winter weather and wind turbines

[defed]

after watching my 4' go like crazy today, it seems like after it has run awhile, it starts up easier.  i'm thinking that the grease in the bearings is heating up, making it easier to turn?  if so, what happens in the winter when the grease is thick?  do they start a bit hard then?

also, i've seen it mentioned about ice in the stator, but i've never seen it mentioned about iced blades.  is this a problem?  seems that if one or 2 get more ice than the others, it would cause an out of balance situation which could lead to some real damage to the machine.  anyone have experience with this?

thanks.
Dave

[taylorp035]

I had an ice storm last winter that put 1/4" thick ice on the blades.  Basically, there was so much ice, the airfoil wasn't working, so it wouldn't spin at all.  It only happened once, so I would say that "build up" of ice does not occur.  I know some other people on here have posted about ice storms.

[DanB]

I've had ice on blades on very windy days.  Usually when 1 blade sheds ice the others follow pretty quickly - I expect the vibration of severe out of balance helps with that.

It is one reason however to have a rigid tower...  it's scary looking when that happens on 'marginal' towers.

Ice in the alternator has never been a problem.  I've had them on occasion 'ice up' which only happens when there is about 0 and the machine is stopped.  But - it can lock up the machine for a while.  (this is mostly a problem with 'open' axial flux machines)  Bypassing the rectifiers and sending a bit of power back up to the alternator will usually put a lot of torque on the rotors and heat the stator so it's easy to 'de-ice' the alternator.

[defed]

Bypassing the rectifiers and sending a bit of power back up to the alternator will usually put a lot of torque on the rotors and heat the stator so it's easy to 'de-ice' the alternator.

when you say 'bypass the rectifier', this means to connect 2 of the stator leads directly to the battery?

not sure if i will bother on the 4' test model, but i plan to make a cover plate for the stator when i make a 10'.

i wasn't worried about the tower if the blades iced, more of the unbalance causing a blade to break.

[SparWeb]

This should give you an idea:



I've tried the rectifier bypass thing, too - almost shorted the battery doing it so it's not for the faint of heart.  It jogs the turbine all right.

The imbalance with all the ice will prevent the blades from turning fast enough to risk damage.  The tower, on the other hand, will be bent this way and that by the off-kilter load going around.  It's also bad on the bearings and shaft and so on, so if the blades are iced up like this, I shut the braking switch until the sun can melt it off.

[ChrisOlson]

I build my generators with covers on to keep rain, snow and ice out.  Never had a problem with that.

I've had blades ice up so bad when a turbine is running that it gets out of balance and starts to vibrate real bad.  If it don't shed the ice right away I shut it down and wait for better conditions.

I've had turbines that fail to start in -35 degree weather too because the grease in the bearings take a "set" and they're too stiff to get turning.  I got three phase power in my shop so I hook that up to the AC service box and "jump start" the turbine to get it turning.  You got a 1 in 3 chance of hooking the wires up the right way the first time and invariably I always hook them up wrong and the turbine runs the wrong way.  Swap two legs around and then it starts up the right way.  Once you give them a little "nudge" in really cold weather they'll keep turning.  If you ever do that you have to flip the breaker on and off to give it "jolts" because it draws too many amps if you just leave it on and it'll burn a coil in the stator.
--
Chris

[libra]

I was able to use synthetic wheel bearing grease from a local trucker. It works good, seems to stick around the bearing.
Often i get comments from neighbors that generator seems to  run when there is no wind. It is up 150' but am pleased with it and there is no difference in winter and it can get to -30C here. Give it a try its worth it.

[scoraigwind]

If you enclose the alternator you also need to be aware that this will affect the cooling, and it will be prone to burning its stator, so you do have to be sure it furls nice and early in such cases.  Whereas if the stator is open to the full force of the wind then the turbine can safely put out a lot more power.

[ChrisOlson]

Whereas if the stator is open to the full force of the wind then the turbine can safely put out a lot more power.

The amount of power a generator can develop is determined by the maximum temperature that occurs at the hottest spot in the generator. The temperature that occurs at that spot is a combination of generator design (temperature rise) and the ambient (surrounding) temperature.  In commercial generators the rating is arrived at thru testing at an ambient of usually 40°C (104°F).  The class of winding insulation (A, B, F or H) vs temperature rise used in the design determines its nameplate Duty Cycle (continuous or standby).  NEMA MG1 allows standby generators to operate 25° C warmer than continuous duty generators with the same winding class.

These homebrew turbine generators with their windings encased in insulating resin of various types have an absolutely miserable Duty Cycle of 35-40% when the NEMA MG1 standards are applied to their winding class, regardless of how well they are air cooled.  The method used in homebrew design is to throw bigger, heavier materials at it to obtain a better Duty Cycle.  But there's a LOT of room for efficiency improvement in the design.
--
Chris

[defed]

i was only going to put a shroud over the top 1/2 of the stator, maybe an inch or 2 above it to keep snow and ice from dropping straight into the gap.  didn't plan on enclosing it entirely.  i think i've seen a picture from Chris where he had the same thing.  might have been in his 'quickie turbine' thread.

[ChrisOlson]

i think i've seen a picture from Chris where he had the same thing.  might have been in his 'quickie turbine' thread.

That's probably where you saw it.  I started doing that because in the winter time when we have those nice gentle snow falls with no wind, snow gets in the thing.  As soon as the sun comes out it warms things a bit, the snow melts and runs down inside out of the sunlight and freezes again.  It locks the turbine right up.  I've tried applying power to the turbine stator from the ground to get them freed up and sometimes it'll move them and sometimes it won't.  Where I live here it doesn't get above 0° F for days at a time in the winter and if you have frozen water in between the stator and rotors you may as well have cast concrete in there.  After I started putting the half covers on the generator the problem went away.
--
Chris

[scoraigwind]

Whereas if the stator is open to the full force of the wind then the turbine can safely put out a lot more power.

These homebrew turbine generators with their windings encased in insulating resin of various types have an absolutely miserable Duty Cycle of 35-40% when the NEMA MG1 standards are applied to their winding class, regardless of how well they are air cooled.  The method used in homebrew design is to throw bigger, heavier materials at it to obtain a better Duty Cycle.  But there's a LOT of room for efficiency improvement in the design.
--
Chris

It has been my experience that engineers are often unhappy with the 'crude' design solutions that I arrive at.  I am not an engineer myself and I do not revel in using the most fancy solution to a problem, or one that requires a lathe or a degree in engineering.  My goal is to find the easiest built and most reliable turbine that is also as efficient as possible in low winds.  I therefore see a lot of criticism that there should be sliprings, weatherproofing, high tech bearing materials etc etc. 

All I can offer in response is to say that my designs are deliberately as simple as possible, using everyday materials and tools, but that they are also tested and effective solutions that have evolved over decades of experience.  Engineers will always be 'improving' on what I have to offer and that is fine of course for engineers to do that, and what they do will no doubt work better for them.  My plans and courses are not aimed at engineers (although I of course love it when they join the fun) but at ordinary folks who want a result that works well without having to employ an engineer.  For me, gravity will always work better than a spring (however high tech), and all-thread with nuts will always be preferable to a machined product (I don't remember ever having a single problem with the allthread mounts I use for magnet rotors for example).  That's because I am into empowerment of ordinary people, and designs that have as few things to go wrong as possible.  I am constantly improving my efforts and a lot of my ideas come from the people I work with, advise and teach.  But my idea of an improvement is often not the same as what an engineer would see as an improvement because my criteria are different.

It takes all sorts to make up the world and (in my opinion) there is no single right or wrong way to do stuff.  Some stuff works and some does not, but there are many many ways to arrive at success or failure.   So my message to engineers is: beware of dismissing the apparently crude solution and replacing it with one that is complex, expensive and ultimately no better in its lifetime energy production.  It's not necessarily about making it clever, it's about making it work right, and (for me) making it easy to build.  And I don't want people to be put off by an engineer who claims that the duty cycle is 35-40%, when in fact the turbines in my recipe book can work at 100% duty cycle for the output that I claim for them provided that the design is not modified by the addition of weatherproofing covers and tails that do not furl soon enough.

I hope my remarks are not construed as negative because I have every respect for engineering excellence in its proper place, and for new approaches, even though they often look to me like the same old mistakes again, because I have been around this stuff too long maybe.  I just worry that engineers will take over and say what's right and what's wrong rather than letting folk get on and do the job the easy way.  Now I'll just sign off and hope nobody takes my comments amiss.

[Fused]

Not everybody has the engineering degree or equipment to over build a simple process that works fine. I had to grind my disks out of plate steel using only hand tools. Keeping your plans simplified allows those without the specialty tools to build a fine machine. Keep it up Hugh, there's got to be more people without lathes and milling machines than with. I was fortunate to have been working in my fathers machine shop as a youngster, but I can adapt as needed without the expensive equipment. My 5'7" mill has no problem cranking 300+ watts. Good enough for a hobby, and its stored power lights my huge back yard. I spent just over $100 total to build a dual rotor.

Those who can will, the rest improvise.

Fused

[ChrisOlson]

It has been my experience that engineers are often unhappy with the 'crude' design solutions that I arrive at.  I am not an engineer myself and I do not revel in using the most fancy solution to a problem, or one that requires a lathe or a degree in engineering

Many years ago the standard mode of transportation in the civilized world was the horse and carriage.  Then along came the automobile.  The automobile was not well accepted at first - complex and unreliable.  However, the automobile won out in the long run.  The fact that the horse burns fuel whether or not you use it - have to feed and water the thing every day and clean its stall, groom it and shoe it, can't leave it out in cold weather because it'll die, can't leave it out in excessively hot weather because it'll die -- all combine to put the relative complexity of the automobile in perspective as related to the transportation needs of the people.

When the transition took place, some of the concepts like using the wheel to keep the body from skidding on the ground were still used.  But those concepts were combined with new ideas like using those wheels for propulsion - they're fully capable of doing two things instead of just one.

Therefore it's important to note the shortcomings of a design that's been around for awhile when comparing it to a new design that's seemingly more complex but addresses the shortcomings of the old one.

There's still places in the world where the horse and buggy are still used as the primary mode of transportation because it's better than the automobile in their situation.  And we have groups of people in modern civilization who refuse to change and still use the horse and buggy regardless, even though their chosen mode of transportation is actually a hazard on modern roads with the law requiring them to place SMV signs on the rear and have battery operated lights for night time travel.  And in many municipalities it's illegal for them to allow exhaust from their propulsion unit to be deposited on the streets too.  But regardless, there's still a blend of technologies.

As relates to turbine generators, I don't think it can be argued that the design with coils encased in resin does not cool well.  And that it requires that bigger wire be used to get 100% duty cycle at a particular power rating that what would normally be used if better cooling was designed into it.  So I would say both designs have a place - if you're building a turbine in the boondocks with nothing but a hammer, tape measure, pliers, screwdriver, and hand cutting tools the design will be different than if you have lathes, mills, precision measuring equipment, and a fully equipped shop.  But it is not correct to say that either way is the only way.  Those who have the resources will be interested in building automobiles.  Those who do not have the resource will be interested in building carriages to pull behind horses either out of necessity or choice.

The next turbine stator I build will have improved cooling by design and I don't think it will be all that difficult for someone to build who has an average equipped shop.  I just do it because I like to experiment with things  - some of the things I experiment with work, and some don't.  So let's just say if I lived back in the late 1800's I would've been the type of person who was not satisfied with the status quo, and at the bare minimum if a wagon was only designed to be pulled by one horse I would've figured out a way to strap two horses to it.

I guess a lot of the folks on Fieldlines don't know me that well, but if you saw some of the other toys I like to play with you'd quickly come to the realization that if my turbines don't have smoke coming out of them - and smoke rolling would be normal - they're not being pushed hard enough.  And pay no attention to that big nitrous bottle on there - I might figure out a way to bolt one of those on a wind turbine to get more power out of it   

--
Chris

[DanB]

Some of your analogies do make a bit of sense at first.  but remember when Henry Ford came along with the Model T... ?  It was perfect, and there was no need for anything better.

But the unique thing here Chris is that the design is, and has been totally perfected.  There is no room to improve efficiency - ease of manufacture, reliability and overall, cost per kWh.

It's been 'perfected' ;-)

(just kidding)

[Fused]

So Chris, you'd end up on yer butt behind 2 horses. Remember the wagon was designed for 1 horse.

There are easy ways and more difficult ways to end up with the same mechanical process. Its all in how you go about it. So long as its fun, who cares.

Fused

[Airstream]

"The CUTTING edge of low technology" is the goal the Dans and Hugh Piggott had in mind for us folks to take advantage of and I think any efficiency compromises made to get us to this point are wholly justifiable. Rare earth neodymium magnets are brute force devices - and crossing over eloquent solutions developed in the last 150 years for lesser magnet technologies seems to be gold plating the lily flower, adding something to a plain & simple thing because one 'can' does not advance the 'lily flower'.  Asking to find efficiency gains through higher temperature modeling is doing the same thing.

Class A insulation has a recommended temperature limit of 105°C / 221°F. If Neodymium Class N magnets are heated above its maximum operating temperature 176°F/80°C limit they suffer fractional strength losses, loosing more each time the temperatures cycles, though the first heating robs more away than subsequent cycles. Even heating it near 176°F can/will pull strength from a new neo magnet. Although the magnet rotor plates are not connected physically with the stator they are closely coupled just by proximity.

Any heat produced in the stator will be dissipated via three ways - convection, conduction or radiation. In the best case the three will carry away an equal share of waste heat.

Conduction is minimal as we do it now, radial spars to fix the stator under the revolving flux paths do sink some waste heat but the resins available suffer us with low conductance so we are left with convection and radiative heat flows.  

Casting or cutting 'fins' in the outside circumference of a Vinyl Ester resin stator may be a great idea as is leaving coil centers open but again the resins do not conduct heat fast enough to protect coils from charring the inter-winding areas in a over-rating output situations, and can contribute to having the casting warp or slump at the coils if there is a continued high output event.

But okay, if conduction and convection are addressed and the resin fortified to withstand higher temperatures and we begin to push running temperatures higher, then simply the hot stator shedding heat via radiating infra-red will wash the rotor plates with radiant waste heat and 70~°F above the mentioned 104°F ambient is pretty easy to accomplish, especially once rotor sizes get large and restricts cooling air flows.

For us in the northern climates it isn't such a worry that sun heating during a calm will degrade the magnetic field though if your rotors are sun-warmed in equatorial climates beware. A hot dry wind on a sunny day with a 14 or 16-inch rotor plate baking in both sunlight and heat from coil losses my guess is will see issues - especially if it has cowlings for sun/rain shade and the radiant IR gets reflected back at it.  Remember it's also how many trips to near 176°F the magnets see count also over the possible turbines lifetime.

Anyhow - its back to gilding the lily when the incremental improvements that got us to this point are deemed 'too inefficient'.  I believe we should not look to any comparisons of higher heat carrying for the dual rotor design to increase efficiencies unless there are affordable and consumer-level products that can be substituted for the current materials - including magnets. Tuning designs for MPPT, or tuning MPPT controllers to our designs rather, might be the next efficiency step that has a real need to take the robust and brute-force dual-rotor Dan-builts to the next stage... See? DanB just said they are Perfect!

Edit: punctuation.  drats.

[ChrisOlson]

It's been 'perfected' ;-)
(just kidding)

It ain't been 'perfected' until the rods are hangin' out the side so you know the limits of what she'll take   
--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

There are easy ways and more difficult ways to end up with the same mechanical process.

There's also elegant ways, which are usually different than the easy and difficult.  I hope people understand that I am never satisfied with any design.  I'm the type of person who will take that design, blow it up, see what came apart when it blew up, and figure out how to make it so everything in it can be stretched right to the limit without blowing up again.

I have no desire to "reinvent the wheel".  I merely try different things and have presented a lot of those ideas, along with how I made them work, on this forum for people to look at.  Some people need to use the plans, some people like to roll their own.

My latest escapade is to build a better stator cooling system - a completely different design.  I decided this one day when I hooked up juice to an old stator I got and compared the charred residue to what open coils will take.  There wasn't even a comparison possible - the insulated coils got too hot too quick.  Suddenly, here I go again off on a new project to design a new stator with open coils.  People can stand by and tell me the "old way is better", having coils exposed will fail, whatever, and it don't bother me in the least because I'm going to build it anyway.
--
Chris

[hiker]

awhile back --year or two--one member made a open air design for the coils..
made the coil mounts from stainless steel--looked like a big metal ring--with a inner ring as well...belived thats what it
looked like.......cant remember the outcome on it.........looked real cool--most likely ran cool as well !
can anyone find that design-post..?? [if i remember right the mags did not pass over any metal at all]

[SparWeb]

Hiker,
You might be thinking of this one:

http://www.fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,138337.html

I was totally blown away by this one.  He'd obviously been thinking a lot about it and had a lot of resources to put into the project too.

[freejuice]

Not everybody has the engineering degree or equipment to over build a simple process that works fine. I had to grind my disks out of plate steel using only hand tools. Keeping your plans simplified allows those without the specialty tools to build a fine machine. Keep it up Hugh, there's got to be more people without lathes and milling machines than with. I was fortunate to have been working in my fathers machine shop as a youngster, but I can adapt as needed without the expensive equipment. My 5'7" mill has no problem cranking 300+ watts. Good enough for a hobby, and its stored power lights my huge back yard. I spent just over $100 total to build a dual rotor.

Those who can will, the rest improvise.

Fused

Hi Fused,
 I do lots of machining for my primary living and teach some history on the side. Since my time is often limited, I find myself on personal projects simply making do…thus I'm trying to knock something out with speed being my enemy
 Sure I could turn out a Taj Mahal....a work of art regarding machining when making a wind turbine, but expense, availability of CHEAP metal, and time really forces me to short cut where I can.
 While I have a lathe to turn things out I cannot handle those 18 inch rotors from the Dan's 17 ft design. So I simply flame cut the things  then got them mounted on the bearings and spun it under a load from a side grinder while I cleaned up the O.D. ...just making do with things...without farming it out to a machine shop, or bumming a bigger lathe for a hour or two
 I really like those nice turbines these folks are building with all the nice machine work, but that usually means more expense and time for me to copy.
 I think somewhere in these forums I was telling a fellow he needed to get both the Dan's book and Mr. Piggott's because they both complement each other....ideas can be borrowed from both manuals to build a usable but unique turbine. But I have noticed there are those who want a work of art while others are completely satisfied with function….I lean towards function; if its working and making good power relative to its design, I probably won't tweak it too much because (A). I'm not an electrical guru, and  I don't fully understand he subtle relationships within turbines yet.  And(B). The above mentioned reasons such as time & cost.
That is one reason I like Mr. Piggott's designs they are as basic as they possibly can get, no fancy machining involved, they can essentially be made with a cutting torch, welder, side grinder and a drill…..no additional machining costs are being incurred….much of his tweaking appears to be in the blades…once again any easy part to manufacture with simple hand tools
 Other than the rotors everything is a simple cut, no fanciful radi etc. Its all straight pieces of metal…how much easier can it get?
 However I do love those nice waterjet cut parts the Dan's use…their stator brackets are perfect while mine are…well…  pieces of angle iron welded into position…. LOL, not so perfect
 Maybe I'm looking at things “bassackwards” But to me efficiency is making power from a source I did not have in the past…sure my turbine might not be tweaked for maximum output but in the end I'm getting pretty darn good results out of it and I'm satisfied…maybe I'm too simple to please.
 Since I'm also a bit of a gun nut, this whole efficiency thing  has its merits on both ends of the spectrum, but I kinda equate this to the pre war Thompson Machineguns  and The British Sten gun of World War Two.  Sure the Thompson was a machining work of art in its pre war years ( they had time to dabble), and it was also full automatic and very reliable, but also so was the Sten, it too was full auto and very reliable but it was made hastily for the war years….but at the end of day they both went “bang” and performed reliably.

[hiker]

no thats not it--his looked like a big metal spoked wheel...
with two metal rings -one outer ring and one inner ring--with spokes to hold the two togeather..
the top ring and lower ring had hangers on them to mount the coils..
the mags traveled in between the two rings[passing over the coil legs]..
the mags did pass over the stainless steel spokes--[disregaurd the first post]
as far as i can remember it worked out great...

[vawtman]

awhile back --year or two--one member made a open air design for the coils..
made the coil mounts from stainless steel--looked like a big metal ring--with a inner ring as well...belived thats what it
looked like.......cant remember the outcome on it.........looked real cool--most likely ran cool as well !
can anyone find that design-post..?? [if i remember right the mags did not pass over any metal at all]

 Hiker i think your thinkin of Fanman.Not sure how to bring it up to the new board yet.

 That was awesome.

[bj]

   Hey Vawt----Hiker, did a search, and I think I found it.  Searched Fanman, and the post was Nov. 15, 2008. Titled New Stator Disk.
Hope that is it anyway.

[fanman]

hello all fanman here, yes i think you are talking about my design from a year ago or so, i dont know where all the pictures went from the other board, so if someone knows how to get those back, let me know, anyway i havent got the machine flying yet but it is close, the design has been load tested, and it dissapates heat very well, ive load tested this at 10kw for 45 minutes before the heat got to high levels, 8 kw it will handle steady, its a 120 vt machine, two in hand#12 wire,  if anyone knows how to access all our old board pictures please letme know thanks fanman dave

[DanG]

http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5163/

[TomW]

I see you guys just need to agree to disagree!

Seriously.

Dan, HUgh, etc believe and preach "K.I.S.S.".

Chris prefers complexity.

So be it.

They all work the rest is just the freedom of choice in what you do.

I can't even get holes in metal in the right place with a half decent drill press so I am in the crescent wrench, BFH and angle grinder tool kit group.

I did finally buy a Tirfor (Grip Hoist) for tower raising / lowering. Hardly high tech but a nice tool.

Tom

[ChrisOlson]

I can't even get holes in metal in the right place with a half decent drill press

Try a 12 gauge 2-3/4" load of double awt Buck.  You got 9 times better chance of getting a hole in the right place - the other eight holes are "lightening holes"   

--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5163/

Thanks for finding that photo, DanG.  That's a nice stator.

I'm building a 12 pole 18 coil internal rotor radial flux unit with the coils wound on a cast powdered iron ring.  Half the magnet cost of an air core axial with a little tradeoff in extra work to cast and machine the stator core.

And for those who might think this is too "complicated", it's no more complicated than the air core axial units everybody builds.  The stator core is being cast with regular old fiberglass resin mixed with iron powder.  I'm going to machine it on a CNC mill but it could be drilled and slotted with careful measuring, a drill press and slotting saw to slot the inside of the iron ring.  The rotor is simply a steel disc with a hub keyed to the shaft with a piece of heavy steel pipe welded to it.  Twelve 2 x 1 x .5 magnets placed around the steel pipe to complete the rotor drum.

Winding it doesn't require building a coil winder.  It's a bit of a tedious affair hand winding stators on machined cores but I've built a couple axial units this way in the past and it's not too bad as long as you don't use a 1:3 pole/coil ratio (12 poles, 36 coils).  If you decided to do that then every other coil in each phase has to be wound opposite direction the one before it.  If you use 3 coils for each pair of poles (12 poles, 18 coils), then all the coils are wound the same direction, making it a bit easier to do and keep track of while you wind it.

But in addressing this dreaded "complexity" phobia, I'm betting I could build this unit with the same basic hand tools used to construct the typical homebrew air core axial.  And I see no reason anybody else couldn't do the same as long as the builder has a basic understanding of how three-phase generators work - which you should have before you start building one anyway.

And before somebody goes off on laminated steel cores being more efficient than iron, I'm building it this way for ease of construction.  With today's neo mags being relatively cheap it's pretty easy to pack more magnet in the generator than you need and give up the slight loss in the flux circuit with iron vs steel core.  If you're building an excited field generator where you'd not want to waste power on the field then laminated steel core would be the way to go.
--
Chris

[Fused]

"But in addressing this dreaded "complexity" phobia"

What a joke. The only complexity is making a easy project stupidly complex. When I said I built my machines with nothing but hand tools, it was to prove it does not have to be complex. I have no problem setting up and operating engine lathes, turret lathes, vertical and horizontal milling machines and most any other older machine shop equipment. How easy it would be to set up and build a mill with all the equipment at hand. About anybody can do that. I look at it as it takes more skill to build without all the handy equipment to make it easy. Build a working machine with only 1 weld and only hand tools powered off your battery bank. Doing so, you'll find no pre made plans will get you there. It takes more thought and revisions than you'd think. Try it then you may impress me too.

There are many ways to build a working wind generator, don't knock those who don't have the equipment to do the work for them, or have the need to make a simple machine complex.

end of rant..........

Fused

[ChrisOlson]

What a joke. The only complexity is making a easy project stupidly complex.

Perhaps you should take note of the rest of the sentence that I wrote, which was "I'm betting I could build this unit with the same basic hand tools used to construct the typical homebrew air core axial."

Maybe you don't understand the difference between a radial and axial type generator, or understand what I'm doing.  I'm sure to get some eddy losses with a powered iron core but I'm electing to build my experimental generator that way because it can be done with the normal tools used to construct air core axials, eliminating the need to precision cut and build a laminated steel core to wind the stator on.

I've build these before in an axial flux design with non-overlapped coils:


That stator plate on the bench was built with nothing more than a piece of plywood and the top cut off a 5 gallon pail for a mold, a hand drill and a hacksaw.  This time I'm switching to a radial flux design with overlapped coils.

There's absolutely nothing stupidly complex about it and I have no need to prove anything simple or complex, or impress anybody by building a turbine with a hammer with the handle split and taped up, pliers with the jaws stripped out and a bent screwdriver with a busted tip.  I simply like to experiment with things and I'll use the tools I have to build a more precision unit.  But it seems I run into a lot of people who think anything outside the book must be complex, regardless of whether or not it really is.
--
Chris

[Harold in CR]

 I say GO for it, Chris. No one has to read about your build, if they think it's too complex. I for one am enjoying watching your progress. It gets me thinking, even though it seems to drain out on the pillow, every night ..

 Is there a reason you deleted all the photos from your last build, or, did you simply move them to another place ??

 I was trying to figure out some of your measurements, without constantly asking about them ??

  GOOD Info, this. I'm watching.