admin answers:

Both wind and water can turn turbines connected to generators which will generate electricity.

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity

admin answers:

There are many different machines and transducers that convert one energy form into another. A short list of examples follows:

Thermoelectric (Heat → Electric energy)
Geothermal power (Heat→ Electric energy)
Heat engines, such as the internal combustion engine used in cars, or the steam engine (Heat → Mechanical energy)
Ocean thermal power (Heat → Electric energy)
Hydroelectric dams (Gravitational potential energy → Electric energy)
Electric generator (Kinetic energy or Mechanical work → Electric energy)
Fuel cells (Chemical energy → Electric energy)
Battery (electricity) (Chemical energy → Electric energy)
Fire (Chemical energy → Heat and Light)
Electric lamp (Electric energy → Heat and Light)
Microphone (Sound → Electric energy)
Wave power (Mechanical energy → Electric energy)
Windmills (Wind energy → Electric energy or Mechanical energy)
Piezoelectrics (Strain → Electric energy)
Acoustoelectrics (Sound → Electric energy)
Friction (Kinetic energy → Heat)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_transformation

ALSO, have a look at
http://www-bioc.rice.edu/pblclass/6th%20grade/Matter%20&%20Energy/Energy%20Transformation%20Game.pdf

I hope I’ve helped you,
Angela!!!

admin answers:

Hi Yves, I’m sure there are many websites that can give you better answers so try google too, Yahoo is limited. If you look on ebay you will see lots of permanent magnet 24 volt DC motors for use in scooters, I use one of these, the 250watt model, to power a 12 volt sound system, it can deliver 10 amps at 15 volts. For a wind genny you may have to put gearing between to get the right rpm.
I don’t know if you plan to use a voltage regulator, but if you only intend to use a blocking diode, the best one is a Schottky type, there is a cheap twin 15A schottky from Maplins under £2. I use both 15A diodes in parallel so they won’t get hot & need a heatsink.
The Schottky diode has a voltage drop of just 0.2 volt, I think you put the decimal place wrong
For wind generators the recommended battery charging voltage is 13.8Vmax so 14V with the diode. Car alternators usually produce about 15 volts minus 0.6V for the rectifier, so charge at 14.4 volts. Rutland voltage regulators for wind gennies operate at 13.8volts to stop the battery over-charging.
I don’t know why charging voltages are not the same for a car and a wind genny battery, I’m inclined to think any voltage from 13.8 to 14.4 is ok.
Batteries can deliver a huge current possibly causing burns and starting a fire, so it’s essential to put a fuse in the circuit, right next to the +ve terminal is best.
Good websites are Magnificent Revolution & Cambridge Green Tech

admin answers:

Axial Flux Alternator

The axial flux alternator (sometimes called a generator), is the heart to many diy wind turbine projects. While a small permanent magnet, D.C. Motor, such as the Ametek 30, makes for a very quick and simple project assembly, these motors are becoming very difficult to find and quite expensive. Ebay is loaded with people selling D.C. Motors for home wind turbine projects, that simply will NOT work, due to the extremely high RPMs required to get any usable output. Thus a homemade axial flux alternator may be your best alternative.
What is an Axial Flux Alternator?

A permanent magnet alternator generates power by passing magnets past a group of coils of wire. The magnetic field that surrounds a magnet is call it’s flux. Axial Flux simply means the lines of magnetic flux that past through the coils of wire, travel along the “axis” of the turning motion. The other type of magnetic flux in an alternator is called RADIAL FLUX and it occurs when the flux occurs “around” the magnet. Pictures are worth a thousand words:

Radial Flux

Axial Flux Alternator

In the left picture, the yellow disk is the stator. The two bluish plates rotate, along the horizontal axis, past the stationary stator. In the image to the right, the stator is on the case. The rotor, on the axis, rotates “inside” the stator. This guide by Hugh Piggott describes the process in good detail – How Axial Flux Alternators Work

Overview of the Complete Process – Building an Axial Flux Alternator

In February 2001, Hugh Piggott created a guide for building a permanent magnet generator (PMG) (alternator), after being commissioned by the British government. This guide remains in the public domain and provides an excellent overview of the complete process. You can build a PMG from these plans, though these instructions continue to be improved upon. The PDF document can be downloaded here: PMG Manual

This manual describes how to build a ‘permanent magnet generator’ (PMG). We can
also call it an ‘alternator’, because it generates alternating current (AC). Continued…

admin answers:

The most important thing is to have LOTS and LOTS of money.

If you are a billionaire, that would be a good start.

admin answers:

Hey Michael, Ben is correct about the vertical type turbines. The reason none of the power companies use them, is because they are horribly inefficient. Most of the energy absorbed by the downwind blade is used forcine the upwind blade back into position for the next cycle, and very little is left to produce power. Typically, this type of wind turbine, called a Darrieus Rotor, is about 5 to 8 % efficient, meaning less than 1/15th of the winds power is converted into useable torque, or electricity, and the rest is just wasted churning the blade around in the wind. Horizontal units, and in particular the 2 or 3 blade units generally operate at about 30 to 35 % efficiency, or about 6 times more efficient than a comperably sized Darrieus Rotor. The smaller home sized units like ours have a tail that constantly turns the unit to face the wind regardless of where it is coming from. Older farm type turbines with 12 or 15 blades on them usually worked this way too. That type of turbine, with the multitude of wide flat blades were almost never used for electrcity generation, they were also not very efficient. In most cases, they were used to pump water, and in that way what was needed more than efficiency was low wind start up torque. The large multiple blades worked better for this, but tended to stall out in higher winds. Electrical generating wind turbines work much better in high winds and at high RPM’s, so fewer blades is ideal for this.

The really large utility sized turbines you see that have no tail are either fixed to face one direction where the wind is almost always blowing from, like along the coast, or they have a small anemometer on top that senses the winds direction, and a computer uses a small gear motor to physically turn the unit to face the wind if necessary. These are typical in the midwest. Darrieus Rotors, and their close cousin, the Savonius Rotor, are really neat looking devices, and they are great for small garden pond pumps or outdoor garden lighting, but they are ill equipped to produce enough power to run even a household refrigerator. There is a great article at the American Wind Energy Associations website written by Mick Sagrillo about this, if you want to learn more, check it out. Mick is considered by many in the renewable energy world to be the modern day guru on wind power. Take care Micheal, Rudydoo

admin answers:

Sounds like a cool project… I’d love to try out some ideas too, but haven’t yet.

There’s a boom in “residential wind turbines” and related literature. This link:
http://www.squidoo.com/residentialwindturbine
gives a good summary of what’s commercially available, but about 1/3 down the page is a do-it yourself section with supporting references that might give you a good start.

Same site lists a “Earth4Energy DIY Wind Generator” for around $200. Probably a good start just for learning, then you can scale up as interest & budget allows.

Good luck & be safe!

admin answers:

Solar panels currently being manufactured, have a design life of 20+ years.

Home-size wind turbines have a wide range of design lives. The turbine life is influenced by conditions of use — high winds, ice on the blades, etc.

I would recommend that you purchase your home-scale wind turbine from a seller who offers a guarantee to repair or replace the unit if it fails under normal use. A 5-year or 10-year guarantee period would be ideal.

—————–
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admin answers:

There is no such thing as a device that can generate energy from nothing. So called perpetual machines are announced every few years with great fanfare but they always turn out to be frauds (or in rare cases honest but careless mistakes).

You can generate electricity from a ‘free’ source like sunlight or tides or wind or waves or geothermal heat, but you can’t generate electricity from nothing. To do so violates one of the fundamental laws of physics, the conservation of mass and energy.

Very convincing sales copy can make you believe in such devices. For instance, I remember reading a few years back about a ‘Genesis’ energy generation system that used a catalyst to split water into hydrogen and oxygen while using just a tiny bit of energy; then the hydrogen and oxygen were used to generate electricity through a fuel cell, and almost all the electricity produced was available, only a tiny bit was needed to split more water. This is malarkey and anyone with some basic physics knowledge will know it’s impossible, but it didn’t stop the company from claiming it had over 100 reputable scientists on its staff or board of directors. A good way to get some start-up money – sell some stocks to uninformed investors, then cash out before the house of cards collapses.

admin answers:

Excellent question from someone who obviously has a functional grasp of economics. You didn’t vote Obama, did you? (Oh you hater, you! You must be racist, too!)

If we would have just allowed the ill-managed lenders to get into real trouble and not interfere with them in the form of our ridiculous bail outs, the recession would have been far shallower that it is now going to turn out to be. It’s like getting the flu. Don’t medicate yourself – just get the nasty fever, feel like crap, then get over it.

Now the car manufacturers will be on the dole. We will reward their stupid management practices and ludicrous wages with free money. I say we let them take a dump. Like there’s not a rich investment group out there who would not come swooping in with bucket loads of money to buy Ford at fire sale prices? You’d have the UAW under control again, wages back to where reality resides, and a more competitive product too.

And if a car factory flat out closes, then the goverment can do something actually beneficial for green needs and turn these car factories into wind generator factories, solar panel manufacturers, etc. You want energy independence? Start there!

This bailing everyone out because things didn’t work is childish. I cannot believe how stupid this country has become. It’s like a parent of a teen who just keeps buying his idiot kid a new car every time he wraps it around another tree. Instead of making the kid ride a bike or bus, he just enables him to continue in the bad decision making by throwing more money at the problem.

admin answers:

May the New Year usher in loads of luck and happiness to you! Unlike Gulf countries, where they issue 2-year renewable visas, the European countries issue employment visas which are considerably longer. Who knows, if they like you and your work, they may even offer you citizenship (like the US) after spending a few years in Denmark.

admin answers:

Most tread mills as well as other equipment employs private labeled motors. These motors are manufactured by a motor manufacturer and have the treadmills manufacturer part number placed on them. This is done so that you have to pay the top dollar for a replacement motor from the treadmill company instead of getting one off the open market for a tenth of the price.
I doubt the manufacturer will even tell you much about these motors since the less you know about their motors the more likely you are to buy one from them and they make a handsome profit.
If you can get these treadmills cheap enough you can part them out and sell the parts on Ebay and make a handsome profit. You can have your motors for free!

admin answers:

To make an electrical generator, you need to have a length of wound copper wire rotating inside a magnetic field (refer to elementary physics).

Gasoline/diesel/etc. Generators run basically like your car’s engine, but instead of turning wheels, it uses the motion to rotate the wire inside the magnetic field, producing electricity. Remember, energy can’t be created or destroyed. The chemical potential energy in your combustible fuel is being converted to kinetic energy, which is being converted into electrical energy.

A wind turbine is more “free” in that you don’t have to go out and buy drums of oil to make your electricity. But it works on the same principle, but in this case, it’s the turbine blades catching the wind that spins the copper loop, creating electricity.

As far as your batteries go, you may be able to store it there, but to charge any battery, from AA to car, you need the correct circuit and voltage, or nothing will happen. So you probably can’t use your batteries. But if you can, all that you an do is store the potential energy there, and use it at a later time.

But if you just want to play with making a generator, try this:

First, you need to choose the energy source that you want to convert into electricity. You can use a stationary bicycle, a water wheel, wind turbine, a bored child willing to do some menial work on a set of gears, or virtually anything else with a rotating axle. You do have to choose the source, because as I said – you can’t get energy from nothing.

Take that copper wire that I talked about, and make that loop that I also talked about, but leave two ends free (you need that to form the electric circuit). The larger the number of turns in the loop, the more electricity you can generate for the same amount of rotation. Kind of like an electric pulley system, to use a bad analogy.

Take your loop, and connect it to your energy source. You need to be able to rotate the loop end-over-end, without twisting the two connecting wires about each other, because if they do, you’ll get a short circuit, and boom, it’s done. One way to successfully accomplish this is to connect one wire to the rotating axle and the other wire to a conducting “brush” that maintains contact with a second conductor.

Make sure that you’ve sufficiently supported the loop so that it’s out of the way of any moving parts of the energy source (such as your legs and the pedals if you pay a seven year old to ride a bicycle that never goes anywhere – give them one of those hand-held video games, they’ll never notice). To make sure that you get this right, you may need to reinforce your loop with plastic or another light (but sturdy) material.

Grab some magnets (permanent magnets), and arrange them around the loop so that the loop can rotate freely between them. Take care to ensure that you arrange the magnets to maximize the field strength. One good and simple method is to make the south end of one magnet face the north end of another.

Stick the two conductors on your energy source to a battery, circuit, chainsaw, whatever it is that you want to drive. Again, you need to keep your wires separate to avoid a short circuit, so you’ll need to use some kind of brush mechanism again, or whatever more clever thing that you can come up with that I haven’t considered.

Poke the kid and get him to start peddling, or release your turbine to the wind, whatever you want. The amount of energy that you get from your turbine will depend on the efficiency of its construction, materials used, and how much mechanical energy us put in to drive it and spin the turbine itself (a faster peddling kid will give you more electricity than a slower one).

Run with it. A home-built turbine is unlikely to provide your house with any really useful power, unless you’ve really taken some time, money, and thought into it (which is possible). But you might run some simple things from your standard knock-off generator, such as perhaps basement lighting, that kind of thing.

admin answers:

You will not be able to manufacture solar power cells in your own home.

See this link for solar cells.

Http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLR_enGB241GB243&q=solar+cells

That is like trying to manufacture a CPU in your own home, you cannot make the semi conductors.
You need a clean factory and millions of pounds worth of equipment for that.

See this link for do it yourself wind turbine.

Http://www.scoraigwind.com/axialplans/index.htm

and this might help

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLR_enGB241GB243&q=wind+generatore%2e

admin answers:

I still think that people are so ignorant when it comes to electric
cars they only think of one way to make them run and that’s batteries.
Its like you lost your mind and have no innovated ability to think of
more than one source of power. Every year people spend millions of
dollars to go to the gym they hop on bikes and treadmills and
ellipticals and pedal away for hours and then pay their gym for it.
Then they hop in their car and pay gas to ride home. The answer was
right in front of your face when you watched the Flintstones as a kid.
Do remember the car on the Flintstones. Hmm, not so stupid now is it?
Do remember how boats got across the ocean? Have you ever held your
hand outside the window and felt the power of the wind resistance
against your hand? The faster you went the more force you felt
pushing against your hand right. Have you noticed that the quality of
solar powered panel technology has increased tremendously in the last
twenty years. The quality of of generators and electric engines is
also there. Our government has manged to keep all of this from you
because they believe you are all ignorant and set in your ways. They
could make cars that run with out wheels but our government would
never allow it to be mass produced. If you had the means to build a
car that had electric generators that produced electricity via wind
power, Human power “recumbent bike pedals”, Solar power and maybe some
lithium batteries you would have a car that would go thousands of
miles without ever needing to be charged or fueled.
But will this ever be allowed. Its amazing that china and japan have
magnetic trains that never touch the track they actually float be we
never use that technology. Its no wonder they do not put any emphasis
on science. They want us to remain ignorant and in the dark. They want
you to keep forking all the billions of dollars in tax revenue. They
want the price of fuel to sky rocket because most of them own the
stock. The only way to overcome the greed is to take matters into our
own hands and break the grip of Fuel mongrels from ourselves by building
our own fuel free cars. I just showed you the way. Now all you have
to do is ” Just Do It!”
My method overcomes the perpetual energy law crap because you get extra energy, Via Human power and solar power! The sun is the source of unlimited free power and so what if you have to pedal your car for it to go long distances. I just saved you from getting fat as hell.
Source(s):
My brain!

admin answers:

I work primarily on Boeing products, so my answer is from that perspective.

Short answer: GTCP331

Commercial aircraft use an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) that provides electrical power and pneumatic pressure. The electrical power can then be used to run the electrical pumps (ACMPs)to pressurize the hydraulic system.

There are also Ram Air Turbines (RATs) that deploy directly into the air stream. This “RAT” looks like a trolling motor you would see on a boat, the wind spins the propellers and generates hydraulic pressure. If you have pneumatics, you can use the Air Driven Pump (ADP) to get hydraulic pressure. If you have hydraulics, but no electric, you can use the Hydraulic Motor Generator (HMG) to get electrical power.

There are backup systems all over aircraft these days. Most of which are activated automatically in the event of a failure of another system. The crew may only get an annunciator light to inform them that a backup system has been activated. No further action necessary.

admin answers:

A wind turbine is basically an electric turbine on top of a stand and with blades attached.

I would recommend you salvage a motor from a small electrical device. If you can find a small fan, then you only need to put it on a stand of some sort to make a wind turbine because it all ready has a turbine and blades.

An electric generator is just an electric motor in reverse. So any device that has an electric motor can potentially be used to make a turbine.

admin answers:

It depends on a number of factors, including average wind speed for your area, and the turbine design.
Fill in your parameters here: http://www.reuk.co.uk/Calculate-kWh-Generated-by-Wind-Turbine.htm and it will give you an energy rating in kW-hr

admin answers:

The US motor industry has not been interested in quality since about 1935. They have been interested in the appearance of quality to promote sales.

Flint tools, the bow and arrow, the spear and the spear thrower, baskets, pottery, agriculture, domestication of animals, the needle and thread, the plough, bronze, glass windows, the magnetic compass, chimneys, the horse collar and the stirrup, the wheelbarrow, drilling for natural gas, paper money, two, three and four wheeled vehicles, the water and wind mill, steel, the steam engine, the steam road vehicle, the steam boat, virtually all musical instruments, electric telegraphy, iron ships, the kerosene lamp, the light bulb, the electric motor and generator, gasoline engines, the motor car, the motorcycle and the bicycle, mass production, photography, wireless telegraphy, aspirin, heroin, the steam turbine, the pressure lamp, the mantel lamp, multi-engined aircraft, radar, the digital computer, the flame ionisation detector, the atomic absorption spectrophotometer and the cavity magnetron are an insignificant fraction of significant inventions that were not invented in the USA.

The USA from 1776 to about 1940 copied and technology from all round the world. Apart from some (not all) of the inventions by T. A Edison, and the inventions of A G Bell, de Forest, Edwin H Armstrong and a very few others the USA invented little of significance until about 1940.

admin answers:

* Americas Wind Energy Corporation (AWNE.OB) manufacturing and marketing of medium sized (500 – 1,000 megawatt (MW)) wind turbines for the North American market.
* Babcock & Brown Wind Partners (BBWPF.PK) An Australian based specialized investment fund focused on the wind energy generation sector
* Gamesa Corp. (GCTAF.PK) 18% of the world’s share of the wind turbine market. Based in Spain.
* Kore Holdings (KORH.PK) A power provider and marketer of alternative energy from wind farms, hydro and distributed power facilities.
* McKenzie Bay International Ltd. (MKBY.OB) Develops wind powered alternative energy systems.
* Mass Megawatts Wind Power Inc. (MMGW.OB) Develops prototype wind energy production equipment.
* NaiKun Wind Energy Group Inc. (NKW.V TSX Venture Exchange) Wind energy developer in the Haida Energy Field off the coast of British Columbia since 2001.
* Scottish Power plc (SPI) A leading developer and operator of renewable energy in both the UK and the US. It is one of the largest providers of wind energy in the US.
* Shear Wind Inc. (SWX.V Canadian Venture Exchange )Provider of wind-generated energy in Atlantic Canada.
* Sea Breeze Power Corp. (SBX.V Canadian Venture Exchange ) Developer of large-scale windfarms and underwater electricity transmission lines in British Columbia.
* Tower Tech Holdings Inc. (TWRT.OB) Involved in the engineering, manufacture, and sale of wind turbine extension towers and monopiles to the wind energy industry
* Vector Wind Energy Inc. (VWE.V Canadian Venture Exchange ) developer of wind energy projects in Canada.
* Vestas Wind Systems (VWSYF.PK) 34% of the world’s share of the wind turbine market. Based in Denmark.
* U.S. Wind Farming (USWF.PK) The federal court in Chicago entered a Final Judgment as to U.S. Wind Farming on October 20, 2006.
* Western Wind Energy (WNDEF.PK) Produces clean renewable electrical energy from over 500 wind turbine generators located in Tehachapi and San Gorgonio Pass (Palm Springs), California.

Here is an etf, exchange traded fund, PBW which invests in ALL of the following:
Here are the constituents of the WilderHill Clean Energy Index, with a brief description of each company, as of April 1st 2006. The index is the basis for the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio ETF (PBW).

Renewable Energy Harvesting – 27% sector weight (10 stocks @2.7% each)

Distributed Energy, (DESC). Part solar, wind; mainly in DG, some H2: an integrator.
Emcore, (EMKR). Solar, 27% ultra-efficient PV cells, also makes LED products.
Evergreen (ESLR). Unique string-ribbon solar PV with efficient silicon-use.
Kyocera, (KYO). Solar PV, integrated manufacturer is doubling production.
MEMC, (WFR). Producer of the polysilicon needed in many crystalline solar PV cells.
Ormat, (ORA). Geothermal, works as well in recovered energy, biofuels.
SunPower, (SPWR). Solar, Efficient PV panels with all-rear-contact cells.
Cypress, (CY). (Parent firm of SPWR above, and owns the major block of their stock).
SunTech Power, (STP). Solar, fast-growing and major producer of PV is based in China.
Zoltek, (ZOLT). Wind, makes carbon fiber for wind blades and product ‘lightening’.

Power Delivery and Conservation – 26% sector weight (10 stocks @2.6% each)

American Superconductor, (AMSC). Superconductors, ‘no’-resistance 2G HTS wire.
American Power Conversion, (APCC). UPS, makes firm-power systems.
Cree, (CREE). LEDs, makes efficient lights, power-saving electronics.
Echelon, (ELON). Networking, for management of whole energy systems.
International Rectifier, (IRF). Efficiency-enabling electronics producer.
Itron, (ITRI). Monitoring, designs energy measurement and management systems.
Magnetek, (MAG). Makes solar inverters, wind power converters, power controllers.
Power Integration, (POWI). Energy savings, enables power conservation in IC chips.
SuperPower / Intermagnetics, (IMGC). Superconductors, and power transmission.
UQM Technologies, (UQM). Hybrid vehicle electrics; motor & power systems.

Energy Conversion – 18% sector weight (7 stocks @2.57% each)

Ballard Power, (BLDP). Mid-size fuel cells, makes mainly PEM FCs.
Capstone Turbines, (CPST). Micro-turbines 30-60 kW, may be flexible-fueled.
FuelCell Energy, (FCEL). Large fuel cells as stationary high-temp. Flex-fuel MCFCs.
Hydrogenics, (HYGS). Fuel cells and testing gear, H2 electrolysis, regenerative FCs.
Medis, (MDTL). Micro fuel cells, designed for liquid-fuels and a unique electrolyte.
Mechanical Technology, (MKTY). Small fuel cells, may compete with Li-Ion batteries.
Plug Power, (PLUG). Mid-sized fuel cells for distributed generation, home power.

Energy Storage – 16% sector weight (6 stocks @2.66% each)

Active Power, (ACPW). Flywheel power storage, a firm power alternative to batteries.
Energy Conversion Devices, (ENER). Very diversified: in batteries, solar PV, also H2 FCs.
Impco, (IMCO). Gaseous fuels, a manufacturer and integrator for cleaner-fuel vehicles.
Maxwell, (MXWL). Ultracapacitors, a battery alternative such as for hybrid vehicles.
Quantum Fuel, (QTWW). Hydrogen gas storage systems for cleaner-fuel vehicles.
Ultralife Batteries, (ULBI). Batteries, advanced lithium ion, polymer rechargeable.

Cleaner Fuels – 9% sector weight (5 stocks @1.8% each)

Air Products & Chemicals, (APD). Hydrogen, a supplier of many industrial gases.
BOC Group, (BOX). Hydrogen, a supplier of many industrial gases.
MGP, (MGPI). Biofuels, ethanol and fuel alcohol.
Pacific Ethanol, (PEIX). Aims to be a leading biofuels producer for Western U.S.
Praxair, (PX). Hydrogen, a supplier of many industrial gases.

Greener Utilities – 4% sector weight (2 stocks @2.0% each)

Idacorp, (IDA). Hydroelectric, Utility, mainly hydro; also some fuel cell research.
PPM Energy / Scottish Power, (SPI). Wind, Utility, PPM is growing wind power.

Source: PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Portfolio home page.

admin answers:

I own and install smaller wind generators.

I assume this is a model?

A small, 360 or 540 can electric motor from any hobby shop will be a good size to use, and only a few dollars.

The same hobby shop if it is at all useful will have various pulleys and propellors that can be fixed to the shaft. If you mount a very large (say 14 or 16″) diameter coarse pitch (8″ or more would be good) prop the motor will not require a lot of air flow in order to over come the ‘camming’ effect of a permanent magnet motor and start to turn it, it won’t go fast but if you set a finer pitch prop on it it will take heaps of wind just to get it turning, or might not produce any useful power at all.

The problem with the standard air screw is that it will have to be used backwards, but if you only have a few days left you can’t be choosy.

If you get a piece of wood about 14″ long, about 2″ x 2″ you could screw it standing up vertically to a large piece of ply, and having cut a 1/2″ groove across the top 2×2 face you can secure the motor to this by putting a nail or screw each side down about an inch and stretching a few ruber band across the motor, as many as needed – it will be rock solid if done right.

Then you can solder or plug on the two wires to the terminals of the motor and lead them to your multimeter and load (bulb, little motor whatever) and go and find some wind.

If the point of the project is to make a wind generator, i.e. Blow wind then the same thing will work, just apply a small current (say 6v one or two amps) to the motor and off it will go. You would be better off in that case by fitting a smaller prop, say 7×4 and see how that goes – it will rev so watch your fingers.

Again the hobby shop should have all you need.

Just type in wind generator to google and you will get about three years of info and reading. There is some really dodgy stuff out there – at the moment there are lots of scams from the look of it that even claim people are making 200 watt solar panels at home from scrap and a few dollars worth of stuff – yeah right………..

Good luck. 🙂

Start here:-http://www.otherpower.com/toymill.html
http://www.hydro.com.au/education/discovery/model/wtmodel.htm

admin answers:

Small places, like a remote house or an island, might have batteries. A large place, like a city, would be connected to a “Grid”, or electrical energy transmission system. If the wind stopped blowing, deep in the night, they would pull energy off the grid, from a nuclear plant, or coal-burning generation station, or hydroelectric project many miles away. A town on an island might have a large diesel generator.

admin answers:

Hey Chris, good for you getting involved in this. About 12 years ago we looked into wind and solar power for our home. We used to have frequent power outages and just wanted a reliable backup source. Well today our home is completely powered by the wind and sun, we heat with wood, solar and propane, heat water with solar and propane and collect rainwater.

When it comes to wind or solar power you have 2 questions to answer. First, how much are you trying to produce. You said, “help power my house?” In this case, any size you are comfortable purchasing and installing will help. If you want to run everything most of the time like we do, then you have some more math to do. The second question is, “Do I want a stand alone system that can operate without grid power, or just produce some power to dump into the grid.” This is important. We had a stand alone system for years, meaning if we produced too much for our home and our batteries were full, then the rest was wasted. But it also means if the grid power goes down, we still have power. Grid tied systems need the grid to operate, they use it like a battery. They are less expensive and simpler to install, but cannot operate if the utility company has an outage, they simply shut down. There is a third type system just coming out, a hybrid. It has a battery bank, but ties to the grid at the same time. If the grid fails, it will power your home until the battery runs down. If you have wind or sun, this might be all week. These systems are the most expensive to purchase and operate, and more complicated than the other two, and are less efficient because they use some power keeping the batteries charged all the time.

For most people that want to get started, I recommend they build up a small system first and experiment with it. We did 11 years ago, it had one small panel, a 50 watt size, 4 golf cart batteries, and a 300 watt wind turbine from Southwest Windpower that was designed for a boat. Everything cost us $1,100 USD, and everything except the turbine is still operating today. We use the 12 volt power for kitchen lights, small electronics, like cell phone chargers and flashlights, and a radio and fan. There is a great magazine called Home Power that gets into doing all these things, and it doesn’t cost much to subscribe. They even ran 2 articles on our home, one on our small system, and another on our full sized one several years later. If you subscribe, you can use their online search to look for those articles, search for, “Small System First.” There are also some great websites, I will list some below.

As far as building your own wind turbine, it can certainly be done, but look for instructions first. And shy away from the vertical axis types, they look really cool and people say they are better because they can take wind from any direction. Wind only blows one way at a time, and the horizontal units have no problem with this because of thier tail. The real reason is because the vertical units are horribly inefficient. Generally they convert about 5 to 8 % of the incoming wind to electricity, horizontals run closer to 30%, this is why all the power companies are using the horizontal types. Check out Mick Sagrillos article about them in the AWEA website to learn more. Do some more reading, and if you can, get to one of the energy fairs listed in the back of Home Power, we did 12 years ago, and that is how we got here today. Good luck Chris, and take care, Rudydoo

admin answers:

Try here, found most of my ideas here.

Http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wind+turbine&aq=f

admin answers:

Wind energy is not transported but TRANSMITTED. These are also known as wind turbines.the blades move with the help of wind with particular speed on which the generator build the electricity,this electricity is then transmitted to the transformer to step down and connected conductors (wires)lead them to residential area by the help of poles.the electricity reaching to you,no one out side of the power plant can tel its from wind turbine,nuclear power plant,thermal power or any other………from all types the electricity is transmitted after transforming(step-up or step-down),the frequency and voltage is kept as recommended for any country……so no one finds any difference in electricity.no difference means appliance need electricity which is in particular frequency and voltage,if you provide it according to its need it will work,weather its from wind power plan or thermal.

Renewable energy in Spain

Spain is the world’s third biggest producer of wind power, after the United States and Germany, with an installed capacity of 16,740 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2008, a rise of 1,609 MW for the year. The largest producer of wind power in Spain is Iberdrola, with 27 percent of capacity, followed by Acciona on 16 percent and Endesa with 10 percent. Steady growth in capacity is expected in 2009, despite the credit crunch, due to long-term investments. Spain’s wind farms are on track to meet a government target of 20,000 MW in capacity by 2010.

On particular windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain, including nuclear. On April 18, 2008 the all time peak for wind generation was seen (10,879 MW, 32% of Spain’s power requirement),and on November 24, 2008 the wind energy produced the 43% of the demand.Wind power is an important energy source in Spain because the Spanish government has sanctioned a green energy approach to guarantee an increase in the country’s wind generation capacity, with aspirations to install a total of 20.1 GW of wind power by 2010.The approaches of energy deregulation that have been initiated in Spain recently are generating noteworthy developments within the energy sector. Multilateral cooperation for involvement in wind power production throughout Europe has created investment prospects for the industry and lower energy costs due to the efficiency of the renewable energy source and its domestic availability.
“The business framework for the installed capacity of wind power in the Autonomous Regions was made up of more than 170 companies that included manufacturers (wind turbines, blades, towers, generators, multipliers, electrical equipment, etc.), suppliers (hydraulic and electrical equipment and equipment for controlling and regulating), mechanical construction and public works companies, installation companies and maintenance, exploitation, and engineering companies in 2003”.
“Spanish companies are leading the way in turbine innovation by increasing the size of turbines while reducing turbine weight, and are also developing new technologies to take advantage of wind changes and split-second power outages”.

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Hey Nita, do you already own that 5kw wind generator? That is a lot of power to feed into that size battery bank. If you have done a load analysis on whatever you are using the power for and come up with this battery bank and generator, then I am assuming you don’t need the battery to run your loads very long. On a windy day, your 5kw turbine will fill that battery up from empty to full in less than 8 hours, which might not be good for them. And then if you have several thousand watts of loads, on a calm day, a 700 AH battery will be dead in just a few hours.

At any rate, virtually all wind turbines do not use a charge controller. They tend to throw that phrase around a lot in discussions when what they really use is a load controller. There is a big difference. A charge controller is normally used in a solar array, by limiting the amount of current from the panels to the batteries when the battery bank is near full. It does this by sensing the battery voltage. A 48 volt battery bank will be near full when the voltage gets near 58 volts, or goes higher. The problem with wind turbines and hydro generators is that the power is developed mechanically with a source you have no control over, the wind or flowing water. To keep from overspeeding the turbine, all the power it developes must go someplace. So they use a load controller instead, which lets the batteries begin to overcharge just a bit, like maybe to 59 volts, then the controller turns on a dummy load, like a bank of 100 watt light bulbs, or an electric heating element. This load starts draining the batteries until the voltage comes back down to maybe 55 volts, then it turns off again.

Most turbine manufacturers include this type of controller with the turbine, or charge a nominal fee for it as an add on. Ours is a good example, it is a Southwest Windpower H-40, rated at .9kw. It has a 1.5kw heating element dump load that is controlled by the same box that the turbine output feeds into. You set the voltage you want the dump to start at, and it does the work for you. All the power from the turbine comes into the box all the time, it has no idea if it is going out to the batteries, or to the dump load intermittently. If you have a turbine with no controller, you could simply buy one, they are made by heliotrope, xantrex, morningstar and other companies. You’ll need one with the correct voltage, and enough amperage to handle the entire turbines output. A 5kw at 48 volts will need at least a 100 amp controller. You can add your own dump load if you like, maybe a bank of ceramic light bulb sockets with 100 watt bulbs screwed in. If you are using a large inverter, like a Xantrex 5548 for example, they have several programmable dump load controllers built in, you can set the first to go on at 55 volts, and off at 52, the second to go on at 57 volts and off at 55, and so on. There are lots of ways to set it up, but it has to be a load, or dump controller set up, not a charger controller. Many controllers can be set up to do either, but not both. A few have both, designed for solar and wind setups together.

If it were me, I’d call someone that sells these things and tell them what you are trying to do. A good place to start is Home Power Magazine, they have tons of ads for places like Backwoods Solar, or Alt Energy Store where you can get expertise and purchase a controller on the spot. I’ll list some sources below for you. Good luck Nita, Rudydoo

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You can buy a mobile home approved, direct gravity vent wall heater. Like a Cozy, Williams, Empire.
They just mount on an outside wall and take combustion air from outside and exhaust to outside. Don’t mount near a door or window. They have standing pilots and don’t require any electricity. They have millivolt gas valves that work off pilot generators. For 800 sq. Ft. I think you need about 38,000 btu’s on the coldest day of the winter when the wind is blowing 40 mph. Good luck! Hope I helped.

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A permanent magnet hobby motor from Radio Shack, some rubber tubing and hose clamps.

The motor will generate a voltage when its shaft is spun. You need to attach a small diameter pulley or wheel to the shaft of the motor. You may also try slipping a piece of small diameter rubber tubing over the motor shaft. Either way the bike wheel will rub against the pulley or tubing covered shaft to cause the motor shaft to rotate. You can attach the motor to a frame or bracket using hose clamps and wire ties..

You may find it easier to wind a coil of magnet wire and mount that coil to the bike frame near the rim. Then crazy glue pairs of magnets to the rim (alternating the pole orientation).

THis will generate AC power as the magnets travel past the coil. Use a pair of white LED’s connected in parallel but in opposite polarities to the coil. Each LED will light on part of the AC volatge.

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…so, turbines generate electricity (3 phase electricity because its efficient)
-electrical engineering, bach.

And they got lots of moving parts
-industrial millright,

sorry, i don’t know anyone regarding wind farm techs but there is a school for them in Ontario, Canada

http://www.canwea.ca/images/uploads/File/List_of_Wind-related_Education_and_Training_Programs_-_March_2007_-2.pdf

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Technical schools are great ways to focus on hands on learning.. And get into the work force quicker.. In my opinion they are worth it.. Hope this helps!

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HI

Rooftop wind turbines offer a relatively inexpensive way to participate in the rush to renewable energy. The principle allure is low installation cost. Typically, tower installations for larger turbines add 50 80 to the cost of the system. With a rooftop turbine, an $800 tower is replaced by a $39 roof mounted tripod, or a length of pipe attached to the side of the house.

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You can easily make one from an old stepper motor out of a printer, or a computer.
Just put a fan or a propeller on the shaft and that’s it. If you want to produce DC, then you will need a rectifier as well.
This will probably take the form of 6 diodes, in order to get the maximum output.
Have a go, it won’t cost anything.

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I believe the whole motor is FP001. Don’t know about just the stator.

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The best inverters use a pulse-width-modulated output and a low-pass power filter for the line frequency (60 Hz or 50Hz). The high voltage DC input is modulated at a rate in the 20-40 kHz range or even higher. The modulation is controlled directly by the line to which the power is fed into. Some of these inverters can run in the high 90% efficiency range.

For the PWM inverter to work, whatever the output of the generator, it must be converted (any phase, any frequency, or even DC) to high voltage DC. This can be done independantly of the line frequency or phase.

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There are a number of things that can be done about gas prices. The problem is that there are political, environmental, and legal issues that would have to be overcome to make it happen.

First, we need to reduce dependence on imported oil. As a world wide commodity, changes in oil demand anywhere in the world will impact our prices here. We could reduce oil imports by increasing the use of ethanol. Currently something like 25% of the US corn crop goes to this. However, the downside is that this takes corn out of the stockpile for food (both human and animal feed), which is currently causing famine to break out around the world. We could expand domestic supply, but hat means drilling for oil off the Gulf coast and in a part of ANWAR, which has environmentalists up in arms.

Second, we could improve the distribution of fuel in the US. Currently, there are dozens of gas blends, all mandated by law. It is a tricky thing to supply just enough of each blend, as you cannot use a blend intended for, say, Colorado, in California. So if California goes in need, oil companies cannot shift inventory, they have to shut down refineries, make adjustments, and make more of the California blend. This is a wasteful and expensive process. Far better to have a single blend that all the states can agree on that would allow the fluidity needed in the market. But this is going to be difficult to impossible as the states want THEIR blend and will fight any kind of Federal mandate.

Third, I think we need to encourage those things which will get us away from oil consumption. Not much oil is used for electricity generation, but it can and should be replaced by more efficient, cleaner sources. But nuclear, coal, solar, wind, and hydroelectric all have their own problems as well and each industry will fight hard for their slice of the pie. Most oil is used for vehicle fuel. We need to move to more efficient vehicles and alternative fuel / hybrids, but they are often more expensive than gasoline powered vehicles and some alternate power sources do not have the power necessary for today’s driving. Research needs to be done in fuel cell technology, advanced batteries, and efficient (and safe) hydrogen generation.

I think too many people focus on one thing (conservation, more oil drilling, whatever) and think that alone will solve our problem. They are wrong. It will take a comprehensive approach were everyone will have to give a little for the greater good. Rep. Kennedy is going to have to sacrifice some of his coastal view in MA for wind turbines. Oil companies are going to be allowed to develop domestic sources. States are going to have to grant the feds the power to set uniform fuel standards. This is a lot to ask for, but this and more is what it will take. Anything less then an across the board rethinking of our energy policy will be like slapping a band-aid on a cut artery; just too little to be effective. And if it is ineffective, then expect the President of Iran to be correct when he says that oil is a strategic resource that needs to find its true (and in his mind MUCH higher) price. This is the guy that thinks $200 a barrel for oil is not unreasonable.

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Basically there are only two types, horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines. Here are some links for some more information……

Http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/wind.html

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/02-03/zero_emission_bldgs/descripwindturbines.htm

http://www.windmission.dk/workshop/BonusTurbine.pdf

http://www.awea.org/faq/basiccf.html

http://lsa.colorado.edu/essence/texts/wind.htm

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The mass and velocity of the air give it KE
The wind turbine blades convert the KE to ME (mechanical energy; the one you left out of your list of ‘all’ the forms of energy…!)
The generator converts the ME to electrical energy, the most useful grade of energy.

At each conversion point, some of the input energy is not used, causing the output energy to be less than the input. For ex: The wind downstream of the blades is slowed, but not stopped. Ergo, it still has some of its KE and the blades have picked up the rest as ME. As I recall, the maximum efficiency of any blade system is about 36%. The ME to EE step is about 90% efficient. Of course, all the efficiencies multiply, so you come out with less than 36%, but considering that the original wind energy is created directly from solar heating of land masses (ie, free), things don’t look so gloomy…….

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You know, with all of the conditions you’ve placed in this question, you could have asked, “If a generator spins at 700 RPM, how much electricity will it produce?”

A particular generator spinning at a constant 700 RPM will generate a certain amount of power, but a different generator spinning at the same speed would generate a different amount. Add back in all of the wind turbine stuff, and you get the same answer – “it depends.”

admin answers:

1) You have to figure it out. If it’s in Hawaii, you probably don’t need heat, and can get by without A/C, too. In other places, more would be typical.

2) Your choice!

3) Since utilities are allowed, just to be minimized, I’d go with grid-tied solar electricity. The panels can generate 100% of average usage over time (unless this is Alaska or something). The grid is assumed to be reliable, but if there are doubts, I would go with a gas-powered generator for emergencies before I went with batteries to store electricity. The cost and upkeep of batteries would not be worth it unless they were going to be used all the time – typically, and off-grid arrangement.

Our house is 1900 square feet, single story. You can look at my profile and find out web page, with details on how much our system cost, which provides essentially 100% of our electrical needs. The link is called “Our Solar Panel Project” on that page. But we have gas heat. And prices have come down since we had ours installed, so you need to research current pricing.

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I helped my Bro-Inlaw build a VERY nice 8 x 8 8-10 years go.

It had a window, TV, full-size hollow-core door. 2 fold down beds that folded down from the wall, 6 holes and we could barely move it! (lol) We named it the “Fish Tank” because it weighed 2 tons, (we actually BROKE a 2 ton jack trying to get it on a trailer!).

Since that experience I’ve had a variety of ideas:

#1. Do you know what a “quonset hut” is? My Dad used to build them in Alaska when he was stationed there in the ’50’s.

I had this idea that I would use hollow-core aluminum piping as the frame- bolted together. The floor would be 3/4′ pressure treated with skids, (typical to most shanty’s).

Here’s the “tricked-out” part- use thick canvas as the walls. And then FIBERGLASS the canvas using resin- thus the walls would be rigid. To make the walls more “rigid” you would use wire to secure the frame.

This would be an extremely light weight rig that could (theoretically) be moved by a single person on the ice! You would then have a permanent shanty that could easily be transported/moved around like a portable! You could also have your permanent house on the ice before anyone else! (I ran this idea by my Dad, who is an engineer, and he thought it would work well.)

Why go super-light?

After lugging the “Fish Tank” around a couple seasons it ended up sitting and starting to rot. Neither I nor my Bro-Inlaw wanted to hassle with getting it on and off the ice. It was a MAJOR pain in the @ss- and dangerous!

I EVEN thought about using heavy-duty PVC for the frame- (we used 2 x 2’s and 2 x 4’s at the 4 ends on the FT and it was HEAVY). But, here in MN where the possibility of -25 for weeks at a time made me rethink- (You don’t want the frame to “crack”!)

If I ever build another one It’s going to be a super-light.

I like your idea.

I suggest you build 2 benches on either ends. FULLY enclosed benches with hatches- so you can store expensive equipment in them when your not at the shanty- (like your buddy heater, rods and reels, ETC)- locked and secured.

Have one bench that is fully enclosed, (with lid and latches) and the other have a feature where the bench folds out DOUBLE to make a small bed. Build a small table that folds out from the wall so you have something to eat and play cards on- then it can be folded back into the wall if you have guests over and need space- (or the fishing gets good!).

Get rattle reels and think about adding a wind generator OR solar generator to keep your batterys trickle charging when your away. They are really inexpensive now- (like $150)- and it’s nice to not have to lug a 60 LB battery and hook it up every time.

Hope this helps ?