How to Build a 17-ft Wind Turbine

agentfive writes "The people over at Treehugger have found an amazing little article on how to build a 17ft - 3kW+ output Wind Turbine. Apparently this is the latest project of OtherPower.com and the site has a variety of other engergy saving/producing projects including a Homebrew Maytag Gas Battery charger."

Re:huh?

[jandrese]

I think if you replace the term windtunnel with windmill the answer will become clear.

That or if you bothered to read the article.

Re:huh?

[AKAImBatman]

and what use might a windtunnel in my apartment be? It's not like I'm designing fighter-jets or the new Ford here.

Wind Turbine, not Wind Tunnel. You can stick it on your roof and run a cable to your computer. Poor man's power, as it were.

Don't feel too bad, though. I misread the headline the first time as well. :-)

Solar Power In Wired

[Omega1045]

Wired [wired.com] had an article [wired.com] this month about rooftop solar power that was kinda cool. I thought that the project they highlighted (no pun intended) could be DIY with a little money and time.

Bad link

[kitzilla]

Bad link in the article text. It's here [treehugger.com].

Otherpower.com Rules!

[Coocha]

I've been following the work of the Otherpower.com folks for a while now. They're damn good DIY engineers. Not only are their wind turbines quite nice, but my interest was also piqued by their use of single-cylinder Lister engines. Coupled with a biodiesel recipe, it looks like they can run their entire shop for 8 hours on a single gallon of carbon-neutral gas.

One of my lifelong goals is to live simply, on a large plot of undeveloped land somewhere. I'm glad there are people like the Otherpower folks who are paving the way as far as alternative energy creation, and being considerate enough to document their work as they go.

I submitted this

[WormholeFiend]

with a more accurate headline.

The website doesnt really show YOU how to build one.

Rather, it shows you photos of the various steps taken by someone else to build one.

Sure, you could probably look at the photos and read the descriptions and use your brain to fill in the missing details and build one yourself, but there would be additional work/calculations needed.

It's still a pretty frickin cool project though.

Re:Wind Power

[glenmark]

What are the implications or potential problems from removing energy from Earth's weather systems? Is the energy we're removing negligible enough to be ignored? Could it potentially change weather patterns by blocking/slowing wind?

It should have no more effect than a tree does, and in windy areas where wind power is a viable source (my old stomping grounds in West Texas spring to mind), having windbreaks is generally a good thing in terms of reducing erosion.

Of course, there has been a lot of chatter in the media lately about birds getting killed by windmill farms. Wildlife impact is a definite consideration in the design and placement of the things...

Once /.'ed

[WasteOfAmmo]

Various caches:

Google, text only:
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:hHhkzdBOglAJ:w ww.otherpower.com/17page1.html+&hl=en&lr=&strip=1 [72.14.207.104]
Google, image of turbine:
http://images.google.ca/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=& safe=off&c2coff=1&q=flying17foot.JPG&btnG=Search [google.ca]
Google, images of turbines on their site:
http://images.google.ca/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=& safe=off&c2coff=1&q=site%3Awww.otherpower.com+turb ine&btnG=Search [google.ca]

carmaHore.

Re:Wind Power

[smooth wombat]

To help provide some insight into your questions you could start with this BBC link [bbc.co.uk] which talks about microclimates.

CNN has an article [cnn.com] which talks about the same phenomenon.

This link [metoffice.com] has not only a discussion of microclimates but pictures and graphs to to illustrate the effect.

If you really want to numb your mind you could read this research paper [lbl.gov] which goes into a whole bunch of details relating to microclimates.

The above should get you started. I didn't provide the proverbial link to a Wiki article since there are enough of other sources to provide the same information.

Re:Local restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

In vermont we have act 250 which is an all inclusive 'fuck you' from the zoning baord as it is worded to prevent any structure that would damage the natural scenery of the property.

natural scenery was never defined in the bill.

home-built wind turbines

[mnemonic_]

In the alternative energy crowd it's actually very popular to build one's own wind turbine instead of purchasing one pre-built. There are kits available, but some design them from scratch.

Often it's rather sobering looking at a wind speed map [awea.org] that your region isn't quite windy enough to make a turbine pay for itself. One needs Class 4 speeds at a minimum, and then you've got to deal with city ordinances about various crap with building a large structure.

Magnetics

[gr8_phk]

I've been doing 3 phase permanent magnet motor controllers for many years now, and I find the amount of magnetic material in the OtherPower alternators to absolutely insane. OTOH, I think they do it that way for simplicity of construction and to get zero cogging torque. i.e. They could use only 1 ring of magnets and use metal coil forms on a steel plate. The problem then is that the magnetic poles tend to "stick" to the metal ones and you get what's known as cogging torque - you can feel these sticky spots as you turn the motor. They also use an absolutely huge air gap (the full thickness of the coils) which leads to flux going between poles instead of throught the coils - another source of inefficiency. OTOH, they sell magnets to people wanting to replicate what they've done ;-)

Re:My dad would like this

[jericho4.0]

~$4000 will get you going nicely, depending on available resources. It's much easier if you still have a hookup to the grid. In many locals you can sell energy back to the grid in summer. It is limited, in that small lifestyle changes are needed to keep off the grid. No clothes dryer, for instance. A generator is useful for power tools, etc.

There might be tax breaks available, also.

Re:huh?

[Rei]

If you had read the article more carefully, you would have noticed:

So far the machine works quite well. It has such a huge swept area compared to our previous machines that it seems to start up in practically no wind, and it's making a little power by the time the anemometer says 5 mph. At 10 mph it's doing around 400 watts and at 16 mph it's up around 1.5KW. Above that I believe the blades are overpowered a bit by the alternator. I do see 2KW from it frequently and I've seen about 3800 watts from it a couple times in very high winds, but overall I believe the blades are held back a bit in higher winds by the alternator. I can improve it by adding a bit of resistance to the line - this would allow it to speed up in higher winds and the blades would run more efficiently - but as it is it seems very slow and peaceful, and it rarely goes over 200 rpm It's producing quite a bit more power than I can really use. So I'll leave it as it is, it's quite a good low wind machine I think.

Around where I live, that'd make about 600 watts or so on average. Not bad, really. Too bad they didn't provide detailed schematics or cost estimates :P

Re:Ezz Empossible!!

[blahtree]

36 watts was with one coil installed. In the later pages it says they could get 2000 watts in a moderate wind and have seen as high as 3800 watts.

Re:Ezz Empossible!!

[Ancient_Hacker]

Hmmm, still doesnt smell right... No mention of a wattmeter. A large magnetic gap. No closed magnetic path. No design equations. It's really hard to hit all the right sweet spots when winging it.

Plus it's really easy to be fooled when charging batteries-- the voltage may measure 48 volts, and the amps might measure 50, but that doesnt make 2400 watts. Batteries draw current only at the top of each cycle, so there's never that many amps and volts around at the same time. Your typical Radio-Shack meter is going to indicate hundreds of percent too hig-- a common stumbling-block for experimenters.

A true RMS-reading wattmeter is likely to show much less power. Sorry to be a spoil-sport.

Bird Strike Myth...

[Lagged2Death]

...debunked here [yes2wind.com] [PDF] among other places.

Other recent research supports the idea that birds can see wind turbines perfectly well and mostly tend to keep their distance. There are a few kills, but the turbines aren't the bird-blenders they've been made out to be.

Re:PhotoVoltaic Roof Shingles

[Rei]

Saltpeter is *A Salt*: "A chemical compound formed by replacing all or part of the hydrogen ions of an acid with metal ions or electropositive radicals". Never did I state "table salt", although dissolving table salt is an endothermic reaction as well (just not nearly to the same degree). The reason I didn't specify which salt is that I'm not sure which salt has the best reaction. May we resume being serious, please?