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

[brandnewb]

1:5 followed by 1:6 would give you 1:30.

Or try a car timing belt. Very durable.

yes sir!! understood.

I will first see what torque is left after going the 1:11.

with a direct drive and at around 3m/s wind speed it takes about 7+KG to stop the turbine from spinning.

Now realise that the arm is rather long. (a tiny bit more than 3m)

The torque available is INSANE®


How much do we have left after so many reductions/increases?

Only experiments will tell I guess as I do not do good with hardcore math and formulas.

 

[brandnewb]

hmm I now am doubting my self. Was it at 3m/s this KG stopping force of was that recorded at just a much higher wind speed?

Ahh yes found my poorly documented efforts.

wind speed (m/s)​	direction​	time for one rotation (s)​	​	stop force (kg)​
2​	undocumented​	43​	​	1.4​
3.3​	west​	12.9​	​	6.25​
5.4​	north​	7.2​	​	​

I guess I remember why I did not go and measure the stop force at 5.4m/s That is not something you want to walk towards if one has self preservation in mind.

 

[brandnewb]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of flex has been reduced considerably!!


The trick was to use specialist glue to add a 10mm steel plate on the existing 5mm alu plate.

I am aware of the oxidation issues that might happen when having steel and alu touch. But I thought that since the bond is 100% no chance for it to cause issues I am thinking.

Sure there is still some wobble when I rock one end of an arm but it is soooo much less than it was before!!

 

[brandnewb]

so it takes about 350 grams of force/power/input or what ever we call it to get the turbine spinning from a stand still.

I am not sure what that means but it does mean there are losses. and a lot of them

The cups are up again and now we wait for the wind to pick up.

drumm rolllls



I am ashamed of the low quality video.

Perhaps I can outsource higher quality videos somewhere else.

This mind you though is at around the 1m/s wind speed

 

[brandnewb]

and of course nothing is permanent in life!!
the turbine drive pully broke.

I am not too worried though as I have always seen this coming. Nevertheless. PLA is a trusty prototyping starting point.
Now I just glue it up and fill it up with shore 72 resin.

Problem solved!!

 

[Hedges]

Seems to be spinning nicely.
Surprised it is working well with single bearing, and not half way up the air scoops.
I would have thought bearings top and bottom would be the most stable.

If pully broke, does that mean it had been transferring power? How much did you measure.

 

[brandnewb]

Seems to be spinning nicely.
Surprised it is working well with single bearing, and not half way up the air scoops.
I would have thought bearings top and bottom would be the most stable.

If pully broke, does that mean it had been transferring power? How much did you measure.

I have multiple bearings at play here brother.

One at the base of the central column,
2 at the retainer just below where the arms are.

And then we have the bearings at the PMA.

Please elaborate as I soo need to learn more about this.

 

[brandnewb]

I have not taken any meaningful measurements yet other than of course that even light wind will break the system.

that is my measurement of the day !

And of course there has been a transfer of power all along. I mean a 1:11 ratio (speed increase to the PMA) will certainly involve a lot of power.

Just imagine your finger gets stuck between the belt and the pully.

ouch.. I do not want to think of that!!

But rest assured brother. I will go back to measurement mode again after I have things spinning stably.

 

[Hedges]

I have multiple bearings at play here brother.

One at the base of the central column,
2 at the retainer just below where the arms are.

And then we have the bearings at the PMA.

Please elaborate as I soo need to learn more about this.

Ah, so that ~ 4' (or about 1m) vertical pipe is spinning, has a bearing at ground level and guyed bearing at top of pipe?
I'm not sure how it gets a strong attachment to the arms holding blades.
I have an affinity for triangles, and while guy wires form some triangles to hold pipe upright and hold blades upright, I see pipe to arms connection as a joint that experiences torsion. Ideally everything is only under tension or compression (truss design.)

 

[brandnewb]

I have not taken any meaningful measurements yet other than of course that even light wind will break the system.

that is my measurement of the day !

In the defense of PLA though.

It was not the PLA that broke. Just the connection to the disk it was glued to!!!

So now I am trying first a small layer of standard resin just to make it glue well.

And after that I am going for the hard stuff. To make it not break while under load.

 

[brandnewb]

so it takes about 350 grams of force/power/input or what ever we call it to get the turbine spinning from a stand still.

I am not sure what that means but it does mean there are losses. and a lot of them

The cups are up again and now we wait for the wind to pick up.

drumm rolllls

View attachment 217139

I am ashamed of the low quality video.

Perhaps I can outsource higher quality videos somewhere else.

This mind you though is at around the 1m/s wind speed

hahah no way that was 1m/s!! I just found out that there is a delay between the measurement of data and the update of the display I read it from.

So here I am again just not knowing what I are doing

Never fear gang. we will get there!!

 

[brandnewb]

I made a fun joke site.
just to be able to show off some more. using royalty free music and better quality video.

Building the sickest® VAWT ever!! Brilliant mind unite please!

I will take it down if this crosses a line somehow. this is no self promotion at all. just having fun and hoping that the turbine will get to fruition.

Check out the footer!!

 

[brandnewb]

Ah, so that ~ 4' (or about 1m) vertical pipe is spinning, has a bearing at ground level and guyed bearing at top of pipe?

Yes sir

 

[brandnewb]

I am so confused at the moment.
I testify that I have already done some wind speed to rotational PMA speed efforts even before the torque reducing 1:11 was installed.

Guess what. things are spinning now better than ever. I am really unable to make heads or tails of this!!

We do still have a really problematic issue though. I am guessing it is not even really only the OSB that allows for the flex any longer. It could also be the bearing at the base of the PMA. Anyway there is like a 5mm wobble in the rotors.
I can not install coils there

But watching it spin like this so silently is out of this world. Ill post a vid a bit later when I am happy with the shot over at the crazy site

 

[brandnewb]

introducing wheels to retain the rotors disks are of course part of trail and error. But then my current PMA pully is not strong enough.

Hence I am now printing this one.

 

[brandnewb]

an update:

I did some calculations with my (un)trusty AI regarding the power potential based on stopping force, radius of the turbine and radians/s

And it seems to boil down to what the omnicalulator has been predicting all along

211 watts. more on that a bit later

Now I know what you are thinking and I agree. So that is why am now going all in!!

First off. I am going full steel!! No more fighting with OSB to get the wobble out of the PMA. I will buy a plasma cutter if I have to with this circular cutting aid add on one has these days.

But this is all in an effort to keep it DIY but then it dawned on me. This project is already no longer DIY if we are totally honest about it.

You see I have outsourced the welding of the alu plate on top of the alu column of the turbine. I am sure that my amateur welding machine is not up to the task and I am even more sure that I was not so there you go. The project officially failed already It is no longer DIY

But I say ahh we'll let that slide some outsourcing here and there right?

I think so yes!!

Below you will find how I think I got to that 211 watt. And yes there is again some wild deviation from the pure scientific method in where I made some assumptions based on my gut feeling which in turn is based on the poor measurements I have been doing.

But I do not care all that much about that. It tells me what to expect more or less and that if we want anything better than the omnicalculator predicts the Air Wheels (TM) need to become a reality.

To update the calculations with the new stopping force and the rotation time, follow these steps:

1. Convert the stopping force from kilograms to newtons (N):Force in newtons=8 kg×9.81 N/kg=78.48 NForce in newtons=8kg×9.81N/kg=78.48N
2. Calculate the torque:Torque=Force×RadiusTorque=Force×RadiusTorque=78.48 N×3 m=235.44 NmTorque=78.48N×3m=235.44Nm
3. Calculate the angular velocity:Assuming the turbine makes one full rotation in 7 seconds, the angular velocity (ω) in radians per second is calculated as follows:Angular Velocity=2πRotation TimeAngular Velocity=Rotation Time2πAngular Velocity=2π7≈0.8976 rad/sAngular Velocity=72π≈0.8976rad/s
4. Calculate the power:Power=Torque×Angular VelocityPower=Torque×Angular VelocityPower=235.44 Nm×0.8976 rad/s≈211.31 WPower=235.44Nm×0.8976rad/s≈211.31W

So, with a stopping force of 8 kg and a rotation time of 7 seconds, the power available at the center of the turbine is approximately 211.31 watts.

 

[brandnewb]

I guess one way of looking at things is.

How close can we get the least efficient wind turbine know to man I.E. a VAWT with cups to the predicted efficiency of the omnicalculator.

If it is way below then cool, great effort chap. We need Air Wheels!!!!
If it is close then cool, well done chap. We need Air Wheels!!!!
If it is ....... That will never happen gang and most of us if not all knew it all along I hope.

 

[brandnewb]

hmm I now am doubting my self. Was it at 3m/s this KG stopping force of was that recorded at just a much higher wind speed?

Ahh yes found my poorly documented efforts.

wind speed (m/s)​	direction​	time for one rotation (s)​	​	stop force (kg)​
2​	undocumented​	43​	​	1.4​
3.3​	west​	12.9​	​	6.25​
5.4​	north​	7.2​	​	​

I guess I remember why I did not go and measure the stop force at 5.4m/s That is not something you want to walk towards if one has self preservation in mind.

hahahhah my lord.

My gut feeling is not something to go by if one wants hard scientific truth. I concur

But in the end of the day we will get there

Basically what happened here is that, as per usual, I got things mixed up. so we still need to see what the stopping force is at higher speeds.

 

[brandnewb]

1:5 followed by 1:6 would give you 1:30.

Or try a car timing belt. Very durable.

I am still wondering about this automotive belt brother

 

[justgary]

So, with a stopping force of 8 kg and a rotation time of 7 seconds, the power available at the center of the turbine is approximately 211.31 watts.

Wow, that AI is so good it can turn one significant digit into five!