Latest VAWT

[cardamon]

Here is the latest VAWT idea that "works even when there is hardly any wind at all."  Why do so many people think there is a goldmine of energy down at 2 m/s wind?

http://m.wimp.com/windselectricity/

[kitestrings]

I think we better start clear-cutting and installing these in place of the existing vegetation.  This is a hoot!  ~ks

[electrondady1]

actually those little mills are very close to the things i build.
 but about 1/3 the size.
 someone  spent a lot of money  tooling up.
 it looks like two duplicate injection molded pieces.

[tanner0441]

Hi

I wonder how noisy they are in a good wind. They remind me of the little aroplanes we had as kids where they were on string like a kite, the wings rotated and made a loud buzzing noise as they flew.

Several photographs but not one graph or set of test results, be OK at Christmas with a few pretty LEDs draped through the branches.

Brian.

[electrondady1]

it's a drag configuration there shouldn't be any noise.

[keithturtle]

"Installed in the [public square] by March" 

I wonder how many cell phones it will charge at the same time? Texting on wind power sounds so cool  green!

Turtle

[cardamon]

Without doing any math, its seems like $37,000 price tag payed off in two years is pretty optimistic no?

[TDC]

Without doing any math, its seems like $37,000 price tag payed off in two years is pretty optimistic no?

At the wind speeds they mention, it should power a light bulb.  I don't get it, a scam is the only thing I can imagine.    http://usvawt.com/cgi/windpower.cgi

[greenenergyexperimenter]

Kind of reminds me of the kid that designed the solar cell tree 

I read about a study from Caltech that demonstrated that VAWTs can be used together in a wind farm to produce 3 times the power of a HAWT farm using only a tenth of the height. The fact that the turbines in the video all spin the same direction tells me that the findings of this study were not implemented.

[keithturtle]

Why do so many people think there is a goldmine of energy down at 2 m/s wind?

There is a significant difference in free-spinning in the wind, and applying the drag of a dynamo at those speeds.  That's why the cell charger or single lightbulb application seems the most realistic, at least with hte small cross-section catching the breeze.

ED1, didn't your design have about 3 times the surface area?

Turtle

[electrondady1]

i guess.
 i cut mine back from 20"x60" to 20"x48"

 I'm just jealous of the guys tooling.
I'm thinking the mold required to build those little mills is probably $35,000 dollars,maybe more.
but the price of the green  injection molded part maybe $4.00 out of  $0.10 of recycled
 polyethylene
i checked out an extrusion die to do mine, $25,000
i just heard of something called  crowed sourcing..

[DamonHD]

@ed1 There are slightly cheaper alternatives to injection molding that we're looking at for our OpenTRV unit, such as vacuum forming.  But still not much change out of a buck for tooling...  %-P

Rgds

Damon