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Forum Index : Windmills : Taking over my Life
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Big Al Newbie  Joined: 06/10/2010 Location: United KingdomPosts: 38 |
A Vawt was supposed to be a minor part of another project. I have to terrace part of my garden as soon as I get a round tuit and thought what a silly boy I'd be if I did n't take the opportunity to put a slinky in there just in case. Then I thought I 'd pump heat from some solar heat collectors on my shed roof and from a heat exchanger mounted above my boiler flue outlet , underground( in the summer) and pull it out in the winter. Then I thought why not generate the energy for the pumping from a windmill. Then I built a tree house for my grandkids with a look out tower rising to 11 metres above the ground ( and 1 metre above the tree canopy ) and noticed that from the top of the look out tower I had nothing between me and the Touch/Gargunnock hills 5 miles away that have large commercial Hawts on them (they v'e got to come down-can't have anything risking the clean flow of air to my windmill !! Is there a diy site for cruise missiles ?). Of course my ambitions immediately jumped to a more powerful generator. It seems I have at least 3 choices (buying is OUT,call it pride,sense, or meanness). 1. Build a Hawt-not much development time using some of the first class info. and experience on this site, just a build and assuming the wind is good (I'll be logging for another couple of months plus ) practically guaranteed o/p. Problems-- planning permission and possible neighbour problems (noise, safety), probably more maintenance.Does n't look cool or cute or even pretty. 2. Build a Vawt-planning permission easier and potentially less neighbour problems . Might be the horse for my course .Best bet seems a helically-bladed ,lift type , and I want a self-starter, as big as I can build and mount, but to get near Hawt o/p I need a brilliant design , best airfoil I can get, brilliant electrics (available via this site ). Not easy but at least I end up famous and make millions from my design and you guys get a generous acknowledgement and a few shekels-- BUT is it possible ? Most of you guys think not (and it may not seem like it but I'm listening and have a healthy respect for the experience and knowledge on this site ) altho do I detect u think Vawts are cool, cute and pretty ? 3. Build a way-out Vawt----Sharp ? Bayly-Kentfield ? or ?????- Sit back and reap Megawatts and interplanetary fame -rival Bill Gates for wealth-and periodically graciously accept flowing apologies from colonials who had the cheek to doubt the brilliance of a boy from the mother country.Refuse knighthood for services to wind energy. Well 3. aint going to happen even if it takes over 100% of my life ( maybe if I was 20....... 2. I think might be possible ( the fame and millions, not) but hey its taking over my life already and I have n't even finished logging wind yet!! 1.Sounds a little too unexciting ( BUT ,dear, the wind power is supposed to be just a part of another project.......) I am left with two questions 1. Is this the sort of route that hooked you all ?? 2. Anyone here got any experience of the exotic Vawts-----Sharps, Bayly-Kentfields ?? Has anyone ever built a real one?? ( The trouble -and fascination- of Vawts is there are so many types ,permutations , and possibilities and they are so bloody difficult ). Best left to con men and venture capitalists ?? P.S. I found a site where guys had built them , sounded promising but no real results yet,(did I hear "as usual ")-- but its early days. RGDS Mystified of Tunbridge Wells Big Al Every Day is a school day (even at 67) |
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MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Mystified of Tunbridge Wells My advise would be to forget about VAWTs, walk quietly and cary a large Honda generator! 
. . . . . Mac 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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| grub Senior Member  Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
It has occurred to me that must problems people have with neighbours regarding their wind mills is that the neighbours think you are looney to have one. Therefore to hide the fact that you have a wind generator in your yard, you should hide in in plain sight as something else. In the UK have it plainly hidden as a Spitfire or a Hurricane (your choice of iconic airplane). It's propellor is the generator's propellor and so on. Neighbours would go "that's great!" and wish they had one too. With regards to a DIY guided missile, there is a fellow in NZ who shows how to make one. He was the fellow who helped make a "rocket" propelled cart for Scrapheap Challenge. Good hunting ;) |
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Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
It sounds like a Vawt would fit in with your garden scape as a nice piece of kinetic art, but if you want a generator for useful power i still think you are confusing art with mechanics. A Hawt is not that big and ugly once it is up in the air and with it spinning (as you would want it to be) there is not a lot to see as the blades almost disappear. As for neighbors the mill will act as a big wind vane for them (tell them that is what it is) Noise it a result of a bad set of blades, or a very poorly constructed mill. (which of course will not be the case for you) Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| itsandbits1 Regular Member  Joined: 13/08/2010 Location: CanadaPosts: 81 |
well Al vawts are in the 30% efficiency range for a good one unless you find something special so you know where you go to get the watts you need. I don't know what the formula is for wind power per sq.meter at what mph or how many watts but I know they are cool to build and a challenge to make the best you can. as I sit in my living room and watch my little unit on the corner of my deck spin and spin and spin and produce power from .5mps and up, no matter what direction the wind is coming from and whether it is coming from between the houses or from around the corner up the valley and it is only 5 ft off my deck I envy those that have their 50-100 ft. towers pointing towards the sky trying to get 30ft above the nearest disturbance in search of the perfect wind. my little vawt |
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| Big Al Newbie Joined: 06/10/2010 Location: United KingdomPosts: 38 |
I could sit on your balcony or in your living room all day feeling good just looking at the view. Your very nice Vawt would just add to the pleasure. Have a pretty good view myself and will be posting some pictures of view and Vawt site soon. Meanwhile I'm about to take the first readings from my wind speed logger now that its got 30 days of logging under its belt. I'm braced for disappointment as it has n't been a very windy month and the leaves are still on the trees , but vanishing fast. This past month while logging wind I've been studying wind turbine design and electrics on www sites and books (not so intensively it has n't been fun ) and have come to the conclusion that its a vawt I'm going to build despite the intensive missionary work by the hawters on the site trying to save my soul and with the best of intentions ,save me a disappointing build. I have a couple of new ideas of my own which I must model first this winter before building full size , and a couple of revolutionary ideas for energy storage but would like to do a bit of experimentation before shouting my mouth off (Its not in my nature but I'm learning.) If these ideas don't work out then I'll build a more conservative vawt , helically bladed . and with an axial or radial flux self build generator. The electrics stuff and aeronautical knowledge available on this site seems first class to me and will be a big help. All this has to be kept in the perspective that in Scotland most of our energy is needed for winter heating and my proposed vawt with energy storage will be mainly for pumping water and electrically driving a heat pump system for heating the house in winter. In summer the vawt could contribute to supplying my electrical needs. My site should allow a 2 to 2 and a half metres high by 3 metres diameter Vawt which I think should do all this pretty easily while looking good and not annoying the neighbours. You'll be glad to know my original plan for a multi megawatt Vawt in a shoe box sized system has been scaled back to a more realistic 2.5 KW hours a day average per 24 hours through the winter-anything given in summer is a bonus. My posting skills are limited but improving and within the next week or so I'll be posting details of my wind regime (from my logger ) , amending plans accordingly , and then supplying a few laughs with photos and details of my progress. The Aerogenerator X has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works as I had realised I probably did n't have the time resource to investigate Sharps and Bayly-Kentfields but the Aerog. X looks worth investigating on a scaled down basis. Success may be elusive but I am an engineer (electronic, but in the days I qualified that included an awful lot of electrical ) and I have a lot of metal working machinery (lathes, mills , a shaper etc) so I feel I got some things on my side. Its the fluid engineering for Vawts thats the difficult bit and time is never on my side, even now I'm retired. Rgds. Big Al Every Day is a school day (even at 67) |
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| itsandbits1 Regular Member Joined: 13/08/2010 Location: CanadaPosts: 81 |
Thanks for the kind comment Al, I look forward to seeing the vIew from the top of the play house. This set of wings; I designed the airfoil myself, Was designed from the standpoint of high torque start and rpm power range from 150-200 rpm to go with the pmalt I plan on putting on them. I wanted a good general purpose wing that would pull through cogging and respond well to wind fluctuations. most vawts you see of the lift type barely start in no load conditions if they start at all. Pole pressure is another consideration you need to look at because the wrong blade set on a light structure will rip it to pcs. These wings weigh about 4-6 ounces each and are very efficient at turning wind into rotary motion so the pole stress is quite low and I can get away with very light guy rope. The ones you could put directly into a pumping situation would probably be the Lenz type; very high torque, low rpm . you can see some testing done at the vawt.net site. with those you will need some heavy structure. hope the results are good lloyd |
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| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Big AL On your point of windmills taking over your life, they are addictive and hard to get away from once you start, as you drive around in the countryside you start to see them everywhere. The other thing is they are like Women, some look good some look bad and some are downright ugly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Windmills are noisy as they sing to you but if the noise changes look out somethings wrong, like women, there are two or so advantages to this addiction, in that you can turn them off if required, and they arnt as expensive as women, and they don't run away with the milkman and take half or more of your house. Happy addiction Bob Foolin Around |
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