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Forum Index : Windmills : A small HAWT
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| Air Bender Senior Member  Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi all, Klaus Unfortonatly this wind mill would not be big enough to spin a F/P and I dont have the room to go any bigger. I am open to ideas for other motors worth trying, just as long as they are cheap and easy to get hold of. My new motor turned up this morning I ran a bench test with the drill and with the drill running flat out it was putting out 18.5V as compared to 16V with the old motor and it reaches 14v at a lot sooner. wich should reduce my cut in, and hopfully hold down the top end speed of the blades a bit. 
I have started fitting the new motor. I had to make up a slightly longer chain. One thing I noticed was how smooth the chain runs with this motor it has 4 magnets compared to the olds 2 magnets which has reduced the cogging this chain runs silent and very smooth. While I have the mill down I plan to change the angle of the furling point a bit so the it furles a bit sooner as it starts to lift of the stop at the moment but dosent go much past that. I dont beleive this mill is overly noisy I dout it makes much more noise than most peoples air conditioning units, but when it starts to spin very fast the pitch gets higher and hopfully this motor will hold the speed of the blades down to a nice wooshing noise. All the best Dean. |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi all, The mill went back up today with the new motor on The wind was blowing at around 20km/h with it gusting over 25. The wind was very gusty not coming from the best direction but the mill was making good power. 
The grey meter is reading the volts coming down from the mill and the yelow one with the bung display is reading the battery voltage and the panel meter is reading the amps going into the battery. Luckly I decided not the touch the furling set up and in the gusts today it was furling half way. The blades are not spinning up to the speed they were and it is furling better. I think this motor has turned out to be a good match to the mill. I am looking forward to getting some good less gusty winds from a better direction. Next I will have to wire it in to my power board and good battery. All the best Dean. |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi all, The mill has been up for a couple of months now where I dont think I have had a day where it wasnt puting a charge into the battery, and so far I havnt any problems with it. I have just added a couple of DC-DC 6v-14v up converters to it. I initualy ran one and it got very hot with it pushing out 4-5 amps for a few hours, which is not surprizing since it is only rated at 2 amps, so i got another converter and I am running two together which is working well. At about 5 amps the voltage coming down from the mill is high enough to flow directly to the battery and dont overload the converters which now remain cool. I have seen a good increase in how often the battery shunt is dumping since I set this up. I have just got another two which I am about to try on the VAWT, hopfully I will make even a bigger gain there. In the begining I thought these converters might stall the mill in light winds, I have noticed a bit more load on the mill but the rpms push up through the load easly. The extra load at lower rpms is very good keeping the rpms down enough to make the mill almost silent untill the wind is strong enough to drain out the noise of the blades when they realy get going. About a week ago I noticed another mill has gone up in a back yard a couple of blocks away which looks to be a 3 bladed chinese job about the same diameter if not slightly bigger than mine set up at about the same hight. We have only had light winds since since I noticed this new Mill but I can clearly see the advantage mine has with a larger tail and longer boom. Untill this other mill turned up I didnt relise how well this mill tracks the wind in turbulant conditions. I havnt seen the other mill running in strong winds yet but so far mine has clearly got the legs on the chinese job. All the best Dean |
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MrDelanco Senior Member Joined: 12/11/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 101 |
Hello Dean; You should be proud of your achievements, you are doing great , keep up the nice work. Best wishes Robert. MrDelanco:Project Videos It is not only too know what it does but to understand how it does what it does. |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
I got this picture of it today furling in strong gusts All the best Dean. |
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| Throgdor Newbie  Joined: 26/01/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 22 |
That is one very nice set up you put together. Makes me want to start collecting old junk bikes and start cutting them up! After watching many video's on wind power, I think chain instead of belt pulley's is the way to go if your going to gear up or down. |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi Throgdor, I am very happy with the Mill and at the moment if I was to rebuild it I wouldnt change a thing. I took it down the other day stripped the mill and inspected all the bearings and cleaned the chain and found no wear, This only took about half an hour. I have been lowering the mill about every 2 weeks and puting a bit of oil on the chain which only takes about 5 min. If it was a bigger heavier mill on a higher tower I would think about running the chain in an oil bath, but I have found there is still plenty of oil on the chain after two weeks and it is very easy to lower and raise this mill. I think the main advantage in building and testing as you go along, is that you can build a mill that is suited to your local wind conditions. This mill is reaching cut in in 9km/h winds and puting out around 40w in 15km/h and reaching 100w at 30km/h which is where it starts to furl and the output does not go up much past this. I think I could get a bit more out of the Mill by having it furling later but I dont think it would be much advantage as my average eveyday wind is between 15-25 km/h. I now have two over the counter mills up in my local area, one a bit bigger and one about the same size, these mills spend a lot of time only doing a few turns and stopping and only start to get going in winds when mine is beging to furl which is only around one day a week. I think the spent building and testing was well worth it. All the best Dean. |
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| Throgdor Newbie Joined: 26/01/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 22 |
Dean. I'm becoming more convinced that blades with full airfoils instead of just curved or bent metal are more efficient. Perhaps that is why yours outperforms your neighbors? I'm still mostly an observer and just starting my attempts at carving blades using a chainsaw and power planer. I have a ways to go. 
Throgdor /Mark |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi Mark, An airfoil blade will be best becouse they produce lift which is a bit like a turbo boost to the blades. If you rough out a set of blades and set them up on a solid test platform you can see where they are lacking in performance, then you can do a bit of research, rehaping and tweeking angles it the right direction. For the final shaping of the blades I used a flap sanding disk on an angle grinder, it creates a lot of dust but they remove wood quickly. My idear at the start was to build a blade set that would do well in light turbulant winds and having gearing would allow me to match any small atlernator. Most small mills this size dont mave furling systems but as i am running light thin blades I thought a furling set up was needed and I think this gives this mill an edge on the neighbors which look to have heavier thicker blades, and having a decent tail and boom helps as well. If you have made a start you are already half way there. All the best Dean. |
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| Air Bender Senior Member Joined: 25/01/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 206 |
Hi all, The Mill has been up for 6 months now, and I am proud to say it is operating as well as the day I put it up. I have lowered it down and oiled the chain a few times but apart from that nothing has been touched on it. Its been through a few good storms, including one that blew all the out outdoor furniture down the back yard. The furling tail worked beautifully. For a small cheap home made back yard mill for charging battery's, it is worth looking at this build. In 6 months My 12 volt battery bank has not been below 13 Volts. All the best Dean. |
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| Xmaswiz Regular Member  Joined: 14/04/2011 Location: United StatesPosts: 69 |
nice mill!, do you have a write up for the VAWT? a VAWT is more my thing.  Santa Maria, CA. Noel |
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