The truth be told I don't really like it that much when it is too windy out, The wind just blows the dust around and makes it seem like your in a convection oven instead of a regular oven. In AZ in July and August the more wind the hotter it feels. I don't even like ceiling fans fans in the house. If I wanted the wind to blow all the papers off my desk I would be working outside. The reason I have a house is to stay out of the wind .

However, I still like the idea of wind power. I have come to believe that independent distributed systems have many advantages over central controlled monopolized systems. Whenever you have a monopolized system it will allow for bad behavior. Then the Government steps in to help regulate the system and the circle of greed and corruption begins.

The energy businesses in most US markets is almost a perfect monopoly what is needed is some good old fashion competition. Solar and wind power in the long run can be lower cost than the current centralized systems. I would like to ask everyone to take a look at Nanosolar.

http://www.nanosolar.com/

If their panels are as low cost to produce as they say, the cost of electric from them could someday be as low as $.05 per Kwh which would be about half of what I pay now.

The cost to produce power can't be overlooked. If a system cost more to use than the current one then it will need Government help to survive. This has the effect of having the Government chose what type of system needs support and they are not vary smart about anything except getting re-elected, just look at the silly idea of Ethanol.

Cheep energy in the modern word is almost the same as freedom itself. Anything that allows for lower priced energy gives us more time to do other thing besides work to pay the electric, gas and fuel bills. I need not tell you the exact amounts of my energy cost but with gas at it current amount my cost for energy is about the same as my house payment. Thats too much!

Some of the main cost of wind power is the rotor blade and for any large system the tower and the gear reduction unit needed for larger rotors.

This system reduces the cost of all three.

Click to view attachment

This idea is not my idea but Doug Selsam's.

This is his website.

http://www.selsam.com/

And a link just to some pictures.

http://www.speakerfactory.net/wind_old.htm

The idea of using multiple rotors just totally changes the way to look at wind power. Small rotors can reach higher speeds so no gearbox is needed. This is huge deal because the gearbox is heavy, costly and they break. The extra mass of the gearbox must be supported by the mast making the whole system larger.

For this idea to work, cheep rotors are needed and I found some on eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/PowerMax-068-Wind-Gene...7189201QQihZ011

I picture some mutations of this idea. If you had a large lot and a fairly constant wind from the same direction you might be able to use a cable instead of a hard shaft. A cable with one end at a vary tall hight and the other end strung low with a generator at both ends perhaps a 100' long or so with 30 4' rotors.

Another idea is a long rotor system strung across the house rooftop. If you have good wind from a constant direction you may not need to have the array change direction.

Lots of mutations are possible with this system.

It looks like Brainchild is not the only Mad Scientist around

Click to view attachment

Hey, I hope the wind doesn't get up with the wires in this position!!

totally off topic bluedog but that was too funny. "sometimes I get the jokes on this site"

Hey, I don't think it was off topic, as health and safety professional I felt it was my responsibility to point out the flaw in this person's activity so others would not place themselves in the same unfortunate situation unknowingly!

On a proper note, I find these projects most enlightening. I have just purchased a fisher and paykel washing machine (second hand) to recover the drive motor assembly to turn it into a wind generator. I am an inquisitive mechanical engineer and would like to find out more.

I've seen this, great stuff. Wendy is just sitting there...she got going in a storm, but we are bizarrely without wind...time's a'changin'!

As soon as you take her down, the wind will pick up....gauranteed.

I know I'm OT for this thread but Nanosolar just released a video of one of there printing machines making soler cells. I thought they had a larger system working but it's a start.

http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/

They also say the efficiency is over 14% and I thought according to the some of the patients they filed that they might get around 21% efficiency.

I actually stumbled across these guys when I was looking to make a solar investment in the house. They came with high marks on the cost per generated W rating, but they hadnt ramped up production yet. Nice simple idea. I would LOVE to deck my roof out with these little beauties!

Seriously if anyone is thinking solar these guys deserve a good hard look. I think they will make an impression on the cell maker community.

SJ



BD,
Any particular reason for that brand? Anything like it used in US models? Im NOT a mechanical engineer but I am toying with the idea of a wind generator.

SJ

I can answer; because that motor is easily rewired into an 'axial flux generator'.

I call them internal mounted stators just like outboard motors use. The higher voltage they use looks to be a better match for a wind generator. Neat idea for a motor, they turn real slow so no gearbox is needed. I have never seen one in the USA.

The small rotor idea lets you use much more standard high speed motors like servo or tread mill motors.

The rotor problem I see as a greater problem then the generator. For most people having a 20 foot rotor mounted above the house just has too many drawbacks but a set of 4 or 5 4" rotors might be OK.

We still don't have any wind here so I don't get to play.

It was 107 in the shade today and my A/C ran for about 10 hours straight. .... 17 amps x 220v x 10 hours.....


If I change all my light bulbs to CFL's my bill might go down by about $3.00

During one of recent trips south, I came across a place about 20 miles from my house. It was flat and very wide and the trees all leaned towords the north. Just for the fun of it I stopped and got out to look at a few of the trees. The wind there just doesnt seem to stop. Im thinking about asking around about the regulations for wind generators in this state. Maybe I'll become an energy farmer.

10 hours of "cool" is 37 kwh for your a/c. Figure your compressor has an 70% duty cycle, 37 x .7 = 26 kwh max usage. AZ has about an .08/kwh rate, so 10 hours of air conditioning cost you $2.08 USD, but once losses (open doors, humidity) are accounted for will cost about $100/month@10hrs/day.

The CFLs will save you about $9 less/month, but they also last longer, making less heat into the room. This is $108/yr min savings. A 100w lamp left on continuously will require:

2400w/day which equals 2.4 kwh/day x 30 days (mean) = 72 kwh/month = ~$6/month = $72/yr (Also by using this 100w lamp in your a/c'd room, you increase the cost to cool the room by the same amount. Basically, much of the cooling bill goes to cool the "heaters" such as TVs, lights, refrigerators, cookers.)

Typically, "parasitic losses" in households = >$1000/house/yr. This rate increases daily with inflation and cost of goods.

Bottom line: every bit counts. An individual Being, aware of wasteful practices, may have a stronger effect than the direct-averaged energy net.

AZ, how about an evap cooler?

Sorry for the delay in responding. The reasons for this brand is that F & P are readily available here, they are manufactured in New Zealand and Australia and have been around many years so old washing machines with this drive (Smart Drive) are very easily obtained and cheap. I paid $23 for a 2003 model. I will recover the parts I want then sell the controller etc to cover the costs.

The second reason is as brainchild has said "easily rewired into an 'axial flux generator'". There are many entries on the internet to make a generator using these motors. They do have one minor problem and this is that they can cog. They need a certain strength wind before they will start. The newer motors apparently have lees of a problem than the earlier ones.

Here is a link to a very good DIY site for these and other DIY projects (see the home page or the box on the left)

F & P Windgenerator DIY Project

Unfortunately these motors have no equivalent that I know of. They can be obtained cheaply and shipped I suppose, there was a motor being sold on Australin ebay recently for $75 but for us it is cheaper to buy a washing machine and strip the motor and shaft etc. There is a guy selling some motors currently but the bearings are shot.

Cogging in the genny is undesirable as it necessitates higher starting winds to get the rotor moving. This problem can be solved with a DIY anemometer tied to a simple circuit that uses the battery bank to start the rotor by backfeeding energy into the genmotor until the Vout = what is expected at the measure wind Vel. This allows the rotor to start in much lower winds and can greatly increase overall output from the system.

In the F & P motors one technique used is

7 Phase Conversions - Decogging

Awesome thread.

I'm going to check out this motor / axial flux generator conversion. My wife tells me I have alot of wind, so maybe I can harness it. Seriously we do have alot of wind here in Minnesota, and if I dump the energy right into my hot tub (no expensive batteries or electronics) it might have a chance of paying for itself some day.

If your hot-tub sees the sun >5hr full sun, a simple dark-color yet insulating cover may be more than enough. At perpendicularity the Sun will output 450btu/sqft average, which for a 4'x4' insulating cover would equal 7200btu at peak. This is a lot of heat for such a small area. Over the days, you'd find yourself removing the cover early in the day just to be able to get in later that night. In winter the situation reverses, requiring major surface area to get just tepidity.

It's a good idea which worked well for me when I lived in Oregon, but my current hot tub here in Minnesota is inside. We mostly use the tub in the winter so passive solar heating, even using a coiled hose on the roof, won't work.

I will also admit that this is just another excuse to take something apart and tinker. The hot tub is just another way of justifying the expense.

Since when do we need an excuse?