Well I started my power supply.

[pyro22487]

I couldn't buy the stuff to finish my teardrop today so I worked on my power supply.

I want to try a wind turbine and solar cell combo. I started the turbine today. Here are some pics.

Keep I mind this is the 1.0 model.

image.jpg (96.28 KiB) Viewed 636 times

image.jpg (96.28 KiB) Viewed 636 times

image.jpg (96.28 KiB) Viewed 636 times

[pyro22487]

I wanted to make sure you saw the first picture at least 3 times

[DezPrado]

I wanted to make sure you saw the first picture at least 3 times

I believe you succeeded successfully
And you post pics better than I have been able to. Don't lose momentum on this project, I'm quite (Vested) interested in the outcome

[Dale M.]

You have posting picture figured out pretty well... Just a little bit more practice with lighting and focus and you can be a master.... Not trying to be critical, but the cleared your pictures are the better they explain your project...

Dale

[pyro22487]

My phones camera has a crack across the lens. (Actually the entire back of my phone was cracked due to a drop.) Anyways I can't use the flash otherwise everything fuzzes out and the blurriness comes from that one crack. I'll take better pics probably once it's finished. I have a nice camera but didn't have it with me last night.

[Micro469]

So now that everyone has commented on your pictures........ can you explain a little of what your doing? I think the motor is sitting on the base and can swivel, and the bottom pic shows the tail, am I right? Tell us a little bit about the motor your using, and what you expect the output will be. I know nothing about turbines, so every little bit of info is helpful. How are you planning to mount it when camping? looks like a koool project.

[pyro22487]

Well without the hub it's kinda difficult to explain but the generator/motor is mounted on the bottom a chain will run from the motor to the turbine hub. There will be a swivel mounted on the bottom. Once I have it balanced I will know where. The motor I used is a 2500 rpms at 24 volts at around 8amps. I'm not sure on the amps.

The motor needs to spin extremely fast for this to work close to 1500-2000 rpms at those speeds it will have around 15 volts and around I think 150-200 wats of power. To make it spin this fast we are using a 1-8 gear. That is a 6" 80 tooth gear attached to the prop and a .75" 10 tooth gear attached to the motor.

The motor came out of a small electric scooter it had the gear the chain and the motor all right there. Craigslist score 30$ for 2 scooters. The blades are PVC pipe the rule for making pipe blades is 1-5 ratio so for every 5" long you need 1" in diameter. I used a 6" PVC and the blades are about 30" long. You cut the pvc into 4ths and just cut an angle on one side. This will give you 4 blades and most turbines use only 3 so you have an extra.o

http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/
Here is the website my brother in law found. I used his as a base model and he also has a control box instructions too. Oh and solar panels.

[MtnDon]

Good luck with that. Gearing up to make the motor/generator turn faster than the blades may be your biggest hurdle. It's like pedaling a bicycle; changing up a gear or two takes more effort to move. Most wind turbines that I've seen are direct drive. But as I said, best of luck.

[bdosborn]

I built a wind turbine but I never did fly it:



Guess I should try it out sometime!

Wind Turbine Linky

Bruce

[pyro22487]

Yours looks amazing what motor did you use.

[wincrasher]

Good luck with your build. Most have trouble getting more than a couple amps out of these wind setups, it's a much better payoff going solar.

[bdosborn]

Yours looks amazing what motor did you use.

I used an Amtek 30V tape drive motor; it was cheap and easy to get on eBay in 2008. That's not the case anymore, they're expensive and hard to find. I ended up going solar, which is more practical IMHO. Anyplace where the wind blows enough to get usable power out of a wind turbine is a lousy place to camp. OTOH, I camp in a lot of really nice, sunny places.

Bruce

[pyro22487]

What is your expected wattage output?

[bdosborn]

You got me, maybe a 100 watts? I did a search and couldn't find the expected output anymore.

Bruce

[pyro22487]

Still way more attractive looking than mine I tried finding one of those motors and couldn't. At least not for a reasonable deal. Oh well version 1.0 is just a dummy run. If it works I am goiń to upgrade the blades first. That will be version 1.5. Version 2.0 will be made out of aluminum and be much lighter than this monstrosity.