Ever since last year's new tower build, I've enjoyed power from
Spirit of Zubbly.
https://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,150448.0.htmlThat wind turbine was built in phases, where the first phase was the conversion of a 3HP motor into a generator, then carving of 10' diameter blades from laminated cedar wood, and finally a 70' truss-tower. It worked great, so I should be satisfied.
But nothing is perfect, especially not me. So here I go again.
This is Toshi, a 7.5 HP motor that I converted into a generator a very long time ago (2008!). It's been sitting on a shelf ever since, waiting for its day in the sun. Time to do that.
Basic stats:
Toshiba 7.5 Horsepower nameplate rating
Totally enclosed fan-cooled
Original ratings at 230V parallel / 460V series
Reconfigurable wiring to star and Delta
4-pole winding, 1740 RPM rated speed
125 pounds, cast iron case.
Here's the final assembly process as the rotor was gently lowered into the stator. I say gently but I mean "as much as possible". With 24 big magnets it went gently until the forces ramped up, stretched the suspension rope and slammed into place. Never coming out again!
I could recap the conversion process but frankly it was so long ago I don't remember much! I posted about the process on Fieldlines at the time but I can't find it now (before 2010 searches get sketchy). I started a page on my site but I never finished it...
http://sparweb.ca/toshiba/I guess you can say this motor-conversion hasn't got the attention it deserves until now.
Probably the most important thing about Toshi is that I thoroughly tested it using a lathe to drive the shaft against a variety of electrical loads. I ran it up to the peak power of the lathe, pulling 2kW out at times. Those tests will be extremely valuable because the data will let me corroborate what I'm measuring when it's up on the tower.
This summer I have been gradually building parts to mount it into
Spirit of Zubbly. I won't take credit for much originality here: I have a mount system that worked well for the Baldor 3HP conversion which I'm replicating for the Toshi conversion. Everything is a bit bigger, but otherwise the same. I'll post pictures so that you can see how it works.
I've actually been working on it for a while. Not posting about it, because I'd rather be in the shop than at my computer these days, please forgive me. So this is a bit of catch-up on my part.
There are several important topics on my mind as I plan to put Toshi into
Spirit of Zubbly.
1) Matching an oversized generator to my my 10' diameter blade set will be challenging.
2) Experimenting with MPPT control
3) Reconfiguring the battery bank to 48VDC
4) Scaling up my tail furling mechanism to see if it works as well when it's 50% larger
5) Datalogging to confirm performance predictions of mismatching and matching
6) Selecting a new diameter of blades to build, based on measurements to match the generator
7) Experimenting with non-battery loads, such as resistance heaters
Not necessarily in that order.