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Building the sickest ® VAWT ever. Brilliant minds unite please!!

I am happy to report that a plasma cutter, even though it would result in better results, is not needed as of yet.

1717514481875.png

The good old trusty angle grinder and will can get one farrrrr

Now of course I already know that when doing this by hand it takes an artisan to make the disk balanced.

I am not that. This disk is without a doubt unbalanced. Hence I have added 20mm extra space on the edges to fine tune later on if it becomes important to do so.

I am guessing it will become so.

But for early testing and get things finally fired up then this is GOOD!!
 
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There is plasma cutter, and also water jet.

I tend to cut large thick steel with oxy-acetylene cutting torch. Only steel, not cast iron, because carbon content fuels the cut.

Angle grinder? Are you saying you cut a radius with that? In something like 1/8" steel?
I could imagine straight cuts with a saw and rounding off with a grinder.
I have used reciprocating saw for curves, don't like using it much.
Band saw with large enough throat would be reasonable, but limited in radius by kerf width and blade width.

That disk will be strong in compression and very strong in tension, not so much in torsion.
Gussets to make 3-D structure would fix that. Or does your planned assembly not apply torsion to it?
 
I am not sure what to make of it gang.
Hedges said:
There is plasma cutter, and also water jet.

I tend to cut large thick steel with oxy-acetylene cutting torch. Only steel, not cast iron, because carbon content fuels the cut.

Angle grinder? Are you saying you cut a radius with that? In something like 1/8" steel?
I could imagine straight cuts with a saw and rounding off with a grinder.
I have used reciprocating saw for curves, don't like using it much.
Band saw with large enough throat would be reasonable, but limited in radius by kerf width and blade width.

That disk will be strong in compression and very strong in tension, not so much in torsion.
Gussets to make 3-D structure would fix that. Or does your planned assembly not apply torsion to it?
Click to expand...
ok bro, I have already a shipment of large steel disks arriving at your workplace in about 44 minutes.

Better get your gear ready bro :)

Return costs are on me :)





------


If only things were that simple :) :(
 
@Hedges
So I got a notice earlier that stated that your shop does not deal with small scale. :(

So the whole lot is being sent back as is.

Ahh It's ok If this not being a perfect circle is becoming a problem than I have 2 options.

Either get this plasma cuter or just do the smart thing and hand it over to one of many metal workers in my area.
They can make it a better circle that I can ever can.

---

But even they can never be perfect like in the models!!! It is a lesser known fact!!
 
I really hope you understood that I just was trying to be funny yes?!

This was not an ill attempt of any kind.

But the disks are progressing.

I am just not sure how long my wife will allow for the turbine to be erect. Sooner or later we will need our lawn back for leasure :(
 
second and last disk nearing completion.

1717607969569.png

It is tedious and back breaking work. But its got to be done!!

I will monitor for heat build up as now we do not have ventilation holes
 
hahahha this many magnets pulling on each other is making the steel disks at 5mm bend :)

1717673661900.png

But I am not that worried. As long as it is an even bend.

The only thing then is that there is a tiny bit of a deviation between the magnet distance on the inner radius and the outer.

I will accept it as long as the damned PMA does no longer wobble!! or at least to such a tiny extend that I can install coils without worry.
 
ok this is insane!!!

At around 2m/s wind speed this single 60-13x120-60 @ .7 mm coil is rocking hardcore!!

More than 50 volts PP and more than 21 RMS!!!


ghahhahahhahhahah this is INSANE!!!
 
hahah my oscope, as it is cheap junk, can not deal with the powers that be.

I would love to have shared a photo but the sun is just too bright and one can hardly see anything!!

One thing I am happy about is that finally we are getting somewhere!!

Yet never forget that we can not take more power out of the wind that is in there. And then we have the Betz limit. And then we have cups being soo inefficient.

Sure I hype up my wording around my findings and what not. Yet never do I misrepresent the truth of those findings My data is your data and it's the best/honest I can give at the moment.. And never do I mean to suggest that we are going to break the laws of physics.
 
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and indeed when the turbine slows down to a halt is is clear to see that the waveform does not show signs of jitter like when the motor was attached.

I do not really think that even matters though whether or not the waveform is clean or not. But this one is at least!
 
Don't charge series connected lithium cells without a BMS to monitor individual cells and disconnect.
The disconnect must be able to withstand Voc from source. When PV is the source, an SCC drops the voltage to something BMS can handle, but some are non-isolated SCC which can fail closed.
Rotating generator with inductors can kick high when current is interrupted.

Alternator, diodes, series connected lead-acid car batteries, shunt regulator. Tried and true.
 
Yes sir. But just to measure the potential of the PMA when driven by the cups I think I will hook up the 16xcells directly with a shunt attached for accurate measurements. Just for a short while.

And then when I know what I need to know I can introduce the BMS and charge controller for longer term hooking up of the turbine to the batteries. It can then also clearly make obvious the losses introduced by cheap and inefficient charge controllers and/or BMSs And wether or not going upscale like the midnight classics is worth the money and potential hassle.
 
brandnewb said:
I went to the extra trouble to make sure I can get a clear shot of the oscope.

now drink this in!!!

View attachment 220370

It going to be brutal!!
Click to expand...
the above image was not so helpful as the resolution in time was set too low. But I was rather in shock and a little panicking to be honest as I was down on the grass underneath a spinning turbine. I just did not think to take the time to set things a little more appropriate.

I do think though that I can not zoom out any more than 5V :( I hope I am mistaken.
Can this 10x attenuation(or what ever it is called) on the probes be a solution here? Now all channels and probes are set to 1x.

The following image can give an idea about the to me impressive open circuit output of this single coil (out of 6 in total. 2 per phase)
1717927172765.png

if I ever find a solution to increase the rotation speed to 30 times rather than the current 11 times then it will allow for thicker and shorter coil wires. Which in turn will allow for a higher amperage and a stronger field.
We have to keep in mind though not to over-dimension the coils and the RPM of the PMA as then it will work as a break more than as a PMA :( because there is not all that much power to be extracted from the wind with this turbine configuration.

And I did mention the waveform is clean yes? :)
 
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at 12.9 seconds per cup revolution we get to around 3.7Hz in the PMA when directly driven (so no increase in rotational speed).
The weird thing is that I earlier thought this would happen at 3.3m/s wind speed. Hence me always pushing towards this 3.7 Hz before I knew that will never work if one wants not only voltage but also amperage to be able to get to watts that actually do something!!

So it is important that we do NOT trust anything I say about the wind speed involved yet as I mentioned earlier I have difficulties being precise with that. Especially it makes a big difference from which direction a particular wind speed is coming and then turbulence and what have we like delays in screen updates of my weather station display.
When the time is right I will just use a hand held wind speed meter and then I hope things well get better to be able to document something meaningful.

Anyway given the the PMA now rotates 11 times faster than the turbine does I am pretty confident that it will turn out that the wind speed was below 3.3ms in that last image. I just need to be able to demonstrate it.
 
Yes, 10:1 setting on probe allows 10x voltage. Typically, scopes have accepted about 40V on input (1 meg ohm input, not 50 ohm due to power dissipation), and with probe 400V is OK.

However, grid can have transients of a several kV, and probes can't take that, are living on borrowed time.

I bought an expensive 6kV, 2.5kVrms per input, differential Tek probe.
You can get a name brand or cheap import 30kV single-ended DMM probe, which has an extra ground wire. Adapt to BNC.

Resistor divider can knock down voltage 10:1 or 100:1. Without R and C dividers carefully tuned it will not be flat to higher frequencies but should be fine at 60 Hz.
 
hahahah if I really need anything more than an 11 x increase of the PMA then on this photo one can see what a 22 x T10 pully at 220 teeth would look like.

1718188101130.png

One of the coils, the one I used in my previous test is showing signs of warping. it could have been because of some banging that was going on as the disk still is not perfect.

Hence I will try again from the ground up with that massive taper bearing center one can also see. I will just rest the botom disk directly on it so it should be possible to remove any and all wobble.

if bending of the disk due to the strong magnets is uneven then I can weld some steel slits on their sides as support on the back sides of the disks to force it straight.
 
Correction; the test coil (the one with temp sticks on it) is not the one with what looks like a warp. the one on the right is.

Once in my gym I'll investigate what is going on there
 
false alarm regarding the warped coil. It is straight as can be still yet I still need to remove from and add to some post casting artifacts. :(

So everyone can get out of their nuclear bunkers again and enjoy life :) I repeat. False alarm. :)
 
it is confirmed :(

Hedges is always correct minus 0.0001%

Also OSB is not your friend when prototyping. Sure it is your soulmate when constructing structures. But not while prototyping.

I started from the ground up being rather precise. And as soon as the OSB III 18mm got introduced then there was just soo much of a wobble to be detected.

Now I do not diss on OSB just yet. I am talking here 0.5mm maybe 0.7 mm of a problem.

However I have decided I will no longer accept it.

No!! it needs to be within tolerances that I have yet to establish. But this is just not good enough!!!

Can someone suggest something how to have a steel disk that is perfectly straight spin perfectly level??

I feel so embarrassed at the moment because it seems soo simple yet I just cant pull it off just yet

1718206264872.png
 
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