help building larger wind turbine 10kw

[tylerthefabricator]

 Hello I'm Tyler  I'm new to this site , I have been reading about  windpower for a while now , and now I'm ready to build my own  wind turbine  for my  house and shop.
  I have a CBC plasma cutter so i was wanting to know if anyone has built a  turbine that  big and if so do have some plans / cad files  they would want to share ?
  I'm not going to go off the grid  i think I'm going to just tie in to  for now .
  I'm looking at building my    stater and  mag plate about 36 inches around  but i have no idea how many wraps to do my coils or how big ,  I'm going to make my blades   10 foot each  out of  aluminum  and build a die for my pressbrake  to make the curve   

IF my plan is all wrong please let me  know  thanks  

[birdhouse]

tyler-
welcome to the insanity festival! 

i've never built anything that large, but have looked at others' work around that size.  i think 36" stator/mag discs are pretty darn large.  also, i don't know if you'll see 10kw out of a 20' rotor.  maybe, just maybe during peaks. look up betz limit.  it will give you maximums per sq ft of rotor. aluminum is also a tricky material to make blades out of due to the continual forces/flexing/twisting/giroscopic forces ect.  if you are a master fabricator, i won't argue that point though. 

another thing to ponder is will the city/elec company allow you to grid tie a 20(+)' home made turbine to the grid.  might be worth looking into getting permits ect. before investing time, money, effort, ect.  also, anything a building inspector says that is good towards your cause...  GET IT SIGNED IN WRITING!  a few folks have had some major issues with this.   you may also need engineered tower plans to proceed.  some areas don't allow guy lines either, so monopole is the only way to go. 

keep us updated!

adam

[WindriderNM]

Many elect. Co's require all parts of a grid tie system to be UL listed. Most inspectors also require this. Check this out before you build it.

[TomW]

Just an FYI;

a 20 foot prop will need up around 35 MPH to net your 10KW goal.

Give or take.

The IRC windpower bot says:

<tomw> !wpi 20 35
<RossBot> 68475.3 watts possible from 20.0 ft dia prop (314.0 sq ft) in 35 mph wind (density of 1.225000)
<RossBot> 10956.1 watts output assuming generator is 80% efficient and Cp of 0.20

In this context "possible" means "available"


That is a lot of wind .

Tom

[XXLRay]

My advise ist to first build a small wind turbine for getting familiar with wind.

[Airstream]

tylerthefabricator: You don't mention where in the world and what the terrain is like where you are thinking of building your turbine.... You on a ridge top out on the edge of the prairie?  In a forested river valley?  You have buckets of money to spend 1.5x to 3x more than the turbine and alternator assembly costs on a tower? Large aluminum blades are generally discouraged since  they tend to fatigue and crack...

[tylerthefabricator]

I'm in Oregon  we have pretty good wind around here 10-15 at night , I'm also putting up some solar  on the south end of my home and shop .
 i have built cell towers  before    and plan on building  a hydraulic  lift tower, my  turbine set up I'm going to use a 80 tooth sprocket on the prop and a 15 tooth on the  generator  , so i  dint have to have 35 mph winds and for the  blades  after reading  the post I'm going to use my CnC router and build some   blades out of wood I'm thinking ash

 and lol no i don't have  buckets of money  to through around  but i have  pretty much all  the tools to make you drool lol  I'm a custom fabricator  and i love to prove  people wrong with my invention's  i build a lot of one off  parts

 here is a list of some of my tools That are   in my shop  20x10 CBC plasma 4x10 CBC plasma ,12 foot  150 ton press brake ,CBC router  4x10, 20 x6  welding table , bridge port mill , Haas CnC /manual lathe  and soon  to come a 12x6 water jet  in the next couple months

[ghurd]

my  turbine set up I'm going to use a 80 tooth sprocket on the prop and a 15 tooth on the  generator  , so i  dint have to have 35 mph winds

That's where Betz Limit comes in.
There is a set, fixed, known amout of power in the wind.
Gearing does not increase the power in the wind.

Sort of like a bunch of gears on a weed-wacker motor doesn't mean it will work as the perfect replacement motor in my PU truck.
G-

[fabricator]

I have built some aluminum blades for testing myself, you don't really need a special die you just do it in small kinks, but, every set I've built so far have all failed over time from metal fatigue/work hardening.
A 10kw machine usually has a rotor size in the 26-30' range, however, they are making 10kw at max speed just before the speed limiting system kicks in, for the large majority of the time they are making 0-10 kw, real world numbers are more like 0-5kw.

[tylerthefabricator]

do you really think this can make 10 kilowatts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGSlzj99pWc&feature=autoplay&list=UL13FB84z9bFM&index=10&playnext=2

[fabricator]

May be at max speed, 75 or 80 mph winds but otherwise no, no freaking way, for one thing VAWTS are 20-30% less efficient than HAWTS.

[ChrisOlson]

IF my plan is all wrong please let me  know  thanks  

I got a Jake 23-10 that I restored and got running, and it's a 10 kW turbine with a 23 foot rotor.

On an average day it generates 40-45 kWh, or about 1.8 kW.

On a good day it generates 60-75 kWh, or about 3 kW.

On a really, really, really, really, REALLY good day it generates 100-120 kWh, or about 4.5 kW

When a Stage IV thunderstorm blows thru with frickin' baseball sized hail, tornados on the ground, trees busted off and pieces of buildings flying thru the air I've seen it up to 10.8 kW.

That's how a 10 kW turbine works.  A 20 foot machine is not a 10 kW turbine by any stretch of the imagination.
--
Chris

[ChrisOlson]

here is a list of some of my tools That are   in my shop  20x10 CBC plasma 4x10 CBC plasma ,12 foot  150 ton press brake ,CBC router  4x10, 20 x6  welding table , bridge port mill , Haas CnC /manual lathe  and soon  to come a 12x6 water jet  in the next couple months

You can't build a wind turbine with those tools.  Building a wind turbine requires a hammer to beat on stuff to make it fit.  And it requires a welder to weld stuff together that got busted by beating on it.  And it requires a torch to cut stuff apart that got welded together crooked after it was busted by beating on it.

I don't see any of those most important tools in your list.
--
Chris

[birdhouse]

chris-

i find that to be a little harsh.  maybe it's a test type response.  i for one, am the proud owner of a 32lb sledge.  but i don't think that is what is required to build a turbine.  i'll bet his shop is full of hammers/beatblocks/torture jigs, and many things i wish i had in my shop!

adam

[tylerthefabricator]

Yes I do have a couple hammers and welders too lol you have a nice shop fro
 The looks of it Chris . Is your whole farm off the grid? I'm only 28 so I have time to buy more tools lol before I die lol

[ChrisOlson]

Yes I do have a couple hammers and welders too lol you have a nice shop fro
 The looks of it Chris . Is your whole farm off the grid? I'm only 28 so I have time to buy more tools lol before I die lol

I forgot to add the smiley thing on that last post so I'll put it on this one    

No, we got grid power there now so we could hook up the Jake.  It's only single phase so we have to run the genset for three-phase power.  But we're supposed to get three-phase closer to fall.

I got another Jake 23-10 too but it's still on its tower and I have to get a crane to get it down.  It hasn't run for about 20 years because the inverter is blown.  It's on an old Jacobs 100 foot angle iron tower, non tilting.  When I get it down and back to the shop I'm going to modify that tower for tilting and pull it up with a 40 foot gin like we did the other one.  I don't think there's anything wrong with the turbine itself.  I released the brake on it and it fired right up and started running, and didn't make any strange noises after sitting there for 20 years not turning.

My crane is supposed to come on Friday morning so we can lay the tower down and I can take it apart and haul it home.  The turbine is only 30 miles from our place.

If I was you, that's what I'd do is find a Jake 23-10 that's not running and rebuild it.  They're in all 50 states and several countries around the world.  There will be one of two reasons why it stopped running - either the inverter is blown or the blades are blown off it.  The 70's and early 80's 23-10's had wood blades and very few of those made it 6 or 7 years without blowing the blades off.  You'll find them on their tower with just the root stubs left because the blades flexed in high winds and hit the tower.  And they got a 1.25" governor.  You replace that governor with the new 1.5" (about $3,600) and replace the blades with the new fiberglass ones (about $6,500) and the rotor will last for the rest of your life.

There's several options to replace the inverter with a more modern one.  Even if you find a 23-10 with a good inverter because the blades left it, I wouldn't use it.  Those old UL508 inverters are junk from the word "go" and the first time the wind blows good it'll blow the two big capacitors out of the static frequency changer, and burn out the big transformer in the upper right of the box.

You can get a new UL1741 inverter from Wind Turbine Industries Corp in Prior Lake, MN.  Or I know another guy over by Stillwater, MN that's using an Aurora Power One inverter on a 23-10.  Or if you got a savvy Jake man local you can rebuild the old inverter to the 17.5 kW spec and make it stronger so it lasts.

You'd need all your tools (including the big hammers) to rebuild a Jake 23-10 because it requires quite a bit of machine work.  If you ever decide to go that route PM me because I know all the tricks of rebuilding one.
--
Chris

[tylerthefabricator]

What IS a gen set ?

[birdhouse]

a petrol based generator.  

builders and fabricators like to eliminate sylabols (sp?)  genset has way less than gen'er'rat'or.  

kinda like 16 sinkers or **** hair (blonde or redhead?)  or SIP's or ICF's or "good enough for the girls i go with"...  


mods-edit if needed.  

adam

[ruddycrazy]

Eh birdhouse while on the crude statements the easiest and best way to tie a broken blade back together is just string together some italian womens pube's and the use em the blade will be stronger than before......

[defed]

When I get it down and back to the shop I'm going to modify that tower for tilting and pull it up with a 40 foot gin like we did the other one.

i'd like to see some pics of your tower mods and the raising (gin pole attachment etc) when you get there.