10' Homebrew wind power

[kc5etv]

I have a 10 ft homebrew I made in 2009 , can I use and Fairbanks Morse 3 hp Hit and Miss to run this Gen. rpm runs 550 to 650 ?

[birdhouse]

some more details would help a lot.  guessing you're talking about using a 3hp gas engine to charge a battery bank???  what voltage, what cut in on the mill head?  Ah of bank? 

how long is that piece of string?

adam

[hiker]

sure why not--just make a plywood flat pulley for the alt--then toss the belt on the flywheel..then to your alt.
might have to experiment on the size of the pulley--so you wont lug your engine down..
i have a 1916 eqlipse pumpjack engine..works great on my smaller alts..
your engine most likely has  some flat belt pulleys on it--you could use those as well--just have the proper size pulley on your alt..pulleys can be made up of a couple plywood disks glued and screwed together to get the proper  width... used auto flat belts work great.............

[kc5etv]

This is my 10' machine,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RwaTll4guE .... I am wanting to hook it up direct to the hit and miss engine ( the Gen. itself ) ... I have seen one set up this way on this site somewhere but I have been on in a long time and cant seem to fine it.. any help ?

[Flux]

The idea should work ok, the only problem may be matching the speed to the power available.

 Cut in should be plenty low enough, your engine will not want to be run above about 450rpm and if you have more output at that speed than your alternator can maintain then increase the air gap.

Don't forget that wind rating is very intermittent, with an engine drive you will have to limit the output to keep the stator temperature safe. You may find this is 500W or less if you run for long periods.

Certainly the alternator is in the right region speed wise and if you have the star point brought out you may do much better changing the connection to delta or IRP.

Flux

[kc5etv]

Flux
 Thanks for your help, Good to here from you , looking forward to getting it going , I will let you know how to goes.

Thanks again Have a Good one..

[DanB]

Just a couple of thoughts.
my guess is your wind turbine alternator is designed to start charging at 140 rpm, (give or take a bit).
If you run it way fast (500 rpm)..... it's just going to be terribly inefficient and likely burn out.
You should consider rewinding the stator so that cut in (the point at which it starts charging) is at much higher rpm ~ or.... (if you have the money and want to play with it) get an MPPT controller that can deal with the higher voltage. 

My generator runs at 600 rpm, it hits average battery voltage at about 550 rpm and it's pretty efficient and works well.  No way though could I expect to have a real low rpm alternator off a 10' wind turbine and run it that fast and expect anything other than a burnout.

Basically mine is a 48V system and I'm running a stator very close to what i would wind for a 12 V system (if it were on a wind turbine).  And it's pretty efficient (doesn't warm up much).  Other folks have done similar things with midnight classic controllers and gotten slightly better results than me (but it costs money).