CNC Machined Wind Turbine

[fabricator]

Read my post again, I never said you do not understand the Betz limit, I said you do not believe it is an actual limit, if that is not true I apologize.

[Frank S]

  Isn't the anonymity of the internet great? we never know who is reading or on the other end of things unless we can sit down and have a cup of coffee with them. IF each of us were to publish a 30 pg CV about ourselves Plus in some of our cases dozens of 20,000 word thesis we tossed out before settling on THE ONE. we still wouldn't know much about each other.
 I drool over his set up but for now I will make do with my 35 year old Du-more versi Mill II and my Harrison 280 Manual /CNC lathe I am rebuilding and my Clarkston MK I  tool & cutter grinder I am rebuilding in 1 of my bedrooms. While I research and design a radial flux of my own. while learning a lot of the jargon which is a lot different than the jargon I used to use in the patch years ago

[birdhouse]

thing-
just curous, have you started a thread on the mppt controller you plan to build on the cheap?  i'm sure many here would be interested to see what you have in the works...  especially if you went into "forum production" much like Ghurd.   

i've seen you mention it in a few posts, yet know little about it. 

adam

[fabricator]

Don't hold your breath.

[Menelaos]

Hi Guys,

I would like to go back to the question of power control in high winds as I feel that this is an important Issue.

Sure, the turbine looks nice but I doubt that it will still look nice after some real wind...
Once it runs away in a heavy gust, the alternator will not be able to limit the blades speed and for me it is only a matter of time until this happens.
If there are winds of 20 m/s or more, the machine will run away(!) It is not safe the way it is now.

Max

[Frank S]

one of the better ways would be to slip the tail off at the main housing and add a furling pivot . with your abilities you could make a really nice looking one that would not detract from the overall appearance of the machine.

[Frank S]

you could design an active pitch control to fit under a nose cone with your 5 blade design you would have to watch your clearances but doable
http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,145925.msg1006909.html#msg1006909

[GoVertical]

thing-
just curous, have you started a thread on the mppt controller you plan to build on the cheap?  i'm sure many here would be interested to see what you have in the works...  especially if you went into "forum production" much like Ghurd.   

i've seen you mention it in a few posts, yet know little about it. 

adam

Hi, I found this MPPT open source project.

http://www.zilog.com/docs/z8encorexp/appnotes/an0223.pdf

[Menelaos]

I feel that for such a small turbine an active pitch system would be over the top...

What about helicopter ?

[Frank S]

nothing is over the top if it protects a work of art LOL

you could design an active pitch control to fit under a nose cone with your 5 blade design you would have to watch your clearances but doable
http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,145925.msg1006909.html#msg1006909

with your blade mount design you could machine the mount tangs of the blades round , press a hardened sleeve over them then machine housing to serve as the pillow blocks you see in the link press in a sleeve of gun metal to be the brg, add a control tang on the blades connect them to link bars on a ring plate with a hefty spring compressed under it  @ full collapsed the blades would be 90 deg to wind stream that plus a furling tail you would be pretty well covered for over speed but you could add the 3 phase lock down switch for added safety.

 looking at your machine again and again I don't see any real problems adding these features all the while not changing the overall appearance   

[Bruce S]

Don't hold your breath.

Fab;
Don't do these type of posts. Let's let this post get back on track.
K
Thanks
Bruce S

[fabricator]

Noted.

[Frank S]

basically that's what pitch control is but instead of needing a gymble swash-plate & bearings you just have the link bars connected to a plate & the blades with heim-joints, the plate pushes against a stiff spring
 Your blades would feather in real nice with their tapered contour 

[Mary B]

As someone mentioned how about tilt back furling. On such a small machine it should be pretty smooth.

[mroy0404]

Im not sure what you mean by tilt back furling, could you attach a sample pic?

[Frank S]

with tilt back furling the stronger the wind is the farther from horizontal the machine is tilted. Or that is how I interpret it

[Mary B]

Yup stronger the wind gets the further up and back everything tilts.

[Menelaos]

Thats exactly what I meant with "helicopter"...

Here is a video to an Antaris-Turbine made by Braun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mClBii1czQA

Works really reliable. But it is important to have the tail fixed to the structure so that it does not tilt back together with the rotor head, otherwise the turbine will swing around and crash back into the wind...

Max

[mroy0404]

@Menelaos

That is interesting, it looks to take the over speed away, maybe it works to well really. I have been thinking about installing a small Electromagnet an having the electronics monitor the RPM along with power output and apply the Electromagnet as a brake. something simple like this could work.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V-400N-90lbs-Holding-Electromagnet-Lift-Solenoid-ZYE1-P49-21-/130708195514?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e6ed0c8ba#ht_3165wt_1110

[Menelaos]

One of those magnets will not be powerful enough to get a real braking effect in really strong winds where it is needed...
Furthermore I don't like the idea that it needs power for braking. It should still work when the electronics fail. Your tubine is small anyway and those high speed blades will stall quickly anyway. I don't see the need for an electronic braking system, furling or spring loaded tilt back will work well. With the strength of the spring you could also easily adjust the wind speed that is desired for the tilt back system to get into action during testing...

Max

[Watt]

It seems there is a power curve for this turbine right here. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wind-Turbine-12-volt-/180897363401?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1e52b5c9

Makes me go hmmm...  with reservations. 

Here is what the auction for this turbine shows for a power curve?

[fabricator]

As per usual with these things that are  sold on feebay, that graph is worthless without wind speed, it's definitely a very well built delco clone, so it would fall under the hobby category.
A person would be far, far better off using the $4k bux and buying solar, 4kW of solar is gonna beat that thing all to hell and gone.

[jlt]

My bet a 120 watt solar panel would would put out twice the power .

                              JLT

[Menelaos]

I do not like the way this is done...
There is no experience with this wind turbine and random data is put into the auction to confuse people with that power curve that is completely nonsense...

I didn't want to upset anybody so I didn't say anything...but I know these blades well....They are a disaster. The overall performance is really poor and they are very noisy with hardly any start up torque.

I would recommend to use different blades...

MAx

[CraigM]

It seems there is a power curve for this turbine right here. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wind-Turbine-12-volt-/180897363401?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1e52b5c9

Seeing that ebay auction is really disappointing. A number of us asked in this posting to see the output curve and we were told it wasn't available. Now it seems, at least for the purpose of questionable, perhaps even misleading sales data here it is. I would think a person who is proud of their workmanship would also have the integrity to understand their product and the honesty to not mislead the ill-informed.

Just disappointed,
CM

[fabricator]

Bruce, I believe snake oil sales people should be banned from a forum that tries to do the right thing.

[mroy0404]

@fabricator
Im not sure where your going with this, I in no way posted anything to do with sales! read every post. No sales pitch has been made.


Im only here to get good info. from smart ppl.

The power curve chart is info. I got with the PMA. if this is misleading anyone I will remove from the listing.

[mroy0404]

I do not like the way this is done...
There is no experience with this wind turbine and random data is put into the auction to confuse people with that power curve that is completely nonsense...

I didn't want to upset anybody so I didn't say anything...but I know these blades well....They are a disaster. The overall performance is really poor and they are very noisy with hardly any start up torque.

I would recommend to use different blades...

MAx

Menelaos , what is it you don't like? Could you recommend other blades, I will look at all options.
Thank you for your input

[thingamajigger]

@menelaos

Your tubine is small anyway and those high speed blades will stall quickly anyway. I don't see the need for an electronic braking system, furling or spring loaded tilt back will work well. With the strength of the spring you could also easily adjust the wind speed that is desired for the tilt back system to get into action during testing...

This may be ok where your at however here is Canada things are a little different, temperature ranges from -50C to +40C, driving rain, ice, sleet, snow and then there is the freezing rain. Furling and spring loaded systems are completely useless here because they are not dependable in any way shape or form. The only real thing that works is to brake the rotor with electronics which is my preference or a mechanical braking system.

@fabricator

Bruce, I believe snake oil sales people should be banned from a forum that tries to do the right thing.

Lol, the thing is who will decide who is legitimate and who is not --- you?. Is the right thing unjustified criticism of things some people do not understand?, be very careful of what you wish for you just might get it.

Regards
Thing

[Menelaos]

well, concerning the blades I do know some guys here in Germany that make great blades that are really quiet...but over there...I have no clue what they offer. All I can say is that those blades are near to crap :-(

Concerning Furling/ tilt back etc...

You wouldn't believe it but over here we have winter time as well...there is always a chance of things freezing but for the tail of the furling I have not yet discovered that as it is always slightly vibrating or moving from time to time. Have you made experiences with that or are you just guessing?

Max

[mroy0404]

Menelaos

Could you send  me a link to these great blades in Germany, I dont mind shipping cost if I get the best blades!! As for the the furling, I have not done any testing yet. Thinking the best way of speed control for this turbine would be with electronics.

[Menelaos]

Well..ok.

First of all there is one guy in saxony. Thats the guy that makes those turbines that I posted some posts back to demonstrate the tilt back system. he makes hand.laminated blades of great quality that will last forever. He has a great variety of blades, not only the ones that you see on his website. The best solution would be to call him oder write an email.

http://www.heyde-windtechnik.de/rotorbl.htm

he is expensive but makes Quality.

The second solution (and this is what I had in mind when I was posting) is a guy called Günter Hacker. He also sales small wind turbines up tp only 1.5 m diameter. The blades look like bananas, its a little strange...but the performance its amazing and the blades are the most quiet ones I have ever seen. You really never hear them- impressive.

You find the contact details on the overview of dealers on our homepage:

http://www.kleinwindanlagen.de/Homepage/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=77

The blades shown alre only just under one meter in diameter but he has bigger ones that would fit.

Chris Olson and otehrs have made good experiences with the powermax blades. Those guys are located in the USA and prices are really cheap compared to the ones I showed here. About quality I can not tell...its china stuff, can be great or crap but the airfoil is S901 which is ok as well...

Max


edit.

I did write an email to the second guy to ask for a price, lets see what he says...

We also do have these blades in our online shop:

http://kleinwindanlagen.de/Shop-KWK/index.php?a=24

But those are the ones with only about 1m diameter which is too small for yours but you can have a look at the pictures there to get an impression..

[fabricator]

So you are selling a turbine on feebay with no idea of the actual numbers it will put out, using a completely meaningless graph, that is the definition of a scam, I would suggest you remove the machine from feebay until you can give customers actual real world numbers, that is what this board is all about, those numbers with that blade setup will be dismal, but at least they will be the truth.
There are several blade makers in the US, Royal Wind and Solar for one, I know of another new blade builder but I don't think he would want anything to do with this fiasco.
Your machining skills are up to snuff, just hold off on going for the quick and dirty buck until you have all your ducks in a row.