VAWT new proto-type

[dave ames]

 Hi GoVertical,

been following along watching your progress.

some fine fabrication skills you are sharing! thanks for the look.

it's sad to hear that you are thinking of redoing the stator coils and magnet rotors...before a complete redo- any chance we can talk you into trying even a tiny bit of steel behind the outer rotors? i bet if we close that circuit up even a bit it will show some real results on your meters.

loved the short video/audio clip! sort of a shankar'esque' sitar raga opening with a head banging metal transition when the action starts. not my speed but well done just the same.

keep plugging away, it's all good fun!

kind regards, dave

[ghurd]

Have you constructed a PMA with and with out metal rotors to see if there is really a difference? A few years ago I did and I found no difference. 

Today wiley posted his went from 0.6V without iron, to 3.6V with iron.  Thats 600%.
http://fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,144216.msg973893/topicseen.html#msg973893

[GoVertical]

Greetings, completed RPM test station. The variable speed lathe did not have enough power to drive the 3 phase PMA above 300 RPM. The two readings I was able to make are:
 
RPM          Amps
200              0.7
300              3.0

Battery voltage was 12.3 Volts.

The stator are from old experiments and made using 4, 22 AWG wires. That means the length of the wire in each coil is 4 times shorter than it should be.  Making new stators now. Fabricating the coils using a single wire should translate to better performance at a lower RPM.

[GoVertical]

Greetings, after reviewing the data from the last road test. I decided to reconfigure the PMA. The new configuration is a 3 phase with 6 coils per phase. I will use the stacked stator and rotor technique. The coils are double stranded 22 AWG at 100 turns per coil. There will be 3 stators and 4 rotors. Each stator plate will have 6 coils wired in series and mounted in a 6 inch diameter cylinder with each stator off set 20 degrees from the previous stator. The rotors will have 6, 1 inch by 1 inch diameter cylinder magnets. The new configuration makes the best use of available materials and will aid in keeping fabrication cost low.   



I have completed coil fabrication, now have to cast them in resin.

[00MrNotWrong00]

That is awesome I've been very interested in vawts for some time and your design is excellent,  thank you so much for posting.

[GoVertical]

Greetings, I was watching TV and I saw a show on making electric motor and they used a device that removes the enamel from the magnetic wire, so I made one. One wire wheel spins the other and the wire is sucked in and it cleans the wire really fast. A job that would take hours now takes minutes and it does a great job.  I a use a drill press connected to one of the shafts. I still use a butane torch to burn the enamel first and the wire wheels make it squeaky clean. Cheers

[GoVertical]

Greetings, in the past I used Vaseline in the stator mold to seal the mold and hold down the plastic caps to create the cooling holes. This time I was in such rush to complete the casting I forgot to use the Vaseline and the air trapped in the caps caused them to float. Not exactly a zen moment. I will have to trim off the caps and drill out the holes. Hopefully I can save the stator. 

 

[GoVertical]

I was unable to save the bad stator. Started making new coils. Fabricated soldering jig and new casting mold. Hopefully it will work better. The mold was inspired from the video tutorials at windgen.com   ,Cheers

[GoVertical]

Greetings, The molds looks funny but they work and they can be reused. I had to use plastic wedges to remove the stator. Cheers

[GoVertical]

Greetings, the magnetic field created by stacking the rotors created clogging with mounting hardware. Added metal rings to top and bottom rotor and clogging was eliminated.

[TomW]

Not to hammer on  you but it is  COGGING 

Clogging is some morphodite dancing I think?

Just for accuracy sake for future searches.

Glad you sorted it out.

Tom

[dave ames]

looking good GoVertical,

as an added bonus to stopping the cogging from the magnets passing the stationary hardware, you have now closed the magnetic circuit..we should see some good numbers now! (maybe too good?)

congratulations!

cheers, dave

[GoVertical]

Greetings, cogging, live and learn, thanks.

[Fused]

I like Clogging better...


Fused

[SparWeb]

Not to hammer on  you but it is  COGGING Clogging is some morphodite dancing I think?
Tom

The Dutch will be very disappointed with you, Tom.

[GoVertical]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoDyKCA3xs

Greetings, winter hit hard and fast. It became to cold to work in the shop so I decided to construct a pellet burner. I found a configuration that allows a feed tube for the pellets and does not allow the smoke or fire to enter the feed tube. I check with the local code official and found out that I do not need a permit to install a fire box and heat exchanger out side my shop and blow the hot air into my work space. I am fabricating that know and should be ready for a test in a few days.

[GoVertical]

Greetings, project moving forward.

Stainless steel elbow used as heat exchanger. I still have to insulate input and output vents and add a plenum to preheat the vent air to increase performance.  Front panel will also be installed.
2 foot by 6 inch pellet hopper holds ½ a 40 pound bag of pellets and system burns 8 hours and requires no attendance. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTUxarUvb2E


I hope to be heating work space soon.

[GoVertical]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epGDmJciN0U



Greetings, after two days of testing my idea of using a stainless steel elbow as a heat exchanger and blowing the hot air into the shop does not work.  On the plus side the gravity feed pellet burner works very well. I did find that considerable heat is radiating from the top of the metal box housing the pellet burner. I am planning to add a plenum to the top of the housing and vent that into shop, hopefully this will recover more heat. If anyone has any ideas how I can improve heat recovery and transfer that heat into the shop please let me know. Best regards

[ghurd]

The hot air enters the shop.

Where does the cold air come from?

If the hot air is displacing warm air to get into the shop, that's not so efficient.
If the cold air input is 10F, that's not so great either.
Best to take warm air from the shop, heat it more, then put it back in the shop.

BTW- Pretty sure you put this in the wrong story.
G-

[wooferhound]

Yeah I was wondering why the Pellet Burner stuff was inside of a story titled "VAWT prototype" ?

[Bruce S]

He actually started on a new VAWT, then winter smacked him right in the shop  .
Then the thread shifted to heating the shop / work shed.

Bruce S

[GoVertical]

Yes, it is to cold. In the past I heated the shop with propane but the price is to high now. I fabricated the heat reclaimer for the plenum. I add some fins to reclaimer made from recycled aluminum bake sheets. I am hoping the increased surface area will improve performance.

[GoVertical]

I am currently fabricating the heating coil for the closed looped hot water heat. The really cold weather has gone and now we are having a mini heat wave 30 degrees F.  I was able to install the radiators, pressure tank, and air relief valve.  With any luck I should be able to test the system in a few days.  The forced hot air system was a complete failure. I was only able to achieve a 10 degree difference from the out side temp. I am hoping the closed hot water  loop system will perform better. 

[Madscientist267]

Whew, and I thought maybe it was just me... LOL

ADD to the rescue. I was enjoying the read, too, until I got confused as I don't know what... 

VAWT -> PMA -> Clogging -> Heat exchangers...

It's bad enough trying to just quit smoking... hahaha Got any more 'tests' like this?

As for the PMA and VAWT, looks good so far, hope you see it to completion.

The shop heater, well, I've already thrown my 2c in on the other thread. 

Steve

[wooferhound]

VAWT new proto-type
Maybe you could change the title of this thread to "GoVertical's Projects".
But I would prefer that you start a new thread for each project so it's easier to find, read and discuss the different topics.

[GoVertical]

Greetings, I am using this post to log my progress. I started the VAWT project in the spring, I have no heat in the shop and when winter started I had to try to install a heating system so I could continue to work on the  VAWT project.  The cold weather has allowed me to resolve all fabrication problems related to the VAWT project. Hopefully the heating system will be completed shortly and will be able to start working on the VAWT again.  The goal of the VAWT project was to create a VAWT that would produce 500 W using as many off the shelf parts that could obtain from local suppliers, namely Home Depot and Lowes. The magnets, magnet wire, bearing, and the hubs are the only items that have to be ordered from the Internet. 
How do I change the title?

[Madscientist267]

LOL You're ok man...

Just start a new thread for each concept.

Got plenty of them going myself.

It's much easier for everyone (yourself included) when we can all follow what is going on with good continuity.

Steve

[GoVertical]

Greetings, I had some time to create a visual aid of would I believe the lines of flux may look like when the rotors and stators are stacked vertically.
Stacking the rotors and stators vertically requires ½ the magnet count then using traditional fabrication techniques. 
Example:  3 phase, 8 coils per phase
Traditional fabrication requires 64 magnets
Stacked Vertical fabrication 32 magnets   

Comments welcome.

[GoVertical]

Greetings, I am reworking the first vertically stacked stators and rotors PMA proto-type “aka, V2SR-PMA”.
I fabricated new top and bottom rotors with metal rings.  Inner set of holes are to promote air flow for cooling the stators.

[Bruce S]

Good to see you're able to get back to these.
Can you give the dimensions of the rotors, metal rings, coils (wire size #o turns) &  magnets?
The non-wood  wood too, will be good for newcomers to your post 

Many Thanks
Bruce S

[GoVertical]

Greetings, the first proto-type was constructed with used stators from earlier experiments.  The coils are 3 in hand 22 AWG at 80 turns. The rotors are 7.5 inches O.D. and fit within a 8 inch PVC coupler. 8 inch PVC pipe is used for spacers to position the stators. The material used for the rotors is a plastic decking board  purchased from Lowes. The metal rings are ¼ inch thick and are 6 5/8” O.D. and are cut from a schedule 40 iron pipe. The magnets are 1 by 1 inch cylinders on the center rotor and  ½ by 1 inch cylinders on the top and bottom rotors.  Basically this project has shown me that stacking the stators and rotors does work and the benefits are less magnets are required, the fabrication technique is a method that allows for a increased coil count resulting in a higher output at a lower RPM and has a smaller foot print.  I should be able to complete testing in the near future and I will also be able to compare non-metal rotor verses metal rotor output data again, which is always a fun topic.    Cheers

[GoVertical]

Greetings, I was able to reuse the magnets from the old rotors. In the old rotors the magnets where glue in place. I used a arbor press to remove them.  The metal ring position on the new rotors hold the magnets in position very well and requires no glue.  It is a very fast and neat method to attach the magnets to the rotor.
It will be interesting to see how they perform in the presence of the other magnetic fields while rotating. So far no side. 

[Madscientist267]

This is looking pretty good dude.

Can't wait to see some numbers from it.

Think it's 'HAWTable' as well?

Steve