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Forum Index : Windmills : A 12-Volt Lifestyle
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MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
I'm in the process of changing EVERYTHING I use to 12-volts. The reason is, I have the desire to show folks how easy it is to live off the "grid". I have already changed my engine lathe to 12-volts. With a 2-speed, 12- volt motor, a high and low range gearbox and a three-stepped pulley mandrel, I instantly have a 12-speed lathe. To be honest, I usually leave it in a mid-range speed unless I'm trimming to .0005 (not often) at which time I slip it into afterburner mode. I'm working on an idiot-proof 12-volt charging system that is air driven and can be built with a screwdriver and drill press. A few of the parts really need to be cut on a lathe, but for those, I'll be offering online "Care Packages" for next to nothing. Next up is a 12-volt clothes dryer and a permanently-mounted 'shop vac' that will suck your socks off! When it's all said and done, I will present (with working models featured online) an almost idiot-proof method to enjoy an all-electric house off grid. Hide and watch. As things progress, I'll throw up a Web page and hand out links. Oh, the reason I've decided to make it 12-volts is because the automobile industry has flooded the marketplace with all kinds of nifty 12-volt hardware available just about world wide at next to no cost. When you consider the difference in price between a deep-cycle battery and a garden tractor battery at Wal Mart for around $15, it kinda makes a fella sit up and think! When the cheap one fails, buy another one and recycle the dead one. Hey, it's the American way! Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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marcwolf Senior Member  Joined: 08/06/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 119 |
I was reading an interesting article a while back re 12V in the auto industry. The article was saying that auto makers are seriously thinking of moving to a higher (48v) voltage to reduce wiring costs. Although using auto cat-offs is a neat idea re recycling. One project I did I used a group of air valves that came out of a clinate control system. Take Care Dave Coding Coding Coding.. Keep those keyboards coding.. RAW CODE!!!!! |
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Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Macgyver's 12 Volt clothes dryer is something I'm looking forward to see. The 1000 or so Watts required for a reasonable performance will make the wiring an interesting challenge 
Ditto with the 'shop Vac', which will also be in the 1000W+ league if its 'to pull the socks off'. Just look at the wiring to the starter motor, which, in a small car, is around 1000W. And its rated to run only a few seconds! Well, that's maybe long enough to 'pull the socks off' 
In my opinion, 12V and anything to do with heating (other than a small fish tank) is not an economical proposition. Klaus |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Tinker: You're thinking inside the box. All the real fun is outside where I hang out! Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| takagari Newbie  Joined: 30/07/2009 Location: Posts: 3 |
Looking for more on this. Would lvoe to wire my shop for 12 or 24 vdc LED lighting. And light the whole shop off a simply windmill :D Have you thought of 24vdc. Less wire, and most diesel sits are 24vdc allowing you to still find lots of stuff, and a simple 24 to 12v step down is easy to make/buy |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
I chose the 12-volt application to be able to take advantage of all the automobile goodies currently manufactured and on shelves everywhere. I intend putting up a Web site that gives instruction as well as pictures so others can do as I have done and reap some free power. My goal is to design windmills, air engines and generators that can be built with off-the-shelf parts and a minimum of tooling. I personally have a full machine shop, but that's me. I realize lots of other folk have the desire, but not the means to buy a lathe or mill or whatever. To that end, I'm designing stuff that can be put together with hand tools. A good example of what's going on is the air pump I've been building for the past YEAR! It's just a little diaphragm pump that is powered by my windmills. It's not that it's such a hard project; it's that I keep improving the design, making it more and more simple. When the time comes, I'll put it all on the Internet and let everyone in on the fun. Some of the air engines do require some complicated machining. To that end, I intend offering those parts online for a very small fee for anyone interested. By the way, all my electricity is made down on the ground using air- driven engines mechanically connected to a generator. I store the 12- volt electricity in small garden-tractor batteries. The only machinery atop the windmill tower is the turbine and an air pump. My windmills only pump air. Each time the turbine turns, a small spurt of air is pumped down the tower (pipe). I don't give much attention to over-speeding and therefore don't have any complicated furling or feathering equipment to worry about. If I think things are getting out of hand, I simply crank off the valve on the tower and the pump has to pump against a dead head of air pressure. That slows it to a stop in no time at all. I use solid-aluminum blades (well balanced!) and no governor. The blades are flat and simply bite the wind. They cannot spin fast enough to part (break) in any wind (the metal I use has been static tested to forces not attainable by centrifugal motion). Simplicity is the goal. That's something everyone can get themselves around, eh? My favorite tool is my imagination,. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| takagari Newbie Joined: 30/07/2009 Location: Posts: 3 |
Thats awesome. I will be building a 1500sqft home, along with a 2000sqft facility for reptile breeding. which promtps me to keep the temp in the building at a solid 80. So The more I can save money the better, Being in Canada it can hit some pretty cold temps. I've been trying to pic the net on DIY ways to build wind generators that power more than a light bulb. |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
12 volt clothes dryer? That will be interesting to see meanwhile we will continue with the solar powered version. 
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brett Newbie Joined: 08/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 39 |
MacGyer I love your ideas and am planning to try something simular with my new workshop. Plan is to use a windmill like you to pump air, have that air store in a very large aircompressor cylinder. Convert all my shop tools to air driven tools where possible. Hand drills, sanders, rattle guns, the list goes on. I also plan to use the air to pump water up from my bore using a brumby pump. All that should cut my energy use. I will still run my heavy tools Lathe, welder, drill presses on 240v but cut the other costs down. I look forward to any information I can get regarding your air pump, and maybe later the air driven generator and I will run all 12 lighting in the shed. regards Brett |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Brett: I've been at this for 40+ years. If you can wait until I post the Web page, it'll save you a lot of shop time. Basically I've designed a diaphragm pump that operates off a cam mounted on the windmill's shaft. It sounds easy, but is fraught with little problems. My goal is to make this so easy you'd have to pay someone to help you mess it up. With compressed air, the trade off is based on volume. I've built oodles of "steam" engines over the years and as many that run off compressed air. To get similar "POWER" from the air engines, the pistons (I use diaphragms a lot) have to be quite large. The stroke is short and the pressure is low, but with a large surface area, the output power is regained (basic hydraulics). I am a plumbing contractor in real life and as such come across many old water heater tanks that are changed just because they're old and not necessarily because they leak. These make dandy receivers. I connect several in parallel and use check valves to assure that a leak in one doesn't drain the whole system (one check valve per tank on the inlet of each does the trick). As you may have guessed, I have way more than just one windmill! Each mill spins as it will and each has a slightly different displacement. The ones that have large diaphragms don't spin at all when the system pressure is up, but when I use a glut of air, they're off and running again and so on. Hope all this helps you get a perspective of where you're headed using compressed air as your primary energy storage. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
KiwiJohn: Okay, I got a little flak from someone else on this (tinker?) so I'll let the cat out of the bag. My 12-volt clothes dryer uses a small stainless-steel basket out of a commercial "stackable" laundry unit. The basket sits on a central axle with a tapered roller bearing at the base. The axle acts as a centering device so the thing doesn't become airborne. The thing spins the clothes dry. I've devised an electro-mechanical transmission that lets me spin the thing up to scary speeds. As the it whirls around, centrifugal force powers the water through the clothes and out of the drum (which has little openings). The sprayed water collects on a circular shield wrapped around the device and water droplets drip off the bottom. Really simple idea. And just in case you're wondering, NO the clothes don't shrink from heat; there is no heat. After "drying" in the contraption, the clothes must air dry for a while to be REALLY dry, which is along the lines of the clothesline pictured above. My contraption cuts the drying time down to less than a half hour in most climates. I'm not the first one to come up with this, by the way. There is a commercial electric unit out there for campers that uses the same principle. I googled it and found one about the size of a blender that will dry a shirt or pair of socks in about a minute. Mine is huge in comparison. Now you know. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| brett Newbie Joined: 08/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 39 |
Thanks MacGyver My new workshop is not built yet so I am happy to wait till you post the website. I will keep an eye out for old HWS tanks, anything else I should keep an eye out for. Brett |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
Ah well MacGyver you will probably know that the F&P devices much discussed on this site start their lives doing a very similar job!
Sorry if you thought I was giving you flak with the solar powered clothes dryer but around here a clothes dryer means killowatts of heat and crispy dry fluffy bath towels. |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Ah yes, that explains it. Us southern parts people call that a spin dryer, not a cloths dryer. Same difference really, except one uses heat to tumble dry the cloths. In the tropics during the wet season it will rain for days and nothing gets dry unless you use heat. I remember a spin dryer my parents, or was it my grand parents, had that was water powered. The garden hose was connected up and the force of the water would spin a big perforated drum up pretty fast. It did a pretty good job. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
MacGyver, if you are interested in a 12V spin dryer you might also be interested in the principles of a 'manual washing machine' I saw demonstrated once. It was a simple container into which clothes, water and washing powder was put. Then a handle was turned which tumbled the container giving the clothes a real good shake up. The secret of the claimed effectiveness was that the container was sealed (in fact it had been made from a domestic pressure cooker) and the agitation caused a considerable increase in pressure which greatly enhanced the action of the washing powder etc. Food for thought? Maybe. |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
How about a wind power washing machine.... 
Photo from the book "Home Made Houses" by David Liddle and Ann Taylor. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
It took a while to figure that one out
"blow hole effect" Klaus |
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| grub Senior Member Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
Yes, I see it now. I originally thought that the mill was lying down for maintenance or some such thing. Aren't some people just too clever. |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
I'm told it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown. Being basically old, fat and lazy, I smile a lot and actually enjoy stuff like this. Of course, if you know anything at all about those 'inventive' types, you surely realize that "That won't work!" and "You can't do that!" and so on merely spurn us on! For example, having had chronic asthma all my life, I created a new 'treatment' that works better than any I've tried to date (and I've tried them all!). Have a chair and I'll share my secret: I replaced .01% by volume albuterol sulphate with 35% by volume spiced rum (70-proof) in my 'nebulizer' and it not only works better and faster, but costs next to nothing. Last evening I manufactured a portable unit for my car so I can take "air" treatments away from home. Look out world, I'm now mobile! No, it doesn't give you a buzz. I realize some of my posts seem far-fetched and almost silly to some. As soon as I have enough new clean data (pictures and tutorials) to put up a Web site, I'll do it and everyone can rethink their position. It's true, I'm probably the only guy on the planet whose windmills pump and store air, but it works for me. My goal in all this is to create usable alternative-energy systems that can be built and maintained by almost anyone with an interest. For anyone thinking I'm in this for the money, relax. I figured the money thing out long ago. I'm into this for fun and for sharing, that's all! Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hi MacGyver. Well I for one, who also spends too much time in the workshop inventing, do believe you and all your crazy inventions. I enjoy your posts and they are a valuable part of the forum. Keep them coming. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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