What inspired us to make windgenerators

[midwoud1]

 The Jacobs windmills used on expeditions at Antarctica by Admiral Byrd.
The Jacobs was still spinning after 20 years.
In 1955 National Geographic Mag. published an article of a survey camp at T3 island ,Arctica.
Later an Airbase in the cold war.

http://www.jacobswind.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/April-1955-National-Geographic.pdf

Rgds - Frans -

[electrondady1]

hey, that's the Canadian red ensign flag,
 what's it doing down there?

ok ok it looks like that image was taken  in the Canadian arctic
way back before we got our new flag.

my interest in windmills started after i bought this property and started to pay the hydro bills of my tenants!

[ChrisOlson]

The first wind turbines to generate electricity were built in the end of the 19th century by James Blyth in Scotland.  Another fellow, Poul la Cour in Denmark, built the first wind plant in the village Askov.  By 1908, 72 turbines built by la Cour were in Denmark, ranging in size from 5 to 25 kW.

Earlier than that there was an estimated 200,000 windmills in Western Europe in the mid-1800's.  Of the 10,000 or so that were in the Netherlands during that timeframe, there are still about 1,000 of them left standing, and some of them are still grinding grain today.

In the 1930's there was 71 wind turbine companies in the US with names like Jacobs Wind, Wincharger, Miller Airlite, Universal Aeroelectric, Paris-Dunn, Airline, Winpower, and Dunlite.  By the 1950's they were all gone - crushed by the Rural Electrification Act.  The only one that remains today is Jacobs, still manufacturing turbines in Prior Lake, Minnesota.

A lot of people think wind power is a "new" and "novel" thing.  I just laugh.

And BTW - if you ever go to Europe you just HAVE to go see one of the remaining 1850's windmills that are still running.  They are so cool.  Standing there watching one run you reach the realization that the old engineers that built these things knew more about wind power than some of the modern engineers do because there's a lot of modern engineers, that if you showed them some drawings for one, would tell you flat out "it won't work".
--
Chris

[phil b]

Standing there watching one run you reach the realization that the old engineers that built these things knew more about wind power than some of the modern engineers do because there's a lot of modern engineers

Even if they were not the most efficient, even if they were not modern, they have been doing their job for years. How many of the "modern" ones being produced can stack up that much power for so long?

I have to wonder how many of these old mills had wooden bearings?

[Frank S]

  The thing about engineers of yesteryear is they had to create their own tables of comparisons often by trial & error. Many of the engineers could barely read or write but they were basically born with an eye for geometry. They studied the shapes of nature and they could see where strengths and weaknesses of the shapes all seemed to have a purpose. The earliest engineers had to create their own math formulas. Almost all were autodidactic; in 1525 the Greeks even came up with the descriptive word for them (autodídaktos) meaning someone who is self-taught.
   These engineers lived in Neolithic times by comparison to the availability of materials and technology of today. They did not seek to optimize a design to the infinity degree, their mission was to design or construct something that would work and last, regardless of whether or not it was the absolute of efficiency.
  I like to use Chris's 2 phase turbine design and the 5 phase generator design by M. T. Mohammad, J. E. Fletcher, and N. A. Hassanain ( http://www.icrepq.com/icrepq%2710/473-Mohammad.pdf ) when I talk to some of my young engineers about the fallacies' of over optimization Chris's 2 phase is not about the maximum amount of power but about discovery of blade design production and that you can step outside of the norm and still achieve decent results, the other guys are on the opposite end of the spectrum also stepping away from the accepted norm in their pursuits.
   Then I always have to bring up the Tacoma narrows bridge    (http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/TNBhistory ) and how they tried to push the envelope of optimization without knowing all of the possible consequences for their actions.   
  Give me an engineer or anyone who will over build for longevity and safety, even at the expense of maximum efficiency any time 
 My apologies Chris if my analogy for the reason your 2 phase turbine in off     

[midwoud1]

Dutch windmill waterpumper.

Low Rpm high-torque.
Wooden oak bearings with bacon grease ( the mice like it very much )
Hollow mainshaft with push-pull rod regulating the blade shutters .
Spring , ,Weight, Flyball.
Pump capacity 70 m3 / min.
Because of 3 bad cams ,total cams broke off from two gearwheels.

Gearwheels got repaired by the windmill-carpenter.
System working good.
On the background a small windturbine ,looks like a Fortis Montana.
We have had lots of those water mills to keep land dry and creating new land.
40% of the Netherlands is below sea level.
Rgds. -Frans-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=BO3FADb1q84&feature=fvwp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=bPNLnAlakL0&feature=endscreen

[tanner0441]

Hi

A lot of new ideas are nothing of the kind. I have an ASHREA manual from 1953 with an article on ground source heat pumps for industrial processes. Back in the early seventies my parents had solar hot water on the their house and swimming pool.

It amuses me when I go to look round one of the new RE shops that are springing up like mushrooms all over the country and the newly qualified university educated expert greets me with the inevitable grin, and some of the figures and efficiencies quoted are amazing.

Brian.

[ChrisOlson]

Gearwheels got repaired by the windmill-carpenter.
System working good.

Frans, that's pretty radical, tearing all the pegs right out of the cog like that.  Pretty cool.
--
Chris

[Frank S]

the more we think about the wind you either have to love it or hate it there seems to be no middle ground on this subject. At least not for me.
 Growing up on our farm if the wind didn't blow we had to hand pump water for ourselves and our live stock. I hated it when it didn't blow. Usually in the heat of the summer when there were millions of other things I would rather be doing like swimming in the creak. in late Autumn after the maize was harvested grandpa insisted the stalks be shocked so while shocking corn or maize stalks the wind would gust up blowing us kids and the shocks we were trying to stand all over the place I hated it
 When exasperating the chaff from grain or sand from the peanuts we tossed these p into the air while the wind was blowing to remove everything but the heavier grains I loved it. Grandpa bought an auger then powered it by an old windmill fan  to lift the grains up about 20 feet and let the wind blow the chaff away I LOVED it.
 y older cousins and I built a kite shaped like a biplane it wouldn't fly very stable so I was put in it  to control it as a pilot off we go pulling it behind a tractor by a rope I got pretty high up in the air the rope broke and I wound up half a mile away before crash landing it some trees  cracked 3 ribs  dislocated a shoulder and had a few cuts and lots of scrapes I loved it because we got the contraption to fly hated it because a hard gust caused me to crash and ruin our kite plane.
 Franz's video remoinded me of one of our trips a few years ago to the Netherlands where we got to see this.


Wife standing in front of windmill






I forget just exactly where we were since when traveling I never use a map or GPS. We were most likely on the Eastern north central part of the country at the time on one of the many smaller back roads
I spied this as well but couldn't pull over and stop
with the direct drive to an Archimedes screw pump I would guess it to be around 300 or more years old     

[midwoud1]

Frank.
That is the very early model of a dutch grain windmill. Later they make the bigger ones with more room inside for mill stones.
The direct drive screwpumps are still working monumental mills in the northern and eastern part of Holland.
Separating chaff is now done by electric fans , sometimes a few kilos of seed in wind.
Yes my  brother and I ,with schoolfriends we also build a sort of glider,but half the way my father stopped the project,and I am still glad he did.We also had a tractor and a rope


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWwL3rHnLWI&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Very old design waterpump directdrive,we call it a Tjasker.

The big windmills have a large wood gearwheel on the mainshaft,with wooden brake shoes ,the old millers knew how to stop it carefully.Yawing is impossible.
But the young generation millers trying to stop on the brake with high torque ,have a problem , and several mills burned down .
Fortunatly they are new build with assurance,and fundraising

[Frank S]

 The Dutch had to be very inventive back in the day when so much of the land was under water.
 My wife asked me why some of the mills we saw the blades only looked like a lattice work I explained to her that the lattice of the huge blades was actually what made the power being that it was placed at angles to the wind but they also had a sheet sail on many of them that unrolled  or expanded out just like the sails of an old square rigger boat by doing this they increased the surface area making more torque in very high winds even the largest of the windmills could still be used with the sail sheets fully retracted allowing most of the wind force to pass harmlessly through only the lattice would catch the wind. furling was often don by brute force either by man or beast then held in place by either a large link chain or wood chocks wedged between a post buried deep in the ground  like cog cams and the tiller beam. Anyway that was what I told her then the gentleman who took us up in the old mill confirmed a lot of what  I had said and naturally explained in great detail about the many uses of the wind mills and how they worked
 That particular one was several hundred years old and had been torn down and moved at least 3 or 4 times that he knew of since it had been in his family for over 250 years that he knew 2 times in his own life time once when he was a small boy then again to become a museum when he was 55 Even though it was used mostly for visitors they did still grind their own grain which was mostly sold to the tourists in small hand sewn burlap bags at certain times during the year.
 Does anyone need an inspiration to have a wind generator? perhaps one of our hand made wind turbines in a 100 years will become a tourist attraction as well