Light Weight Wind Turbine Project - as I build it.

[ChrisOlson]

If any of you become  engineer who can certify turbine please by all means fax over your credentials and I will be glad to engage in testing.

Send me your fax number.  I'm a licensed mechanical engineer and I have a dynamometer that I designed and built specifically for testing permanent magnet generators.  I also build my own line of wind turbines.  I can not only provide you with a power curve for the ReDelco, I can also provide you with the power efficiency numbers.  I would like to buy one of your ReDelco's, test it, and post the real data on the internet for all to see.

I'll put this to rest for once and for all.

I would also like to mention that coming in on this forum using the same type of tactics that I have seen you use on other places when people filed a formal complaint against you, is not going to work here.  You've had Steadfast's money for long enough and he still has no product.  Well, now I want one too because I have the credentials, the experience, and the equipment to show everybody what they can really do.
--
Chris

[Bruce S]

@SF
It is not without history that we have come this most of these conclusions. As I have said, I am holding out hope that the unit as a lightweight mill works, I've said this many times.

@HW
It is NOT without history that we have come here to help SF. IF you're numbers on the website are from old units, as a business person you should've had them removed by your web- designer it that easy.
I'm an optimist and as I stated above, was and still am hoping that this unit works as a light weight mill.
However, lets look at those 10Amps at even 13.4V that is still only 134watts. NOT my numbers , but based on pure math.
I will be the first to say, it's good to see you posting here, for several reasons.
1.) Defend your product, in a civilized manner with real reproducible numbers.
2.) It is made in USA
3.) Can be a VERY good introduction into windmills, providing field tested numbers a person can know and understand without all the none of the non-sensible web-based hype but out by others.
 4.) Show to all; you do plan on standing by your product.

NOW as a GM, I will also ask that during these field trials at SF's place; the forum members hold their tongues while SF and you provide a product and field test it.
So long as you are in fact moving forward with sending SF a product to test, otherwise the burden of proof in on you.
I'll also say this once again, I truly hope your unit works out.
Bruce S
 

[Bruce S]

@ChrisO;
I posted right after you did, BUT with your abilities and testing facility, I'll through in some cash to purchase one for testing, if you'd like.
OTHERS, please since he has come here, let's hold our tongues and see how this works out.
I'm not asking as a GM this time , but as a fellow forum member who's really hoping for the best for SF.

@HW
I'm going out on a limb here, asking the forum members hold their tongues, not REALLY a GM thing to do, and I'm certain I will get put in the corner by the upper owners/admin/senior Mods  but, to put this to rest. I'll stick MY virtual neck out for this.

Bruce S

[Steadfast]

Both Chris and Bruce are men of integrity...
I think you can trust them Tony...

The web is rife with turbine scams...
The people here have just seen far too many good folks get screwed by PMA scammers on the web.
and they want to protect them...

Tony, you sell PMAs, this alone makes them leery.
Tony, you are in a "contest" with the PMA scammers not with the axial generator.

When you show them that you are also a man of integrity,
something I believe true, and they will back you!
.
.

[Bruce S]

@SF;
 I would really be nice if we did have a manufacturer (Other than ChrisO, cause when the fields are ready and it's harvest time, nuthin else matters), that we could point beginners to.
This is one item we do not have.

@Tony (HW) The internet is rife with crap-ola , look at pacwind,mwand, etc.
These are the reasons why when we see these , we get so arsed about them.
Most of the people posting here are more worried about SF's safety than even one iota of output from any 'mill.
Come here, post field reproducible numbers and let us help others learn too.
Just think what it would do for your biz if you could add to your website, Field tested & proven by ""
Cheers;
Bruce S

[ChrisOlson]

Tony, you sell PMAs, this alone makes them leery.
Tony, you are in a "contest" with the PMA scammers not with the axial generator.

There is no contest with axials.  The problem is in the stator on these converted Delcos and the method used by the people who sell them to show power output.  When this thread started, the very first power curve I saw on this thing was the identical open voltage/short circuit curve used by every other seller that pedals them.  When that was brought to light on this forum the published power curve on Hurricane's website suddenly got changed from a jpg image to a .asp page so you couldn't read it.  Well, I downloaded the .asp and changed the file extension to .jpg and I got it and saved it.  And it's a fake power curve.

I know what these things are capable of but there are lots of people that get taken in by this, and many dissatisfied customers who have bought them because they don't produce anywhere near the claims made by the sellers.  The basic GM automotive alternator design is what it is - and it is a very inefficient design that will not handle even the full rated output of the stator at 100% duty cycle even in its stock form.  The full power output is an intermittent rating at less than 50% power efficiency, meaning better than half the input power to the shaft is converted directly to heat in the stator.

This makes them a poor choice for wind turbines because the wind doesn't care.  If it's going to blow at 30 mph it's not going to back down just because the generator in your wind turbine gets hot.

Steadfast doesn't have a good wind site, but I do.  And I'm putting up a brand new AN HD-90 tower for another 3.5 meter turbine.  But I'd build one of these little things and put it on that tower for a month and fly it and log power from it with my APRS data logger just as a service to the community to show folks that they are not worth wasting your time and money on.  I have a use for the thing when I get done testing it.  I recently got a Hatz diesel engine with a bad injection pump and fixed it.  I'll rewind the stator on the ReDelco so it can be used on a DC diesel generator for standby power for my off-grid system.
--
Chris

[fabricator]

Any time scammer, I don't pull punches on the Web or face to face. I have to have total shoulder replacement surgery tomorrow, but anytime after that is good for me.
I'll bet now that scam boy found out we do have totally qualified engineers we won't hear from him again.

[Bruce S]

NOT to HiJack this too much .
ChrisO;
I've been eyeballing a small 10hp unit to marry with a small 5kw head given to me to "PLAY" with.
a bit pricy, used and the guy wants $1800.00 but stands behind it's health.
Let me know your thoughts on them.
Thanks
Bruce S

[Watt]

Any time scammer, I don't pull punches on the Web or face to face. I have to have total shoulder replacement surgery tomorrow, but anytime after that is good for me.
I'll bet now that scam boy found out we do have totally qualified engineers we won't hear from him again.

Fab,

  We wish you the best for tomorrow. 

  Be easy on the Doctor while asking questions in regards to making sure he/she is the best option for your long term recovery.  Be warned though in that if he starts threatening to cut off your other arm and removing your other shoulder, for asking questions, you may need to cancel and see another Dr.   He may be full of crap and you may find he has no experience and is not even licensed for shoulder replacement but will try and B.S. you into allowing him to screw you shoulder up for the rest of your life.   

[ChrisOlson]

Bruce, you mean a Hatz?  I'm fairly impressed with the engine itself.  It runs beautiful after I replaced the injection pump.  The plunger had scored and stuck in it so it wouldn't start, I suspect due to water in the fuel.  I had it given to me, and after working on it I think it's a pretty good unit.

I was looking at the Hurricane website and I wonder what those ReDelcos got for a rotor?  If it's got glued-on magnets instead of a claw pole rotor, it might not even be good for a DC generator.  With glued on mags I doubt it could handle 3,600 rpm without tossing mags off the rotor.
--
Chris

[Bruce S]

FAB:
Best of luck tomorrow.
BUT I need to ask, that we not get into filling SFs area with any more stuff like the last post.
Since he's now on here you can PM him  .
Thanks for understanding my position here.
Bruce S

[Bruce S]

ChrisO;
Yes, I meant the Hatz, the little 10hp unit. It seems to be a nice unit, I've heard it run.
Smallish fuel tank for me, but easy to rectify.
Thanks
Bruce S

[ChrisOlson]

ChrisO;
Yes, I meant the Hatz, the little 10hp unit. It seems to be a nice unit, I've heard it run.
Smallish fuel tank for me, but easy to rectify.

Yeah, the fuel tank on mine is about two quarts.  But that will be fine for a DC standby unit.

When we were setting up our system we looked at a Alton Duke 80 DC standby generator with a Hatz on it.  I would've bought it except the dollars per kWh output for upfront cost doesn't match a AC genset.  But getting into the Dog Days of summer we like to run a AC unit so we can cool the house down to make it comfortable sleeping at night.  I miss my old gas charger I used to have because that thing would put enough power to run the AC unit all night without sacking our bank on very little gas.  I used to run it at about 2,000 rpm and it worked beautiful.

My thoughts now are that I got Classic MPPT controllers.  If I can rewind one of these ReDelco's for about 145 open volts @ 3,600 rpm and feed the power into a Classic controller, I'll bet I could get pretty efficient power out of one, and get the alternator efficiency up to 80+ %.  According to the chart I hacked off their website they would make too many open volts the way they're wound.  But that's easy to fix.  The big deal would be the rotor.  The WindBlue units got a claw pole rotor and they won't come apart at high rpm.  If these ReDelco's got glued on magnets it wouldn't work.

Fabricator - don't even bother with this silly exchange.  When Tornado Tony came on here, first post, and starts calling people names like I've seen him do on a couple other complaint websites where folks have filed a complaint against him, the caliber of who we're dealing with becomes pretty obvious.

From this point, the message just needs to be gotten out there for folks who are inexperienced and get taken in by these scams.  The ReDelco's and their kin DO make some power, but they are pretty weak compared to real generators actually designed for wind turbines.  As long as people realize what they are buying, and what they're really capable of, that's the main thing.  After hearing about magnetic vortexes and cascading electrical waves (or whatever the frick it was) I have already drown my own conclusions about the knowledge the particular person trying to sell these things has about how a generator works.

I think anybody else can also draw their own conclusions so I don't have to, once again, go thru the math and the restate the obvious.
--
Chris

[Truckman]

You guys Must stop back seat driving!
You guys are NOT helping...   
You are endangering the delivery of my product...
You need to leave Tony alone so he can finish and deliver the PMA.

He wrote me and expressed a desire to return my money...
I dont want my money back...
I want a working LBird!

If you keep pokeing Tony like you have been, I will have no PMA at all.
and, I am going to be stuck with a useless LBird. 
which I spent multiple hundred dollars building and took multiple vacation days off to build just to fit Tony's PMA.

I was rude to say he blew up his Doc on purpose, and I appaulogized to him for suggesting such.

He is right... and he also has a business to run and protect...
You guys need to back off, and let him do the work!

Stead, I joined this board on your reccomendation(from silverseek) to folow your build and learn more in the process.  I have learned that nearly 100 days into this you still haven't seen or flown your LBird and this guy has promised you the world and to date hasn't delivered you a thing. Now that the world is watching he has offered you a refund, how many people who bought the same unit that you did within the last 90 days will get the same offer? Has he discussed this with you?

Through the kindness and generosity of certain members on this board you have pretty much been given a great set up tailored to your location and wind levels, yet you question those very members on which bird to fly first. I can hardly believe you wouldn't step up and recognize the people who have already stood up for you. The only rush you seem to have is to fly the this LBird which as of yesterday was being overnighted for you to have today.

Fly the HBird and start making some real power, log it for 30 days and if/when the LBird shows up you can do the same with it.

Truckman

[ChrisOlson]

If Strong Wind (old Indian name for Hurricane, usually just phased "Wind Bag" or "Big Blow" in modern times) did indeed smoke a Doc Wattson, all that happens to them is the solder melts off the negative lead on the source side of the shunt.  It takes less than an hour to fix it.

You have to physically set one on fire with an accelerant like gasoline** to actually wreck the meter.
--
Chris

** diesel fuel works good too, but it's a little bit harder to light.

[Frank S]

 not to drag this thread further down the road to perdition, but in my short time on this forum I have pretty much figured out that there is quite a collection of engineers who regularly read these threads. while some of us may have multiple  pieces of wall paper. I am noticing one thing in particular  were it not for the wall papers, all would fit in the category of being autodidacts many would rival folks like George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison Nicola Tesla and others in their own fields. IF all were rounded up and licked inside of a box the first thins they would do would be to cut out the corners and invert them to see what would happen.   

[fabricator]

Any time scammer, I don't pull punches on the Web or face to face. I have to have total shoulder replacement surgery tomorrow, but anytime after that is good for me.
I'll bet now that scam boy found out we do have totally qualified engineers we won't hear from him again.

Fab,

  We wish you the best for tomorrow. 

  Be easy on the Doctor while asking questions in regards to making sure he/she is the best option for your long term recovery.  Be warned though in that if he starts threatening to cut off your other arm and removing your other shoulder, for asking questions, you may need to cancel and see another Dr.   He may be full of crap and you may find he has no experience and is not even licensed for shoulder replacement but will try and B.S. you into allowing him to screw you shoulder up for the rest of your life.

Well this guy is the orthopod for the US ski team, when ever they go somewhere he goes with em, his boss told me the only reason he's not at Johns Hopkins or somewhere like that is he has deep roots in the area, he does at least two of these a month.

[Tritium]

PMA Experimental?  Nah, Just a factory Generac PMA from an 1800 RPM genset.




Thurmond

[ChrisOlson]

Well, you have to admit that it does take some serious thought to rob the exciter off a genset head and try to pawn it off as an RE product.
--
Chris

[Frank S]

PMA Experimental?  Nah, Just a factory Generac PMA from an 1800 RPM genset.




Thurmond

OK! so take the 6 magnets and cut them in half to double the poles wire it 3-2-3 mount a 5 ft 3  blade turbine on it had get 50 watts @ 12.8v somewhere around 300 rpm
 sure why not
 BTW this would be a guess no power curve chart implied

[fabricator]

PMA Experimental?  Nah, Just a factory Generac PMA from an 1800 RPM genset.




Thurmond

OK! so take the 6 magnets and cut them in half to double the poles wire it 3-2-3 mount a 5 ft 3  blade turbine on it had get 50 watts @ 12.8v somewhere around 300 rpm
 sure why not
 BTW this would be a guess no power curve chart implied

Why bother?

[ChrisOlson]

Because there's tons of people that will buy genset exciters and charging coils rebranded as RE generators on eBay.

You can just jerk your ceiling fan down and you already got the blades, though.
--
Chris

[Steadfast]

Through the kindness and generosity of certain members on this board you have pretty much been given a great set up tailored to your location and wind levels, yet you question those very members on which bird to fly first. I can hardly believe you wouldn't step up and recognize the people who have already stood up for you. The only rush you seem to have is to fly the this LBird which as of yesterday was being overnighted for you to have today.

Fly the HBird and start making some real power, log it for 30 days and if/when the LBird shows up you can do the same with it.

Truckman

I think the guys here know how much I revere their advice and their increadible generosity...
If any of you guys don't, just pipe up,
and I will flagrantly, publically, complement you, each, one at a time... 

Did that statement make you guys feel... creepy...  yeah... thought so...

[Tritium]

PMA Experimental?  Nah, Just a factory Generac PMA from an 1800 RPM genset.




Thurmond

OK! so take the 6 magnets and cut them in half to double the poles wire it 3-2-3 mount a 5 ft 3  blade turbine on it had get 50 watts @ 12.8v somewhere around 300 rpm
 sure why not
 BTW this would be a guess no power curve chart implied

Each magnet is 2 pole (2 N's and 2 S's).

Thurmond

[fabricator]

Because there's tons of people that will buy genset exciters and charging coils rebranded as RE generators on eBay.

You can just jerk your ceiling fan down and you already got the blades, though.
--
Chris

This is true, but you don't have to jerk your ceiling fan down, just go over to Tractor Supply and buy a turkey barn fan blade.

[hurricanewind]

Ok maybe I am off a bit some of you guys aren't so bad......1 that PMA you guys took apart has 6 poles are you serious?......secondly I have no problem with a objective comparison.....and lastly it is usually candy asses who like to run their mouth the day before shoulder surgery so anytime you feel up to it you have a cordial invitation

[hurricanewind]

PS I have 14 volts at 80 rpm....what are you doing wrong?

[Tritium]

Ok maybe I am off a bit some of you guys aren't so bad......1 that PMA you guys took apart has 6 poles are you serious?......secondly I have no problem with a objective comparison.....and lastly it is usually candy asses who like to run their mouth the day before shoulder surgery so anytime you feel up to it you have a cordial invitation

Actually there are 12 poles. Each magnet is 2 poles from the manufacturer. AND I only posted it to show similarity in design.

Thurmond

[Steadfast]

Hey guys, can we stop hosing down this topic with all the testostrone???
I have a turbine to build and test.

We seem to have a small amount of  detaunt going here:
Everyone here, has a desire to help this project out, and that is good.
and
I believe everyone here is against the "PMA made by scammers" and that is good too.

All here want to see "clearity of product" in a PMA for the first time,
which Tony as a corporation wishes to do...  Which no other PMA making company wishes to do...

So, don't ruin these common goals with silly insults.

[Bruce S]

OKAY now in the role as a GM

Gents! Before anymore chest beating goes on!!
I'm going ask one more time to tone it down.
@Tony (HW) normally you'd be getting a PM right about now.
I've already publicly asked FAB to tone it down--nicely--
Same goes for you.
Remember my part about discussing in a civilized manner?
Others have already toned it down, please abide by my request too.
Bruce S

[midwoud1]

Fab.

All the best for tomorrow.

[Mastiffman]

candy asses

HA HAAAAA, that is great term. Although not when used here...   

 Sorry, had to do it!!!!

[birdhouse]

tony-
the unit being sent to SF has the coils stationary in the center and the mags glued to the inside of the case correct? 

if so, i would think this would make the unit a good candidate for running as a back-up charger off an engine with high rpms! 

looking forward to a power curve when you get to it.

adam