Wind Energy

I'm working on this project for school. I want to build a wind turbine. Anyone out there doing it, done it, know anything about it? Any and all input, questions, comments welcome.

 

I know something about it from the insurance aspect, and I know some technical details. What exactly are you after? What kind of turbine in terms of size and output are you making? Design or construction or both? What kind of environment?

Honestly, you could do a better job explaining what you want to discuss here. I know you're new, but you've asked such an open-ended question that anyone with more than basic knowledge is going to say "yeah, I know something" and then be unable to answer any more since there isn't any more.

 

Well, lets see. I've acquired 20 magnets, I plan on using about 12 of them. I've ordered 24 AWG 'magnet' wire. I'm going to make a jig to wrap up the wire into 12 coils. I've not decided how much output to shoot for. I'm kind of piecing this idea/plan together from a handful of resources. John Piggot has a book that has a bunch of tables that give the ratios of number of coils/magnet to amount of output. Thing is, I don't have the time or the resources to create something as big a what he describes in his book (wooden blades, wood working tools, etc.) I like the idea of using 3" ABS pipe for the blades. I think when this is done I'd like to be able to charge a pad of car batteries (say 2 or 3 of 'em). I live in W. Texas. It gets pretty windy here at times. This isn't necessarily something that I'm going to install where I live, I just want to see if I can do it because I'm interested in renewable energies. Later on down the line if it works maybe I'll invest in some proper tools and quality material and build a big one.

 

OK, that's a good start. I don't know how the piping will work for blades - it seems like they wouldn't catch the wind very efficently to me, but I'm not an engineer, just a layman with a half-assed idea of what I'm talking about.

One thing to think about is height and the advantages and disadvantages. Getting your turbine up will eliminate a lot of spoilage issues (eddies and blockages from objects in front, including the ground), but it's harder to get it up there without a crane, and you run a higher risk of bird strikes (which may not matter to you, but can put your generator out of commission if they're bad enough). Getting more elevation also allows you to build longer blades.

If you have actual questions, you might want to ask them, though.

 

Good point about the questions. This on-line forum thing is new to me. Direct and to the point seems to be the name of the game.

The ABS pipe gets cut and beveled on the edges. For example a 6' piece of pipe gets cut into two 3' pieces which in turn get cut in half long ways to produce four 3' semi-circle pieces. Set one aside and with a pre-made template or something of the sort cut the required angles of the blades. Bevel the leading edge.

Right now I'm focusing on just getting the stator created. The height issue will be tackled later on down the line. So I guess the most pertinent questions right now are...Where does one purchase/acquire resin and fiberglass sheeting to create the magnet and coil plates that are the main components of the stator? And what kind of resin and fiberglass sheeting should I be using?

 

For a make-shift demonstration project, the ABS pipe blades should work, but for a really efficient set-up, the actual blade configuration is a major issue. It's akin to having a state of the art stereo system with cheap speakers... all the electronics in the world can't give you great performance with crappy speakers.

There is a fair amount of energy in wind, but the vane design will have a lot to say about how much of it you can extract.

 

Frankenstein says wind good, fire bad!

 

Intriguing idea. Interesting, so I googled and found a DIY website http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/

Good luck on this. Hope you can post updates here as you build it.

 

The mdpub guy is where I got the idea for using the ABS pipe as blades. For his purposes it seems to be working really well. I think because of my time and budget limitations, his model would work for me as well. Only, I want to build my own stator. If any of yall are interested in this stuff you should check out this guy Piggot. John I think is his first name. He's pro.

@ Morehead, I will try to keep updates posted.
@ Greywolf, I hear what you're saying about the blade configuration and I do plan on having a vane or some sort of tail piece to help with overall power...um, colllection.

Thanks yall, its good to have a soundboard to bounce my ideas around on.

 

Have you considered the cross-sectional shape of your blades? As the wind is passing over them, there are going to be more aerodynamic effects than just "blow on the fan and it spins" which i'm sure you've thought about. it might be beneficial to make your turbine a series of cambered wings (if possible). i would suggest checking out this airfoil first and then go from there: http://www.worldofkrauss.com/foils/1450. you'd be surprised how much more lift you can get by changing the shape just a wee bit.

 

Thank you for the link.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vnyYWV78zk

Here is a Make magazine show about the 'easy' steps to make one. I think it is a little more complicated than that...

I would like to make one as an emergency backup thing, it would be hard to find all the supplies when the world is going to hell.

 

I dunno, it might be easier after the zombie apocolypse to build things like wind turbines and hook up up solar panels... you wouldnt have to pay for any of it. Staying alive long enough to make it happen might be harder than making it happen.

 

You could make a wind turbine using a car alternator. I was researching 6-volt batteries for my cruise boat and read about making a wind turbine to charge the batteries.

Here's a link: http://www.ehow.com/how_6129364_instructions-wind-generator-gm-alternator.html

 

I considered that. Most of the reports I found by people who tried this said that it wasn't a good idea because of the in-efficiency of using car alternators because of a significant percentage of power lost for amount of work done. I'm making two forms for casting the coil plate and magnet plate. Using three layers of plywood, the bottom being the base the middle the form and the top the seal, I'm going to cast the coils and magnets in resin. These resin plates will act on the same principle as an alternator, it will just produce more electricity. The coil plate will remain stationary and the magnet plate will rotate with the blades. With an efficient wind turbine you could definitely charge your batteries.

 

There are big problems with any COTS wind turbine setup that I have looked at. If I were designing my own, I would do about 4 things totally differently from what is on the market now.

I probably should build it and patent it. I have all of the stuff except for the charging circuit in my garage.

 

Whats COTS stand for?

 

Only thing I know is that they produce energy. It's an interesting subject for sure.

 

Commercial off the shelf

It means that you can go to a store or on-line an buy one from a company. The problem lies in the fact that there are major modifications I would want to make to improve it.

 

Speaking of apocalypses, I watched an episode of Doomsday Preppers that had a guy with what looked liked homemade wind turbines on his compound.
He said he likes them peppered throughout his property so they were kinda redundant, and could handle the electricity load.
He also had a bunch of pigs and some way to collect the methane from their feces. Guy and his family looked and sounded half looney, but they seemed very prepared.
They even went so far as to shoot at their house from a distance to better gauge the wall's efficacy in withstanding firearm penetration.