A camel please!

[rickysmartz]

Axial Flux design consensus yet??
This forum, and these axial flux machines, have been around now for years and yet there still seems to be no consensus on what is the best construction configuration. We all still seem to be 'trying out' new forms and designs; hasn't this all been done before? Why cant we all put our heads together and come up with a definitive design, parts list, configuration and all the circuits and diagrams anyone would need to make a working turbine. Surely there is enough combined experience here to crack this problem? Sure, people can try new things and try to make 'the design' better using their ingenuity but isn't there enough data at this stage to say, yes, this one works in every way, and if you follow 'this recipe' you end up with a working, strong, reasonably efficient and cost effective machine? Lets face it, we homebrewers just want to be able to make something and to have faith that it will work. The Dans have done this to an extent with their book, but there is a wealth of new ideas and improvements to make these better, but no place to put our 'agreed' best principles in construction and design, tweaked from years of doing it and seeing what works. I think we need to start building a blueprint that has our combined wisdom in it, even if there are still areas that we dont all completely agree on there are lots of methods/designs we do agree on. Where is this combined wisdom to be put?

There is an old adage about a camel being an animal designed by a committee, funny thing is; the camel design works!

Richard

[jlt]

  Try my Design It is better.Don't you agree.
   
    JLT

[electrondady1]

i think there's way too much monkey see, monkey do, on the board as it is.
copy one of the major players designs if you like .
hopefully your conditions will be  identical to  theirs.
but if not,oh well .   
it's the ingenuity and innovation that keeps me coming back here for something like 9 years.

well, that, and the administrative/ monitor types doing a melt down and behaving badly.

[TomW]

I think the whole point of this forum is to get you "in the ball park" on building something suitable for your particular needs / site.

Most folks wind resource will not be the same as anyone else's as it were. These common designs are pretty much fully capable of tweaking without too much risk of failure.

Not really for cookie cutter copies.

That and a good knock down drag out bare knuckles altercation in the Pub. 

Tom

[ghurd]

Too many variables in the users systems and goals to have one size fits all.

A camel works.
So does a tauntaun.
But they are not interchangable.
G-

[bob golding]

what works in say the desert 1000 miles from the sea wouldn't work next to the sea. just to give you an example. or in the blazing heat of the tropics and -50 degrees in the artic. same basic design just different conditions. suspect the big boys have the flexibly of design as well. gaerbox oil that is fine at 20 degrees C wont be at -50 or plus 45C. the clever bit is adapting the basic design to your own particular circumstant.

[fabricator]

The simple matter of it is, there simply aint no single best way, but I do think Olson with that machine he's building for MPPT is getting damned close.

[Dave B]

Richard,

  If you want to build a machine you will be married to it no matter the design or how well it is built. If you want a turbine but also the ability to call about service issues then buy one from one of the estsblished manufactures instead. If you want power with the least amount of involvement and really not homebrew at all then purchase solar.

  One of the books is a good place to start for building a turbine, you will not find a book that states this is the one and only way and no worries if it's done this way. With wind you will always have issues to deal with so if you are not a hands on maintenance fix it and repair kind of guy you should not build one. Otherwise if you are then take the plunge, build and fly your machine and tell us here like we all do of your successes and failures. It's what this board is all about.  Good Luck,  Dave B.
 

Axial Flux design consensus yet??
This forum, and these axial flux machines, have been around now for years and yet there still seems to be no consensus on what is the best construction configuration. We all still seem to be 'trying out' new forms and designs; hasn't this all been done before? Why cant we all put our heads together and come up with a definitive design, parts list, configuration and all the circuits and diagrams anyone would need to make a working turbine. Surely there is enough combined experience here to crack this problem? Sure, people can try new things and try to make 'the design' better using their ingenuity but isn't there enough data at this stage to say, yes, this one works in every way, and if you follow 'this recipe' you end up with a working, strong, reasonably efficient and cost effective machine? Lets face it, we homebrewers just want to be able to make something and to have faith that it will work. The Dans have done this to an extent with their book, but there is a wealth of new ideas and improvements to make these better, but no place to put our 'agreed' best principles in construction and design, tweaked from years of doing it and seeing what works. I think we need to start building a blueprint that has our combined wisdom in it, even if there are still areas that we dont all completely agree on there are lots of methods/designs we do agree on. Where is this combined wisdom to be put?

There is an old adage about a camel being an animal designed by a committee, funny thing is; the camel design works!

Richard

[keithturtle]

Richard,



  One of the books is a good place to start for building a turbine, you will not find a book that states this is the one and only way and no worries if it's done this way. With wind you will always have issues to deal with so if you are not a hands on maintenance fix it and repair kind of guy you should not build one. Otherwise if you are then take the plunge, build and fly your machine and tell us here like we all do of your successes and failures. It's what this board is all about.  Good Luck,  Dave B.
 

Hugh addresses some of those variables in his recent "Wind turbine recipe" book.   Pick the one that suits your taste and build it.  You know your variables the best.

If it doesn't work well, then at least you learned along the way.   Otherwise pay the price and go with someone else's unit.  Camels aren't cheap, at least in my town

Turtle

[wooferhound]

You just build the magnet rotors with what you've got
 then
It's all about the test coil

[tanner0441]

Hi

I have only ever seen camels in the zoo.  They all seemed to break wind, not use it.

Brian.

[bob golding]

most things are pretty flexible in the basic design. mine is limited by the  offset as i am using a welded design. changing the offset would be quite difficult. i started with the basic volvo hub design with 10 inch rotors. i have increased the rotor size to 14 inch and added more magnets. next  stage is a gramme ring design with ferrite magnets and a steel toroidal core. still using the same basic design and blade size. so you see you can use a  "standard" basic design and  adjust it to your needs. in my case rust is a major problem  being next the sea. someone else inland could get away with neos and not have any rust problems. i have tried differant ways of dealing with the rust problem hence the experiment with ferrites rather than neos. dont think anyone has come up with a  really solid use anywhere design except maybe proven, but even they had problems  scaling the size up. they are also expensive and heavy.

[kenl]

 In reality all the information is here in the posts and diaries of different members. A one size fits all doesn't exist but I don't think that is what you were asking for. It sounded more like all the different options maybe organized somehow to make designing a turbine a little easier.
I don't know if that is possible after watching people build ground up wind machines here. There a just so many variables even with machines made from the same general design or plans. Take some time and read some of what has been posted here, look at the projects the Dans have done and documented very well for free. It really is all here.

kenny

[rickysmartz]

Thanks all for your input,
Of course there is no 'one size fits all' as there are too many variables. Im no longer new to this endeavor and have been designing and building for 4 years. I have always found this forum to be a truly excellent resource; I lurked and read every post before I have had the nerve to post myself. I felt in the beginning I only had newbie questions and many of these are answered here after a little reading already, and I felt I had little in the way of experience to offer. However, now I have some experience from the very start of a build through to a finished working 18' grid tied machine on a hydraulic tower and I have some observations on using this forum and how it has helped me to get here. One thing I have noticed is that it seems there is no place on the forum for distilled wisdom, thing we all generally agree on as being a good idea. For example it took a lot of time and reading to find little gems about axial flux machines like-
1) The gap between the rotors should be about the same thickness as one of your magnets, (I wont include here why but there are reasons for this and it seems to be generally accepted as being a good rule).
2) The tail vane should be about 5% of the swept area and the tail should be about as long as your blade length.
3) Blade sets should always be balanced.
These are simplistic and basic but might save time to someone who is starting out on a build, if they want to know exactly why they can go read the related posts.
Kenny you nailed it with your last post
like all the different options maybe organized somehow to make designing a turbine a little easier.
Would we all benefit from some kind of library on the forum? Somewhere we could put Ghurds excellent wiring diagrams and circuits and maybe our own too so someone can go to >Grid tied safety circuits< and find a few that have been proven to work. I know this is something I would have benefited from. I dont pretend to know how to best organize this, maybe some admin input here before I waste any more of anyones time? Perhaps a system of votes on a particular method, diagram, technique, postulated theory etc to find a consensus. We all like to put our own spin and ideas on what we build, like for example how to take the shock out of a tail returning to its rest position after furling; I like to put shock absorbing pillars and pads to spread the considerable load onto the yaw tube (pic attached on earlier post), Jarrod has another method for his 17' beauty. Point is - We both agree that with machines of this size you need something and cant rely only on the tail pivot tube notch as with smaller machines. This is wisdom based on multiple experiences over many machines and is simply good design practice. But where can Joe Newbie go to find this on the forum? Steven Fahy started a chart and spent considerable time polling 10 builders on their machines and produced a resource that is now lost in the posts and very difficult to find. This kind of accumulated wisdom is gold to a new builder and should be somewhere easily referenced and indeed updated, it would now be 2 years old but if kept up to date would give a very clear example of longevity and output of the various configurations of the machines included, and more importantly what works and what doesn't.
This forum is an incredible technical resource and thats what I use it for, but it isn't set up to be a technical resource, only a forum. Could we make it better?
Hope im not stepping on anyone toes!
Richard

[ruddycrazy]

It is said that 9 out 10 guys that try a camel prefer women.........

Just staying to the topic title........

[wooferhound]

There is a place to put any information or links that anyone thinks is important.
In the FAQs area, under the heading
"Small Wind Turbine Basics"
Moderators are the only people that can post or make changes in there

I think it could be a basic outline of wind turbine construction with links to back it up. A never finished thing that is always being added to.

[Norm]

Reply to #13.....
Much to wide of a column
Of course there is no 'one size fits all' as there are too many variables.
 Im no longer new to this endeavor and have been designing and building
for 4 years. I have always found this forum to be a truly excellent resource;
I lurked and read every post before I have had the
More like this lose track of which line you're on when it's 120 column.
my 2 cents worth.
thanks.
Norm

[tecker]

Axles have been around a while longer that 4 years . The main advent put forth with the axle flux here was the apposing magnet rotors  and the stator built as an air core. 

[TomW]

Reply to #13.....
Much to wide of a column
Of course there is no 'one size fits all' as there are too many variables.
 Im no longer new to this endeavor and have been designing and building
for 4 years. I have always found this forum to be a truly excellent resource;
I lurked and read every post before I have had the
More like this lose track of which line you're on when it's 120 column.
my 2 cents worth.
thanks.
Norm

Norm;

Yeah, folks need to use the ENTER key regularly.

Actual sentences with some punctuation would help, too.

Not everyone is a native English speaker so we need to consider that when we think of spelling and punctuation

The difference between two, to and too is somewhat important, also (too).

Anyone can separate thoughts with white spaces:

Just one of the ways to get more reliable help by making it easy to follow and understand.

Or not.

Tom

[vawtman]

It is said that 9 out 10 guys that try a camel prefer women.........

Just staying to the topic title........

    Ya, but i think 9 out of 10 women that try a camel would prefer a camel.

 Happy New Year Bryan and everyone here

[tecker]

Hmm see what you mean butThen you'd need a ladder

[wpowokal]

Have seen a cow used in the dairy, but the bull did lift him over the yards, but then he was a hero at school for his broken arm, if only they knew, no I never told.

Allan

[12AX7]

It is said that 9 out 10 guys that try a camel prefer women.........

Just staying to the topic title........

    Ya, but i think 9 out of 10 women that try a camel would prefer a camel.

 Happy New Year Bryan and everyone here

Holly COW!!   It's Vawtman!    Happy New year stranger!

[fabricator]

Reply to #13.....
Much to wide of a column
Of course there is no 'one size fits all' as there are too many variables.
 Im no longer new to this endeavor and have been designing and building
for 4 years. I have always found this forum to be a truly excellent resource;
I lurked and read every post before I have had the
More like this lose track of which line you're on when it's 120 column.
my 2 cents worth.
thanks.
Norm

Norm;

Yeah, folks need to use the ENTER key regularly.

Actual sentences with some punctuation would help, too.

Not everyone is a native English speaker so we need to consider that when we think of spelling and punctuation

The difference between two, to and too is somewhat important, also (too).

Anyone can separate thoughts with white spaces:

Just one of the ways to get more reliable help by making it easy to follow and understand.

Or not.

Tom

And for Gods Sake use spell check!!! It's right there! Stop looking like a five year old! I'ts right there it takes five seconds!

[ruddycrazy]

HAPPY NEW YEAR right back at ya Vawtman and yea mate it has been too long so don't get to looking at those camels too closely......

Cheers Bryan

[Wolvenar]

I have little data from anything I have built to say which is better.
 But was this not discussed on this forum in the past, and the general consensus was that it depends on the wind conditions of your area?
Seems that in places that have less turbulent, and winds that do not change directions a whole lot can inch out the power better with a HAWT
and VAWTs work better in conditions that are less than ideal in those respects?

So, conclusion I make, use a VAWT to capture that Camels wind.. lol
( yeah I had to say it)

[richhagen]

I once heard a quote something like:

smart people learn from their own mistakes,
smarter people learn from the mistakes of others.

I think I learn almost as much from seeing what will not work as from what will.

Rich

[rossw]

I once heard a quote something like:

smart people learn from their own mistakes,
smarter people learn from the mistakes of others.

So... what's that say for me?? I learn from other peoples mistakes.... and then procede to make my own!

[bj]

  I think we all do that Ross.  Now that I think about it, is that perpetual motion?
Probably not--more energy in than comes out.

[rickysmartz]

Funny guys, huh?
This was supposed to be a serious question about where to access information on the forum
but has turned into a spelling lesson. Sorry but I'm not from your parts and yes, we spell
color 'colour' over here. Ha ha!
'Too' is used correctly in my post so I don't know where that came from.
Be patient with non English speakers please, Tom I take your point about using
the return button; it never occurred to me there would be no word wrap on the forum
and things that look fine on my Mac often get garbled on PCs. As you can see I'm now formatting
for small screens.
Wooferhound- "I think it could be a basic outline of wind turbine construction with links to
back it up. A never finished thing that is always being added to."
Yes, this is exactly what I mean.
For example, I live in a fairly hostile salty environment and was very interested in Bob Goldings post
on his problems with neos and rust. It would be helpful to have a reference section where members could
put there experiences, their knowledge, on particular problems like rusting and how they overcame them
so eegits like me can learn from their mistakes. 
A never finished thing that is always being added to. Not like the FAQ section then?
Richard

[ghurd]

Richard,
You walked into a huge party and hear the background conversations.

Things like grid tied safety circuits depend on the items you are using in the system.

Where people spell 'color' as 'colour', then the grounding information can be very different...
Very VERY different!

BTW-

Ghurds excellent wiring diagrams and circuits

Thanks for that!
Not sure 'excellent' is a word ever previously used for my sketches.
Good to know they help sometimes.
G-