 15 gauge wire and I would like to use it instead of the 14 gauge wire the book call for. My question is how many wire in hand do I need to wire the stator?

 Thanks,

  HPJ9

[richhagen]

For U.S. wire gauge, the wires cross sectional area, which is what you want to match, decreases by about 50% when you go down by 3 guage sizes.  If you had 17 guage wire, you could use two in hand to roughly match the cross sectional area.  In your case, with 15 gauge, you will find that you can not fit the same number of turns in the stator two in hand, as it will be more bulky, and one in hand will yield a stator with significantly higher resistance, and hence perform significantly differently.  My advice would be to see if you can trade the wire you have for the wire that is called for in the design you are using.  Perhaps via E-bay, or Craigslist if in the U.S.    Rich

[Flux]

Rich is right. I don't have details of the winding but you can't get 2 in hand #15 to replace single #14 unless there is a lot of wasted space.. If you just use it single then you have a reduced rating and you will need to furl earlier ( if you can).

You might be able to wind the coils with a few more turns of 15 and Jerry connect instead of star but as I say I don't have the winding details.

12v for a 10ft turbine is a tricky winding with few turns of heavy wire and it will need multiple strands in hand for star connection. If you have 2 or more strands in hand then going from 14 to 15 you may be able to get in one more strand if your coils are a loose fit.

Flux

[Gary D]

 If you are using the 2 inch disc's, the following link woulld seem to make me think you could use 4 in hand 15 guage instead of 3 in hand 14 guage at 28 turns. If you are using the 2 by 1 by 1/2" disregard this... Gary D.

http://69.175.14.181/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=22_30&products_id=186&osCsid=c2c2b4bc3fd
837fd9c9fe71531cf5e80

[hpj9]

Thanks everybody for your help. I guess I will with two in hand 17 gauge wire.

[scoraigwind]

Using square magnets, the otherpower book calls for 2 wires 14g.  You could replace this with 3 wires 16g, but not with 3 wires 15g.

All of this assumes that the disks are 12".  If you make the disk bigger then you can fit a lot more wire and this helps with the power handling.  

If you were for example to use a 13" disk then you could fit 3 wires of 15g very nicely.  That works if you must use 15g.

Personally I use 14" disks for 10 footers (in my recipe book).  Then you can use 3 wires 14g.  Or what I do it one wire with 110 turns and go for a parallel connected winding.

 12" is OK in low wind areas for a 500 watt turbine, but if you want to work in stronger winds you need a bigger disk, or go with the expensive 2" disk magnets.