Easy to build Rotary drum turbine cheap and easy

[oztules]

Well there has been a little bit of a stir on a few sites lately regarding the Seeley motor and its use as a turbine. A lot of talk has been how to mount the blades to the plastic housing.

For a stator capable of producing KW's of power, this seems difficult, as there is no inherent strength in the original design to mount decent blades to.

I decided to look at it another way. Use the unique stator and throw out the rest and start from scratch.

I think even Flux has a soft spot for the rotary, but until now I see that ease of manufacture, and inability to change the air gap are two of it's shortcomings.

With this in mind, I decided to use a novel way to produce a turbine drum with no tools other than a hacksaw and a welder.

It's easy and do-able. It has a side benefit that changing the airgap is simple and fast (providing you dont overdo the tack welds for the drum/disk interface.)

The complete story is here: http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5171/seely.html

It has 20 poles, and produces 54v at 120rpm with a 15ohm resistance. Designed for around 2-300 rpm, it should produce 2kw or more@110v and 40-50 hz. A transformer would match this very well, and allow load matching without too much loss.

Well it was fun and I learn't a few things along the way.

........oztules

[wdyasq]

Pretty. Nice work - looks like you have built an inexpensive and yet productive device.

Ron

[2windy]

Where can I find one of those Seely stators? Are they in the US yet? Looks great,good job!

[vawtman]

Heres a link to Seeley International that Bruce told me about.

http://www.seeley.com.au/

I think and has oz mentioned it wouldnt be hard to homebrew.

 Mine is inside out but sorta simular when done.

 Oz if you see this nice job wasnt able to comment on your posting(not the first time thats happened)Must have been banned somehow.Or weird things here.

[TomW]

Vman;

 Oz if you see this nice job wasnt able to comment on your posting(not the first time thats happened)Must have been banned somehow.Or weird things here.

Well, to start with that link he posted is a web page in his files NOT a forum story.

Not sure why he does it like that but he does and it seems to have confused you as well as others. It would be pretty unusual if someones posting about doing would be blocked from comment postings. That action is usually reserved for the trolls or other annoying wannabe stuff.

Cheers.

TomW

[BruceDownunder]

Hello Ozzie,

 Very nice work  - Congratulations.

This surely will make me change my ideas and just copy your set-up.

 Could you post what blades you intend to drive this ,please ?

Thanks for the very interesting instructions.

Bruce

[oztules]

Sorry Vawtman,

As Tomw rightly points out, this story is in my files as seely.html.

It was done this way because to file a story using the usual process would necessatate a long long battle with scoop. This is not intended as a criticism, but I find scoop difficult to use when you try and do a large story with lots of pics.

The story was put together over a week (which may explain why it is a bit disjointed) as I have been busy doing all sorts of things for other folks. I figured this would solve the time problem.

I may try cut and paste with scoop next time.

It was not my intention to mess things up for you, I shall try to do it via scoop next time perhaps

.........oztules

[zubbly]

hey OZ!

damn nice work and definately an original method you came up with.

my hat is off to you!  

zubbly

[oztules]

Hi Bruce, this is a 1500w stator machine not 1800w as I thought in IRC. You were right I was wrong.

Re the blades, I'm kinda hoping for suggestions from the folks that know better than me.

I'm guessing 4 to 4.5M should about so it. Furl at 28mph and up (actually change pitch at around this mark) but am open to suggestions.

This being a pretty fair wind area, I expect it will spend a lot of the time in the 200rpm range in around 20 mph windbut I'm open to suggestions about this.

If you use your standard mag config that comes with the motor, this would be different.... maybe 3m-3.5m

........oztules

[oztules]

Thanks Zubbly...

Not quite an induction motor rebuild, but the rotary iron core lives on.   (Even though this one is inside out from yours).

It does allow for air-gap alteration, and an easy fix for stators of any size.

Hopefully this will help those on a tight budget to get a bigggy up in the air. The weight is quite moderate for the projected power too. It's easy to lift up. The basic tools required are really only angle grinder/cutter, hacksaw and welder.... A lathe will help tidy up the job, but not a nesessity.

Hopefully it will inspire some interest in the old iron core as a reasonable alternative to the more magnet and wire hungry axials.

This would not have happened if not for your continued interest in iron core as an alterantive.... I would have not considered it as I had all the gear for a few axials. Dinges strident defense of the iron core helped in my thinking as well.

Long live the iron cored stator...

.........oztules

[vawtman]

Hi Tom

 Learn something new everyday

 What i got was red lettering saying (form invalid key and 50 words or less thingy)

 It would take me a couple hours to type 50 words.Thanks

 Oz dont worry about it and glad i got through.Im gonna sleep on a couple questions for you.

 Thanks.

[oztules]

2windy,

The Seeley site is of no value to you, these stators are from a different source. I'm not sure Seeley would approve of their stators being used like this.

If you get onto IRC, bruce or bryan may well be able to procure 1 for you. Shipping will be high, unless you get just the stator, its weight is not that significant.

Thanks for the compliment, it was really just a proof of concept thing. Will do a proper job next time.

........oztules

[DanB]

Its very nice stuff Oz... thank you!  Inspiring.

Yes-  with scoop its quite easy just to write you html somewhere else and paste it in.  It does make it easier to find that way in searches I think if you keep it on the board - but either way seems to work fine.

[TomW]

Vman;

form invalid key and 50 words or less thingy

Well, that is semi well documented bug. a ["] or other punctuation usually causes that so removing punctuation in the reply subject or changing it fixes that.

Cheers.

TomW

[oztules]

Thanks Danb,

If you have any thoughs on prop size I would be more than idly interested in your opinion. The wind here is like this

and I think they are a bit conservative compared to this side of the Island. They are protected from the easterlies and south westerlies where they measure it.

........oztules

[DanB]

Thats hard to say the way it is now.  The resistance is high and the cutin speed is low...  I'd be inclined to rewind it for lower resistance and a higher cutin speed (or maybe hookup the coils differently if you can).  I don't think the way it is now a 'conventional' turbine blade of any size would work out very well - and it would be nice to avoid transformers.  

Maybe if the battery bank was very high voltage (like 96V or so) it would be happy with a 6' blade on it...  (Im just shooting from the hip here and I may not have a good grip on the nature of the alternator).  15 ohms is a lot though - are you sure thats right?

[commanda]

Seems to me the Seely is not that much different to the Fisher & Paykel stator.

Oh no; here comes yet another project.............

Amanda

[WXYZCIENCE]

Oztules, is there any cogging with this unit. Physically what is the diameter of the magnet rotor, and what was the final weight.
Joseph.

[oztules]

Joe,

final rotor size is 350mm

The unit does not cog at all (it cant... no teeth)

Stator size is 280mm

Unit weighs around 50lbs thereabouts

Just put it in the lathe to try out the windings. With 2x240v 150W flood lights off it.(one phase only) Loaded winding had 230v unloaded other winding was 242v It dropped about 12v under a 300w load. 530 rpm (89hz) dropped about 1.3v across a 1R resistor (so 1.3A in series. Hope that helps... oh and the coils ran cold.

Is this right... if I lost 12v in a 15R stator then W=E^2/R.. w=144/15 =9.6W loss in the coils.@300W drain..... explains why no heat in the coils I suppose. Something seems to be too good to be true here. If this is the case, then when three phases are running, I may only loose 100w in heat in the stator@1.5kw... can this be right Joe?..

[oztules]

Hi Danb,

Thanks for your response. I am deliberatly going for transformers, hence my choice of stator. They seem the least electronic way to tackle max power out for min stator heat.

Am I sure the resistance in the stator is 15R.... I thought I was. Measured with ohm meter.. 15R... However I have a problem.

I mounted it in the lathe and got these results which I don't think I understand... maybe you can shed some light on this.

In the lathe: About 92Hz,(550rpm) I measured 1 open phase: 242Vac

On the second phase I loaded 300W of flood lights (2x150w) (240v) The voltage on the loaded phase was 230v (I had a 1R resistor in series with this and got 1.3v drop ie circuit was running 1.3A

So I had dropped 12v@1.3A across this 1 star coil. If E=IR then r=9.2 ohms. not the 15R I measured in the star winding ?... what have I done wrong? Is it looking like a root3 thing is happening here.

More surprising however.  I dropped 12v on a stator that measures 15R so Watts lost in the stator should be 12x12/15 ie 144/15=9.6W. if I use the 9R2 calculated figure it is 16W lost in the stator.

In three phase, I would loose just 30W or 48W for a combined output of 900W... The coils stayed very cool. One of these figures is probably correct, but either way, the stator sees very manageable losses for close on 1kw output.

By changing the load through changing the behaviour of the transformers, I hope to give the stator a fairly matched load over a large range. Different coupling techniques and winding ratios (not switching taps)should allow me to match the alt with little electronics at all.... thats the plan anyway.

I'm thinking that I need available 1.5kw of wind power at about 400rpm. This will give 180v @1kw, 340w/phase or 1.9A A loss of about 100w total in stator. This looks possible with a high tsr 3.6m set.

If I try to pull 1kw @300rpm, (130v)I will loose about 300W in the stator on those figures... starting to get high.

There is much testing to be done I think regarding primary turns (transformer)to get the best match to the stator impedance.

Or have I got this all messed up?

confused again

.......oztules

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Losses go with the square of the current.  (W = i^2*R)  You're losing 9.6 watts in one coil at 150 watts load.

If you get to your kilowatt by holding the (loaded output) voltage steady and raising the current until each of your two phases is delivering 500 watts you'll drop about 213 watts total in the two coils.  (Going from 150 to 500 watts by boosting output current multiplies the I2R losses by 11.111..., not by 3.333...)

[oztules]

Hi ULR,

Thanks for that . It's 3 phase.I badly explianed it I guess.

It developed 300W for the 9.6W loss on a single phase. (which of the two resistance values is valid though.... the static 15R or the calculated 9R) The other two phases were unloaded at the time.

The voltage drop (12v) was for the 300W load not the 150W (there were two of these big 150W globes in parallel hence the 300W)

Rather than raising the current any further, I'm assuming if I hook up 300w loads to the other two phases, i'll end up with three phases driving 300W each for a  30W loss for 900W output. (actually on those figures 333W x 3 will give us the 1kw at 30w loss ... is that about right)

 Not certain, but that looks too good to be true (which normally means it isn't). The cold coils gives me some hope though.

Thanks ULR

.......oztules

[vawtman]

Oz

 Heres a question for you and others,

 Do you think the seeley core would benefit from more than just a single strand layer of wire?I know it would be almost impossible to use the original stator.

 Thoughts

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

See if a paper clip will stick to the back of the steel wire.  If it will, a thicker layer will help.

[wdyasq]

vwatman gonna need a long arm....

Ron

[vawtman]

 Perfect, Thank you very much.

[willib]

Oz , it looks like you lucked out with the size magnets , you had on hand  and the spacing of the coils..

those ceiling fans i have , have the armature in the center and the rotor on the outside , if i could just get them apart i might be able to get some neos in there

i counted 14 coils , strange number..

the other day i picked up a 6 ton bottle jack that i'm going to use to make a press

anyway very nice work there ..

ps what would you call that a radial semi Iron core alt

RSIC

[oztules]

Hi Willib,

I didn't luck out completly

just tested again, and @720W @400rpm, i lost only 30v in the stator.@2.4A(x3)So I lost only 216W in the stator, for a 720w output. This is fairly good i should think, as the coils got less than luke warm in a 20min run period. (virtually stayed cold)

This should mean that a 3-3.6m prop at tsr7 should get this thing going very well.

I will rewind the transformer and see if we can squeeze some more out of the stator at these rpm.

overheating does not seem a prime consideration at this stage.

@500 rpm, in a different config (transformer) I lost only 30W in the stator for a 900w output.... so it's not a complete waste of time. (stator open volts=230v, loaded volts=218v r=15  into a 24v battery pack@30v Transformer open secondary was 58vac batts were 30vdc Secondary was only wound with 1.8mm wire. So in a 27mph wind this thing should account for itself very well. ( we have lots of that over here... and it's not just me)

But it is not what I wanted. I want good performance and good loss figures at a lower rpm (so I can use a bigger blade)So even though it is a good performer, i'll dump this one and move on. This one will give reasonable performance at low rpm, but stator losses mount fast as you decrease voltage and draw more power out. (e^2/R  R as Dan pointed out is high, but for 300v and up, is is very good ie@300v, it draws only 1.1A/phase for 1kw out. At 15r thats only a small loss..... unless I'm doing it all wrong)

Next stop is more poles, larger diam.... and more power (insert evil grin here)

Just gotta develop a good simple easy to build stator design

hopefully coming soon

If there is any info you want..... ask soon, as it will be unchucked from the lathe and be cannibalised in the near future.

...........oztules

[willib]

well since you asked , how about an open volts output for various RPM

i'll graph it if you want

[oztules]

Before transformer or after the tranny

i'll do one into a 300w 240v flood light as well

once i hook up the rectifier, the harmonics going back up the line confuses the hz meter. but ok with just r load

......oztules

[willib]

Before the transformer if possible and rectified three phase if possible

maybe with a high resistance load, just to smooth the wave

does the tranny load the alt down ? at all ..?

[oztules]

Tranny had no discernable effect at all even at start up freq (f=0 and moving up) It seems not to bevave as a short circuit like I was led to believe. It does not see i until the rectifier cuts in then runs without any problems.

test:

Ok I'll ditch the tranny rectify the three phase and drive the load... (flood lights, i think i have three, so 450w max)

that ok

........oztules

[willib]

i was just curious about the open volts three phase rectified dc