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."

Links

[dwight0]

I like some of the sites they link to. Some useful stuff. Like how to make a rocket out of a match.
http://www.matchrockets.com/ [matchrockets.com]
Before internet, I once payed $2 out of the back of a comic book to learn that.

My dad would like this

[WillAffleckUW]

he runs off the grid in Vermont, with a battery-power system, some solar cells, and a river paddlewheel turbine, and has a ridge on his 42 acre property that he could site this on.

Which is why he uses a laptop instead of a PC - easier to wire it to trickle feed from the battery system.

Reminds me off...

[turbofisk]

this kinda reminds me of a guy made a small powerplant for his stream... He actually got money back from the powercompany as he was now supplying instead of drawing power :) hellacool... I wonder if this will be the same case?

Wind Power

[Dracolytch]

I've never really gotten an answer to this question:

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?

Do we have any information about changes in weather from other man-made things such as cities? I've heard beltways can cause enough heat to slow/redirect some weather. (I know that birds of prey use updrafts caused by hot highways to help them gain altitude using less energy)

Any reliable sources for this kind of information, or are all sides biased?

~D

Not exactly friendly

[Nytewynd]

I'm pretty sure most towns won't let you construct a 17 foot windmill in your yard. There are a lot of ordinances where I live, and I see this as being against at least several of them.

Also, don't windmills produce tons of noise, to the point where they actually are a cause of noise pollution? That ought to make your neighbors thrilled.

Full article mirror

[winkydink]

Here [networkmirror.com]

I keep telling myself I need to learn how to weld. I really do

Ezz Empossible!!

[Ancient_Hacker]

making your own generator with magnets and wire is just plain crazy. Designing and building an efficient generator is WAY beyond anybody's homebrew ability. You need to know electromagnetics, have a source of silicon steel laminations, the ability to stamp them out to 0.010" precision, the ability to wind interleaved 6-phase coils, and much more.

The only wattage mentioned is "36 watts" from turning it by hand, and using not a WATTMETER, but a voltmeter. Voltmeters are notoriously inaccurate at measuring "wattage", especally of weird waveforms you're likely to get from a homebrew generator. Also if thye were turning it by hand as hard as they could, the output should have been around 250 watts, assuming an average efficiency generator. So if we use these figures, it looks like their homebrew generator is only about 12% efficient.

This is not a great example of good DIY-ing.

PhotoVoltaic Roof Shingles

[RichMan]

Roof Shingle power sources. There are now a number of suppliers.

http://www.kingsolar.com/catalog/mfg/uni-solar/shr 17.html [kingsolar.com]

Uni-Solar shingles are unique and have been honored with thePopular Science Grand Award, " Best of what's new (Environmental Technology)," and Discover magazine's "Technological Innovation Award" for best innovation (Environment).

The PV shingle permits roofs of commercial and residential buildings to evolve from mere protection from the weather to a source of electric power. The flexible, thin-film solar cell shingle blends into roofing pattern of traditional asphalt shingles or roof tile.

Re:Not exactly friendly

[evilpenguin]

I don't know about your part of the world, but the limits in my county are that the tower must be short enough that if it fell it would land inside your property lines. I have 2 acres, the narrow part of which is about 350 ft. so I can have (in theory) a 125 ft. tower (although IIRC the FAA gets to intervene above a certain height -- you know -- the red "don't fly into me lights").

As for noise, I don't know about this homebrew thing, but there is a commercial windmill about 10 miles from my house in minnesota. It is 250 ft high with a rotor span of 150 ft. It produces an annual average of 1.2 million kWhr (enough to power about 200 average homes). You can drive right up to it, which I did the other day. I had to turn of my radio and my carn engine to hear it AT ALL. It made a soft "whoof whoof" sound that was audible when I was right underneath it, but could not be heard from 1 block away.

Re:PhotoVoltaic Roof Shingles

[Rei]

I look forward to a couple rooftop technologies

* This fall: Lightweight rooftop solar concentrators [wired.com] will be hitting the market. They use a small amount of high efficiency solar panels, combined with heliostat mirrors controlled by a single motor. Manufactured in China, sized to a shipping pallet, and easy to install, they're projected to reduce rooftop solar costs by 30%, and an additional 20% in two years.

* 4-5 years: Nanosolar, Nanosys, Konarka, and a few others will all be unveiling their respective high efficiency thin-plastic organic solar cell technologies. Since each company is pursuing a different production methodology, it seems likely that at least one will pay off. Thin-plastic organic cells have the potential to really revolutionize the planet, because they have the very real potential to be cheaper per kWh than fossil fuels (to the end user, at least), and are light enough to install essentially anywhere. I've read over Nanosolar's patent, and it's pretty clever - organic solar cells are normally inefficient because the densities and spacings between the electron donor and recipient often don't fall within the critical range. Their process lays down successive particles inside a nanoscale scaffolding, and then gets rid of the scaffolding.

Re:PhotoVoltaic Roof Shingles

[Rei]

By the way, here's an idea that I had (it could be completely unrealistic, but I'd be interested in knowing what others thing).

Solar water heating isn't rare, and sometimes home heating with solar-heated water is done. However, any excess heated water during the summer (especially from a home-heated system) simply goes to waste.

Backtrack to the 1600s. A "cold drink" craze swept through major cities in Europe. The method of chilling drinks was quite simple: they added saltpeter to a water bath (an endothermic reaction), and cycled enclosed drinks through the sub-zero degree saltwater. When the saltwater had warmed, they would evaporate out the (at the time, quite valuable) saltpeter in evaporation tanks.

Concept: Use the wasted solar water heat to help evaporate out a warm salt solution by raising it to near boiling. Warm, concentrated saltwater from a heat exchanger inside the home is piped through the solar heating ducts, raising it to boiling/near boiling. From there, it enters a chamber, possibly kept at slightly lower pressure by a low power fan, to encourage salt precipitation. Every few minutes, a scraper runs in the chamber to stir up the salt into the oversaturated solution, making a salt slurry. The evaporated water runs through an outside radiator, condensing and cooling to near ambient outside temperature. Both the condensed water and salt slurry recombine inside the house and run through the heat exchanger again.

The obvious questions are:

* Would it work at all?

* Would the power requirements for circulating the water, running the scraper every few minutes, and potentially running a low power fan to maintain lower pressure be more efficient than running a compressor?

* Would the energy savings, if present, justify the modifications to a conventional solar heating setup?

I really don't know the answer to these. :)