First layer of paper fiber glass followed by second layer with

Second layer with strengtheners and now we wait

 

First part of the mold for one 1/2 of the blade done:

 

The section came of the prop without any issues

And after a flop or two the first mold made its appearance.  A few small touch ups because of stupidity but the next one will be fine.  This one is 100% usable.

Tomorrow when it is 100% dry I will sort the left overs against the side of the mold ans do the touch ups.

The blue section is the "leaf" from the prop now glued to a base of fiber glass and that will be the carbon fiber section.  The steel is to ensure it dries in the correct form and place.

Edited April 16, 20215 yr by Erastus

Very impressive!.

Jay

Frankly, I'm impressed that you got the automatic winder to work and that's probably the smallest part of the entire concept/product..Pure genius!

2 hours ago, Energy-Jason said:

Very impressive!.

Jay

Tnx

53 minutes ago, FixAMess said:

Frankly, I'm impressed that you got the automatic winder to work and that's probably the smallest part of the entire concept/product..Pure genius!

Tnx,

Software is easy. That's the easy stuff.
This stuff I am doing know is the difficult part. I never done any woodwork in my life let alone fiber glass.  But I am getting there.
A few dumb mistakes but now got the drift.  The second one should go faster. 
Then I can make the first set of carbon fiber blades.
For now my worries are over and I am sure carbon fiber blades will go easier.

Cost so far not to bad.  I tried foam at R220 a can should have filed 43l but then I I guess the forgot the. ie 4.2l.

Then I made the box from left over racks and kul jou hier kul jou daar en siedaar...
The resin fiber glass brushes and ... cost was R3400

From what I can see now the carbon fiber blade should cost R400 for carbon fiber and R300 for the resin.
I was quoted R24xxx for 3 blades.  A set of 3 blades should cost about R 2200 that is with a diameter of 4.5M.

Not sure if I am going to use wood or aluminum for the mounting part.  If I use aluminum  I can make the blades feather at a small extra cost.

Guess this week I will finish the second part of the mold and then start testing the coils for max performance and optimum design.  I am making use of a very cheap magnet @ R35 per magnet.  But I need a few. Test will dictate the amount but I would love to harvest high Kw in the strong South Eater and North Western. 

Now that I have the blade sorted.  The next step is to verify the coil design voltage and current.
To protect the coil from the magnates and not to damaged any item I mounted the coil on "plastic cardboard".

The magnets are placed at the correct angle and depth so I can start testing the impact.

There is the coil hiding.

And this is the little mechanism to hold the coil in place.
 

And then I turned the magnets with my hand. Immediately I got the expected voltage with low current.

The noise is as the magnets brushes the holding material.  Will give an indication of the speed I can fling the magnets with.

So its party time
 

 

Edited April 19, 20215 yr by Erastus

Follow the copper cables (thin) and you will see it is connected to a single 200W globe.

Next step is to get the drill connected and push 300 RPM

My test set.

Worked well then the welding came loose. 

 

The unit shifted and my first casualty. But the test was good for Volts times current.

 

Now to rebuild and fix.

School fees 😂

Juo,

Not so much school fees as stupidity,  Her we go with a better test version.
Coil inside a 20mm plank for protection.

 

And the assembled unit.

 

Tomorrow I can start again and play with the generator.
 

Looking forward to seeing those blades in action. Remember to work Murphy into all calculations, I also have a couple of scars due to that law, but they say no pain no gain😅

Jup,

Wish I could say it was Murphy.  That could have been an acceptable excuse. In this case its not.

Rebuild with some better protection, stability ...

Test was highly successful.  Voltage to high but that can easily be resolved.  Therefore I will jack up my copper to 1mm

It heated the restive loads and all are 100%.  Unfortunately the balance is not 100% but 280 rpm was no problem then I got cold feet.  😳

No damages this time.  Now to build the rotor.  2 x 10mm plates and ...

 

Edited April 20, 20215 yr by Erastus

1 hour ago, Erastus said:

then I got cold feet.  😳

 

 

😃 So would I...

I would pay careful attention to balancing the blades/rotor assembly. Vibration at high RPM will quickly shake things to pieces.

Great project!

9 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

I would pay careful attention to balancing the blades/rotor assembly. Vibration at high RPM will quickly shake things to pieces.

Great project!

Thank will do.  I am using carbon fiber as it is more equal in wait. Also using a vacuum system for the resin. Thus the blades will be very similar the rest I can trim by adding a bit of resin.  The plates will get lazer cut so the all will be identical.

Saying all of this I would love to put it on a wheel balancing system for the rotor and blade mounting area.  By using a mold they will be the same in manufacturing.

Thanks for the heads up.

Now that the coils are fine, Magnets fine and my hand better 😜 the rotors with magnet.  I checked magnets to coils position and seems to be fine. The measurements indicates that cogging will not happen.

Will 3D print the template for the magnets before getting discs manufactured to hold the magnets.
Do a final test with one coil and all the magnets in place before the stator gets manufactured with the coils.

I did the drawing and then asked a draftsmen to redo it.  He asked me about it and then did it as a "gift"  which was very kind of him

 

 

Edited April 23, 20215 yr by Erastus

The second blade went very easy.  Now I have both sides of the blade and the molds ready. Magnet layouts done.

I have placed the order for the first set of magnets and rotor discs from where I will study the impact of all the magnets on one coil and the current to wind ratio.  The coil will be remade with thicker copper cable.  With a RPM as part of the controller it will be easy to simulate wind speeds and also control a DC motor with a PWM for wind speed. Although the motor is a more linear device in this implementation and wind a log effect. The P can be calculated as:

P = .5x1.25 X A X RPM  where in the wind turbine P = .5x1.25x A x V^3.

Now the interesting phase:

This wind generator MAIN purpose is to push none stop power into the grid.

A basic model can be used as a battery charger etc. but that in my opinion is wasted effort but for those who would like to have it 3 models can be easily derived from this design. 

1. 12V   DC
2. 24V   DC
3. 48V   DC

This will be a dumb version that when wind speed > x the tail will move the rotor out of the wind.

The  "nicer" unit will be fully automated. Will turn at low winds generate some power and at max winds it will generate max KWHr WITH out.

Because wind velocity can increase to maxP in a jiffy and then down to 0 in a jiffy/Kwhr a very rough statement for the control loop the following parameters will be used:

A1    Red Voltage
A2    Yellow Voltage
A3    Blue Voltage
A4    Red Current Inv
A5    Yellow Current Inv
A6    Blue Current Inv
A7    Red Usage Current
A8    Yellow Usage Current
A9    Blue Usage Current
A10   Voltage Turbine
A11   Current Turbine
A12   Voltage Bus

Sample rate will be done at 10 000 samples (readings) per second.  A string of data will look like this:

84830001, Min 141, Sec C 23, RV 1.301,YV 0.410,BV 0.164,RInV 0.204,YInV 0.205,BInV 0.248, RUI 0.000,YUI 0.000,BUI 0.000,RInvApp 0.266, YInvApp 0.084, BInvApp 0.041, RUsApp 0.000, YUsApp 0.000, BUsApp 0.000, RInvIP 0.174, YInvIP 0.022, BInvIP 0.005, RUsIP 0.000, YUsIP 0.000, BUsIP 0.000.

I will be using another version of my 3 phase meter. The three most important readings are:

Voltage Turbine
Current Turbine
Voltage Bus

VBus is the actual voltage of the driver for the DC to AC conversion.

Below is the first version of the controller with the actual controlling part not currently part of it.

 

 

The unit has its own wifi unit that will push data directly to a database and will have the following graphs in real-time:  Data will be pushed to the web.

The idea is to drill down to 1 sec values.

Will get the cables and connectors tomorrow and start wiring it into the DB.

Edited April 27, 20215 yr by Erastus
Added graph and indicate copper cable change and fixed motor formula

So exciting.

 

The photo below indicates the relays that I use when there is no Eskom. 

The relays switch DC to Batt for my LED lights. I use 2 x 12V 7.2A batt.  The cost of the batt are 2 x R190 power supply R980.

The top left is where I will insert my controller and monitoring point for the wind turbine.  The left black cables are for the other 4 DB's in my house and the next white cable is where the solar inverters tie in.

If the cable is to long I don't believe in shortening it.  As all can see I am not the neatest worker.  😳

The inverters etc T's in before the main cct breaker and directly onto the cable from "the grid".

I have another set of breakers where the cable enters my yard.

There is a cover that makes it look nice. Don't remember when last its been on.

 

Following is my break out box and isolator ( 3phase)  where the solar panels etc. are. Each inverter has its own box and own set of cct breakers to match the inverter.  Therefore the inverters are fully protected outside and isolated out side with a main islolator connected to the DB via a fat 3 phase cable armed and ...   The breaker is not a 3 phase but rather a single 63A per phase.
When the "main" solar breaker is off. There is no power and nothing is connected to the house. totally isolated.

 

 

Edited April 28, 20215 yr by Erastus

Back to more interesting stuff than grid tied or batteries.

Today my capacitors arrived for the controller.  Not everyday one plays with them this size.  And believe me size does matter.  😜

Took it with my coffee mug.
 

 

Next week will be interesting.  The first set of fiber blades will be manufactured.  The magnets should arrive and the disks for the magnets. Got all the plugs and cables today. This weekend the controler will go active with local graphs and the cabling will be done.

 

Finlay we are getting to the interesting part.    Once I have all of this the first frame will be made and the blades hopefully will turn them the way I have in mind.

I am thinking of ending the blade wit aluminum for stability and same weight distribution.

Edited April 30, 20215 yr by Erastus

Been a little preoccupied. Not happy with my flanges so I decided to remake the flange.

This is the new flange with a trial run of carbon fiber.  Amazingly Carbon Fiber works easier than FG

Center is still the old section of fiber glass the black is the new Carbon Fiber and day and night difference.

Still a few not so nice but the second one will be far better and then the blades...

 

Edited May 14, 20215 yr by Erastus