Fieldlines.com: The Otherpower discussion board

ugg!!

I made the mistake to just keep winding before I checked if the shape actually fits the template or not ;(

30 winds at 1mm diam. each coil times 6 of them stacked

But at least this tells me we have got an incredible amount of space left to either compress the coils more narrow or fill it up with a heat dissipation agent like this CU 150um iron powder (I think the CU means non electro conductive due to some coating the particles have gotten)

I am waiting for more steel, to serve as back plating, to arrive as my results without it seem to be subpar

I have now relatively old Sunny Boys (1100s and a 1200) more than a decade old, in my loft.

I have not sat next to them at peak generation but I can't say that I've noticed any significant noise from them at all.

Rgds

Damon

For a long time I had an old Xantrex SW4024 inverter, which was a great workhorse inverter until mice built a nest in it, and it had to be scrapped.  It worked well, but it was loud.  Immediately after installing it in my "battery shed" and switching it on, I thought, "well that's never going in the house".  Louder than a clothes dryer.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and I'm shopping for another inverter, which I would install in the house if it's quiet.  But I can't find one.  All this solid-state switching power supplies replacing coils of copper, but it's still just as noisy.  If an inverter has any noise rating at all (some don't) it's pretty loud, like 60dB.  That's actually quite loud, especially for a noise that is constantly humming away.  The layout of my house puts the systems (electrical, heat, water etc.) in the center and the rooms radiate outward.  That doesn't allow the inverter to be installed far away from bedrooms, the dining room, or the living room. 

Outback doesn't give any noise data, but the installation manual for the Radian says this, "Avoid large air gaps behind the Radian inverter/charger and its mounting plate. These can result in louder mechanical noise during heavy inverting or charging."  LOUDER?

Sunny Boy is 45 dB
SRNE is 60dB
Fronius is "<65dB"

These are all about as loud, or louder, than a clothes dryer.  I can choose to close the door of my laundry room, but the electrical panel, where I would locate an inverter, is not isolated like that.

The Sunny Boy is the quietest I have found.  Can anyone report their experience of the noise emitted by a SB inverter when it's inverting heavy loads?
Another solution is to use string inverters like Enphase, but that limits my options drastically. 

Does anyone know of a quiet grid-tie inverter?

I have watched the video of Topspeed. It is a nice explanation of how such a windmill works. However, there is one substantial mistake. It is said that the vane is in parallel to the wind if the rotor turns out op the wind but this isn't correct. As the rotor has a certain eccentricity e and as the rotor has a certain thrust Ft, the rotor moment Mr = Ft * e. This rotor moment must be in balance with the vane moment Mv around the tower axis. The vane moment is the product of the force on the vane blade Fv and the vane radius rv at the aeodynamic centre of the vane blade. So Mv = Fv * rv. Fv is about linear to the angle of attack alfa in between the vane blade and the wind direction. You only get a certain Fv if the vane blade makes a certain angle alfa with the wind direction. So the vane blade is never in parallel to the wind direction for stationairy conditions. The angle alfa depends on the vane geometry and the wind speed. The higher the wind speed, the smaller the angle. The vane moment due to the aerodynamic force on the vane blade around the vane axis must also be in balance with the spring moment Ms around the vane axis.

This safety system is called the ecliptic safety system and more information about it is given in my public report KD 409. I have used a torsion spring around the vane axis because the spring moment of a torsion spring increases only a little for an increasing angle of rotation around the vane axis. The moment of a tension spring varies a lot because the distance of the heart of the spring and the heart of the vane axis is very dependent of the angle of rotation of the vane arm. I have chosen that the tower axis coincides with the vane axis because this simplifies the moment equations a lot.

I still have a bunch of those.
I was given my first Mims book (the very one in your picture) when I was 14 years old.  Learning to build little oscillators with 555's and other projects.
The 200-in-1 project kits came soon after.

Thanks for the memories, JW! 

I worked as a manager of a radio shack franchise when I was 16... sold a TOM of the Mims books!

Tube in tube I would use oil as the heated medium... minimal expansion that could be handled by an expansion chamber keeping working pressure low to non existent...

Just a thought. Could even recycle used motor oil as the heated medium, filtered to get rid of particulates. Oil is a pretty decent heat exchange medium, better than air./sand would be. Downside is any leaks would make a mess...

I am glad I made your weekend brother. Love is indeed the intend.

So I actually mean Hz in voltage waveform. Like on the oscope pictures I share from time to time.

Given there are 96 magnets on a single rotor disk that rotate fully every 12.something {1}closer to the 13 mark{/1} seconds that equates to around 4 RPM and around 3.7Hz of full voltage waveform.

I realize it is a bold goal. I think I can get there.

Now I am ok if we forget about magnets to watts. Let us focus on how to quantify things this early in the prototyping stage yes?

All I care about is to be able to say something that people will believe. And also not to just build and build only to find I missed something crucial ending up with an alternator that does next to nothing.

Quote from: brandnewb on February 22, 2024, 08:14:19 AM

Also Ed, You know that I love you so that is why I have not send back the 16 magnets yet.

That's the second time that someone told me that they love me today. Cool, that's a good way to start my weekend. 

Hz is cycles per second. 3.7 cycles, or magnets passes over the coils in 1 second equals 222 RPM.

Is that how fast you want the turbine to spin?

I am sure that you mean 3.7 RPM and not 3.7 Hz. Right?

Ed

also, please allow me to be perfectly clear.

I am complaining a lot about charlatans and snake oil.

None of the people that interact with me here are addressed. It is mostly the endless videos I can find online and also of course the cheap products sold as a gazzilion KW alternator from our friends in the east.

On top of that I have seen quite a few "start ups" selling/promoting their "new" design. It's out there and it's rampant.

I am mad because I fell victim once. Because back then I was just as clueless as I am to this very day. Hmm ok a bit less now than back then.

So hence my nagging about how to quantify things.
In essence it is not about me being able to show that I have something great. Of course that would be great if that results from all of this.
But the real goal is to be able to fend off or hold accountable the many many scams out there.

Wind has a bad reputation because it has been abused for far too long.

it is my mission in life to do something about that!.

Hopefully Flavio will see this. When we were finished with all work we did I took him off the PHP database. I did this so no one can get blamed if something bad happens. Also he wouldn't accept any ,payments for work being done, I don't like that. He is a professional sub contractor for us.

I'm unable to post pictures.

When I click submit, I get "path cannot be empty" error.  If I try to submit a second time (even if I delete the attach reference and clear the file from the upload) another error pops up: "you already submitted this post!".

It gets stuck there if I don't back out to the forum, re-open the thread, and try to post again, fresh.

For the same reasons I can't attach screen-shots of the problem, but I did take a couple. :/

Hey, that's the same video I just saw, Bruce.  The Youtube algorithm knows we know each other now.

I've been mulling over the usefulness of water, just like Mary suggested.  I think the ability to heat the sand up above 300F, or higher than boiling water is an advantage that you can't use if you add water.  If it's a closed loop, some glycol in the water would help use higher temperatures.  The mixture of sand and water might also be a problem if it needs filtering, silt traps drains, etc., to work for a long period of time.

Tube-in-tube heat exchange is the standard, taught to every mechanical engineer in thermodynamics class.  If you build one, remember to include temperature sensors on inlets and outlets.  A simple feedback control makes a big difference in the efficiency, worth the effort.

To keep it as KISS as possible, what can be done with a simple tank of sand with an electric heater in it?  One thing is to just use it like an old-fashioned cottage stove - it heats the room by radiating its heat through the sides.  Careful not to touch it though.  For a small insulated building, this could make a big difference.

Another way is to pass the ductwork in your house through a sand tank.  This sounds like it would work, as long as the sand makes lots of surface contact with the duct, or else the air will blow by without picking up much heat.  Think of a basement air duct about 8 inches diameter and you fit a 12" duct around it, filled with sand and some lengths of nichrome wire encapsulated.  Wrap the outside of the 12" duct with insulation so that the sand doesn't just heat the basement.  When the central heating blows air from the furnace, it will be heated a second time by the sand heater.  The central thermostat will detect the house warming up faster, and will shut off the furnace sooner.  The furnace would not run as much, saving on heating.  If the sand heater is driven by PV, the electricity is free.  It would take some math to figure out if the amount of energy collected this way and the heat-exchange process would add up to a noticeable effect.

And please all you have got to see this!

It is about how difficult it is to back down to a statement one made early on.

Especially if it has gotten a lot of traction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R9cIDjXH2k
(JW, you and I both know this is just and ID QS yes?)

Now I for one am just so blunt that it is rather easy for me to admit when I made a mistake.


Yet what if I had to back track after acclaim?

I am actually thankful JW. Now I have again in my playlist this song!!

And in some ways I think what you tried to tell me is that I am needed.

Thank you JW!

Reply

Here my obvious looking/.

For Me its ben posting videos

The system, login

nooooooo. even before the storm hit, yeah sure things are picking up already here, I already have to take her down.

It is the part that prevents the upper bearing from slipping down that is in serious need of redesign.

nooo. Now I have missed this window op opportunity to see thing horribly go wrong

So I have some time again now.

I am back again at an IR (inner radius) of 600mm because that will roughly double the velocity at which the magnets spin over the coils and roughly double the area we get for the coil wires to play in.

But to my shock I was unable to measure/demonstrate the expected effect.
You see I tried using a 25 winds coil at the original (600mm IR, 3.75 interval, traditional, dual rotor, single stator) and got crap results. Not at all what I expected.

So now I need to figure out what it is I am doing wrong. And yes I did check the proper connection to the oscope 

{1}I would love it if anyone would just blurp out any random thought of what can be going on here and/or how to zero in on a possible root cause.{/1}
{2}Also the most important revelation to me is that one should not be looking for a straight line in magnetic fields in between rotors. Some dispersion adjacent wise will actually help for the coil shapes I am considering.{/2}

So gang. first most please accept my humble apologies for being stubborn.

It is one of those self defense mechanisms that kick in when information gets too difficult for me to process in a, for me, suitable time frame so I just default back to where I was.

It is nothing personal nor will it ever be.

So here is my update thus far.

!!If at any time someone feels I should demonstrate because something does not make sense then please do so to signal that. Because then I will and maybe we find I blundered again.
If it all makes sense to you then I am also content to just go with this flow!!

Context: 300mm radius ID of magnets spaced at a 3.75 degree interval.
Considering non stacked (traditionally spaced with an air gap of around 20mm (4 times that of the magnet thickness) 24 coils per phase) coils even though wider of nature than stacked coils will need about 280 winds to end up in the 2.something volts sphere.
While when stacking coils (48 per phase) in this context only needs coils to be 50 winds to end up in the 1.something sphere of volts.

And I think I can explain why.
You see magnetic fields when induced by electromagnets (the coils) they do interfere with each other. But then in a good way. In where overlapping phases compound.
And here comes the kicker!! The adjacent pole in the same phase does not counteract the other. Not al all!

I just love magnetic fields soo much If only I understood them

Overmore the field around said coils is non biased for direction. It is a sphere so that means that my earlier worry of having tilted coils would harm the interaction with the magnets seems debunked.
But I know for sure once I start the torque tests. Now I am still in the finding out what configuration actually stands a chance of getting where I need to get.

Anyway all this has set me back on track with the original plan to go for a large diameter. a 300mm ID {1}inner radius{/1}was just to see. Now I have seen and I can tell. Nah that diameter will never work for my goals of having 52vAC at 3.7Hz (yes it is 3.7Hz not 3.8Hz like I have been mentioning earlier)

Also Ed, You know that I love you so that is why I have not send back the 16 magnets yet. I will keep them ready and waiting so that later on once I have some real life data I can setup a gear ratio to have this suggested setup spin around 20 times faster than what I am making. Just to compare results.
In case my configuration lacks behind then we have a clear indication why not to go with a direct drive for a low RPM VAWT.

I have more to say but no time to write it now.

 




 https://www.ebay.com/itm/404797311302?itmmeta=01HQ7WA3DF5FSZJDCFPSC4S1HV
 

HAAA!
I knew I could find the kit with the bread board 

 https://www.google.com/search?q=electronic+learning+kits+200+and+wiz-serp
 https://www.ebay.com/itm/116017994233?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/9VgAAOSwOnRlhhgO/s-l1600.jpg



https://www.ebay.com/itm/116017994233?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0

machinemaker;
The little "test" units I built convinced me that going the route of tube-in-tube . Might be called heat exchangers.
My old Mercedes had two copper tubes, one inside the other, I plumbed the outside pipe through my coolant system that in-turn warmed up the bio-diesel.
The guy who bought the car was schooled on how it all worked and why I had two separate fuel tanks.
 I'll dig around and see if I still have a pic of the setup.

I found that heating the sand is actually quite easy, but getting the sand to give up the heat was much harder.
So I'm going to rebuild it and use the tube-in-tube heat exchange setup to see if it's a bit better.
I'm thinking of building a heliostat to use the sun directly to heat the sand area rather than rely on diversion dump loads to connected to a NiChr bank heater.

Cheers
Bruce S

Yes I have  .
I used an old toaster NiChr to build one using a couple tins and cheap play sand.
Worked pretty well to heat the sand, but getting the heat back out of the sand is a lot harder than even I expected.
I'm currently working on redoing it by using a tube-in-tube setup like I did for my bio-diesel heating system.
Below is a link of the vid that I used to model mine from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icai6OOIh2M

Hope this helps
Bruce S

Primitive central American versions

One displayed on this music video.

Anybody heard of them?  Tried to build one?

I just heard about this, and saw a video about building one.  This "battery" is meant to store heat, not electricity.  There are a few examples in commercial use or experiments, and I found a DIY video on Youtube.