5Kw or 30KW?

[ChrisOlson]

That is way cool.  Them are some big dangerous magnets.
--
Chris

[Mary B]

Imagine all of those in one huge machine...

[Frank S]

Imagine all of those in one huge machine...

you mean something like this?
 radial

28 rows of 5 blocks 10.5 inch wide rotor rotor weight less magnets 350 lbs
 21 coils 200 pounds of copper 2570 "T" lam plates for the cores, total  cores weight less mounting 200 lbs, with mounting 400 lbs
 gap between stater and magnets .100"
 I am thinking it would be #15 wire 3 in hand @ 64 turns x 7 coils in series to get 240 v per phase spinning at 214 RPM for 50 HZ But I have used my method of rounding and short cut math for so long I doubt if I could follow a correct mathematical formula if my life depended on it any more
 I can just about guarantee this is not something I would waste my magnets on in building it though maybe on a tiny scale with little 1/2" by 1/2" by 1/4" magnets just for giggles and grins     

[Frank S]

After I relocate the first turbine that I will build with those magnets will be an axial with  12 magnets placed on both sides of a disk sandwiched between 2 stators with 3 meter swept area

[Frank S]

After I relocate the first turbine that I will build with those magnets will be an axial with  12 magnets placed on both sides of a disk sandwiched between 2 stators with 3 meter swept area

 I think a little 1000 to 1500 watt  turbine will do just fine as a start. OK it will need bigger blades with those magnets in it. blades less than 30" long are not going to do much even in a high wind. And before I would consider just building an all out monster I would make a drive to Wisconsin to have a look at the damaged Jacobs that Chris has. Machining repairing or even casting new parts along with every thing else I would need to buy would be cheaper than hand building a 2 ton turbine then not even know if it would work.
 But that doesn't keep me from toying with various design principals   

[Mary B]

Part of this hobby is having fun experimenting!

[Frank S]

Part of this hobby is having fun experimenting!

The last hobby I had caused me to raise 2 kids,  and put them through college. What I got out of that hobby, was 1 stopped after her bachelors, and for the past 20 years has been a licensed pharmacist & part time actor. the other has been a teacher for 12 years and in in the process of completing her PHD. Plus I got 4 grand kids out of it, the oldest will be attending TX A&M or Oklahoma State this up coming fall, if he completes his associates in may. The 8 year old placed 2nd last year in the State's science fair competition. no idea what the 6 & 4 year old's are up to.
 I'm still trying to determine if I had fun or was just experimenting LOL.
 I'll be 60 towards the end of next year It's been a little over 40 years since I started my first hobby maybe it's time to start a new one I can dedicate about the same amount of cash to it as the first one but this time on my terms & time scale.
   

[birdhouse]

not something I would waste my magnets on in building it though maybe on a tiny scale with little 1/2" by 1/2" by 1/4" magnets just for giggles and grins 

that would be really cool to see!  and see the numbers from it!

good luck with the relocation and the next phase of your life! 

are you back to texas for sure? 

adam

[Frank S]

Adam since I have been unable to convince the wife to move to Panama or some place in southern Europe and I don't have enough money to buy the country of  Nauru and relocate its citizens to somewhere else. And since she has her heart set on somewhere in N. America it doesn't leave a lot to choose from 

[birdhouse]

forward, i know, but

how many acres/sections you looking at?

adam

[Frank S]

The wedge clamps are a good way to hold the magnets if you don't happen to have the magnets with holes in them.

Using fixed laminated discs behind the coils will work but it needs high quality magnetic strip wound into a torus. Works fine but is difficult to get and when built specially very costly. This is the real limitation to single rotors with a fixed magnetic circuit. At least your version would be partly self balancing for the axial forces which are very high with this arrangement.

You need to consider how you make the tape wound core strong enough to resist being pulled apart like a fly catcher ( if you use those things in your part of the world).

I would still go for magnets each side of a steel disc rather than common flux and a non magnetic support.

If you can get good quality core material and make it physically strong it will work fine and with the coils stuck on to fixed iron circuits it cools better than the normal air gap design.

I infinitely prefer the radial version with coils stuck on to a smooth laminated iron core and a magnet can rotating outside it. The core can be a dirt cheap scrap motor core and it will be good quality material. The magnets don't fly off when stuck on the inside of a drum and again the cooling is good. I have built several this way and it is near ideal. The iron loss is much lower than with slotted cores, there is no cog, it has most of the advantages of the air gap machine and is more robust and better cooled.

It is not really an option for those with little facilities but with a lathe it is easy to build. The only snag is that you have to get the winding right first time as you can't play with the air gap to compensate, but with a test coil this is no real problem.

For anyone contemplating using the Classic controller it seems the ideal way as you are no longer constarined by having the turns exactly right.

Flux

I can buy silicone steel used in transformer cores by the coil the trouble with that is these coils come in 2 ton coils about 1 meter wide I would then have to run it through a decoiler slitter and recoiler the good thing is the suplier who sells us our other coiled steel does this for us however what would I do with 39 coils of silicone steel a mile long.
 For forming a strong disc I have a bead roller I would then build a small scale coiler with a special set of rolls for the dies.
 Actually that might not be such a bad Idea I could produce those discs for others.
 

[Frank S]

As far as equipment goes I have owned a lathe since before  I bought my first car it was a little Southbend 8 by 36" flat belt with none of the change gears so I only had a limited number of feeds available.
 That was over 45 years ago.
 I will probably only ship my little 280 Harrison back with me as the company depends on my 17by 72  Gromatic
but we have a  2 year old 650mm by 3 meter lathe that a guy shucked some of the gears on that I might load up and haul off I can hob out new gears but I won'r ever tell the company that.

[Frank S]

Flux is something like this what you have in mind for the stater discs?




 This would be a single strip wound up like a tape measure. What I would do is build a winding machine and connect my bead roller to it then after winding, secure the loose end  Make a large diameter cylinder with a piston put the disc inside pull a vacuum then inject a heated resin mix once cured the disc could be drilled or even lightly machined if need be .
 I could even wind  smaller thinner disc then place them in a shaping die set and press them to the a shape and size of the coil holes to make coil mounting shoes 

[Frank S]

OR I could even do this but without the proper program  to figure the properties of a core disc like this with embedded coils I don't see any advantage
 
 It might be worth trying just for giggles & grins only. I can see right now that if I were to try something like this I would want to buy an oscilloscope

 I can hear my wife now in her 60 odd year old Demi More sounding voice You are supposed to be toning back your junk accumulation not expanding it that 40 acres in West Texas is not going to hold all of your junk as it is with what you still have scattered all over the country. 

[Flux]

Frank,  thanks for the drawing, I now see what you meant by using the bead roller. Certainly this would add a lot of strength compared with the normal strip rolled core and would let you increrase the size beyond the normal.

The second proposal is interesting and depends on the thing you are most after. For wind poweer with neos I came to the conclusion long ago that iron cored coils were not worth the trouble. Even the normal radial machine doesn't benefit a lot from a slotted core and it introduces many issues such as leakage reactance more iron loss and cog.

There have been axial slotted machines built but the core has been a challenge. All attempts I have seen have been the equivalent of the radial version with overlapped coils. I think you would need to do a fair bit of research before adapting the single layer winding as built for the air gap machines

I really think the axial machine is best left to an air gap design and in the simple form it doesn't have many stress issues. Once you start incorporating iron in the design you have large axial forces to deal with and even in a nominally balanced design the slightest offset will produce large forecs and you will have big issues during the assembly stage before forces start to balance.

I believe large axials have been built up to 100kVA but there are challengeswhen you start to look at very low speeds.

I am sure you could make it work, whether it would be worth the effort I don't know.

Flux

[Frank S]

Your not kidding about strong forces I had one of those Neos stick on a polished plate that  I use for lapping hydraulic parts, it couldn't have been a stronger bond on that mirror finish if it had been a piece of regular 1" thick steel with a 10 pass fillet weld.   

[Frank S]

Flux here is one of the things you can do with a bead roller









 The turn table is 52" in Dia. the o ring is 3/8" section

[Frank S]

  I finally got all of the magnets in their first boxes.
 16 boxes of 12 and 1 box with 5 As with any good mining operation I screened the talings and packed in the few larger chips that were found in the assemblies.  The strings of magnets are wrapped in plasitc cling wrap  Next I will wrap each box in plastic wrap as well then wrap 3 boxes together in sheet metal and make a wood box for those to fit in I also want to drop in several packets of silica gel. Right now everything has been in a very low humidity environment for a long time ans some of those magnets could be left in the box for a couple years or more
this is how most of them looked inside.
This is how 3 or 4 looked inside
Starting a string, you really have to take care using box rails and a guide stick otherwise you can end up with magnet fragments flying everywhere if they happen to slam together, or they will become hopelessly stuck together and almost impossible to safely separate
A string progressing along smoothly
String wrapped in plastic wrap
in boxes
This is without a doubt the biggest mess I have ever had in my little home workshop