| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Andycap |
Posted - 21/08/2008 : 12:02:22
Hi all.
I have been lurking for quite a while on here, grabbing loads of useful information so that I could build my own turbine.
Well I have built one and used a 36v 200w geared brushed front wheel bicycle motor for the generator. I ran into a few problems along the way with blade sizes, I made 6 15" waste pipe blades but found that the mill would hardly turn due to having to overcome the internal gearbox in the motor. I next made 3 3' blades and had a little more success with those, although still needing quite strong wind to turn the mill.
I have now added another 3 3' blades to give me a 6 blade 6' prop and things have improved alot.
I live in Cannock close to Cannock Chase Staffordshire, right in the town so do struggle with getting clean wind. I have got a good clean path wsw, sw and west, so can take advantage of some of the wind directions.
My setup consists of a total of 30w in solar panels, 3 40ah sla mobility scooter batteries wired in parallel to give me a 120ah 12v system, I have a 4amp charge controller for the solar and have that and the mill running through a Watt's up meter.
The mill is producing power in the gusts and last Saturday i saw a peak of 12.7 amps from the mill.
I have been wondering if i need to build a charge controller for the turbine and have a dump load. Any advice any of you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Here is a flickr link to some pictures that i have taken. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29666566@N03/
I have also got a weather station online at http://weather2.andyn.net if anyone is interested in weather aswell.
Cheers. Andy. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Andycap |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 22:30:11
Hi Balltip.
My motor only had two wires out of it with it being a brushed DC motor. Your motor will probably have three wires of same thickness but different colours and also 2 thinner wires that would normally be connected to a hall effect sensor, those are used on a bike controller to measure the motor speed and let the controller know the current position of the motor. The hall effect wires will not be needed to opperate as a generator but could come in useful if you wanted to measure the rpm of the blades.
I have read about the connections needed from a brushless motor but cannot remember the details at the moment, there will be plenty of people on here that will be able to advise you on how to connect the three phase wires up to rectifiers to give you DC output.
Please keep posting with your progress because I for one am really interested in how it will perform and if it is better than the geared brushed one that I am currently using.
Cheers. Andy.
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| balltip |
Posted - 05/09/2008 : 21:27:18
Fellas, I think you are right. I'll see if I can't pick it up next week. I know that at least one other person got hold of a similar motor and he has promised to run a few tests as soon as he can.
The motor I am considering is a 36V motor.
Andy, what wires did you use on yours? I know that the question might not be relevant as they are different beasts. The reason why I ask is becuase I have not seen "my" motor yet, but I think it has five wires coming out of it. Is it just a matter of spinning and measuring to find out what the different wires give?
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| Andycap |
Posted - 05/09/2008 : 17:27:16
Hi Balltip.
I would certainly give that brushless hub a try, even brushless it would be wound for low rpm. I was origionally looking for a brushless gearless hub motor to try but the one I have came along so went for it.
Do you know what voltage it is ment for, there are different ones at different voltages ie 24v, 36v, 48v, 72v. The higher the origional design voltage the better it should be at lower rpm.
If all else fails, you could build it into a bike and have some GREEN transport. :)
Andy.
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| klimb2hi |
Posted - 05/09/2008 : 13:20:08
After a bit of research, it appears the 500 watt hub motor manufactured by Ginlong http://www.ginlong.com/wind-turbine-pmg-pma-permanent-magnet-generator-alternator-GL-PMG-500A.htm
is being sold by a popular American wind system. Not sure what the price may be wholesale, but there are very good results coming from this hub that are not overrated.
klimb2hi |
| gotwind |
Posted - 04/09/2008 : 16:09:44
Its worth a try balltip for that price.
It may be o.k for 6v charging, large traction batteries are 6 volt, but not many usefull things run on 6v unfortunatly, be o.k for lighting, LEDs et.c
Ben. |
| balltip |
Posted - 04/09/2008 : 15:53:05
Hello Andy!
No worries, I know people do not live in front of their computers. 
Yeah, I am currently looking for something that might suit my needs. Just today I found another thread here on gotwind, and in it I read that brushless hub motors need more rpm to generate anything useful.
Darn...
Double that darn, since I only this morning located a used hub motor locally that would only cost me £45 or so. Naturally it is brushless...!
I might go get it anyway since the seller gave half a promise that if I was not happy with it I could always return it. Guess I could find a way to rig it up in my lathe and see what it does. |
| Andycap |
Posted - 04/09/2008 : 13:53:17
Hi Balltip.
Sorry about the late reply, I have been away from the PC for a few days due to work commitments. I think it is great that you are going to have a go at a turbine using a cycle hub, mine is still working really well and yesterday it peaked to 19.51 amps in some quite fresh winds.
I just kept checking on ebay until I found a hub in my price range, I waited about three months trying to get one.
I do have electric bikes that I use for commuting to work and also for pleasure, so I already knew the capabilities of the hub motors.
Don't worry about hijacking the thread, it is here for us all to chat about hub motors.
Cheers. Andy.
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| balltip |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 06:25:50
Thank you for your welcome fellas!
I really do not want to hijack Andys thread but as I already have (sorry!) I might go ahead and ask something about hub motors and their conversion to alternators.
Is *the* method for mounting the blades to clamp down the axle and have the hub spin? I could imagine clamping down the hub, have the axle spin and take care of the wiring through a slipring construction. Andys solution looks absolutely great though and I might be overengineering things now. |
| BushWhacker |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 04:00:06
Hello Balltip, welcome to Gotwind!
$77 is an excellent price but the shipping is what would make me worry. I have a Crytalyte hub http://www.crystalyte.com/ (Click on the Crystalyte Front Wheel Motor link on the left menu) that I have put to work but built a Savonius turbine that is just a little too small. 12.5 volts takes about 85 rpm if I recall. If you spin these hubs up they can produce some pretty high voltage as well. There are a couple of people running the 36 volt hubs at 96 volts (and insane speeds for a bike) in Calgary.
My hub is brushed and I bought the kit for a discount because some components were missing to make an E-bike. I also paid about triple your price in $CDN.
I hope that helps a bit,
BW
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. - Albert Einstein |
| gotwind |
Posted - 02/09/2008 : 19:16:14
Good luck with that balltip.
Please keep us posted on how you get on.
Ben. |
| balltip |
Posted - 02/09/2008 : 18:58:59
Yikes! Shipping halfway around the world was way more than I figured - a whopping 3x the cost of the motor itself or $228 AU. Good thing was that, through a little help, I managed to locate a *local* dealer selling a similar product over the counter. In Gothenburg. Where I was going tomorrow anyway.
I might go shopping... |
| balltip |
Posted - 01/09/2008 : 19:22:27
Hello all! First time poster here, so maybe a short presentation would be in order.
My name is Per, aged 39 and live in Sweden. Apart from lurking on different wind/solar and water power forums I spend a lot of time flying model rockets (mostly MPR nowadays since I begun making my own KNSU-motors), petting my dogs (borderterriers) and spend quality time with my wife. I also work on occasion (okay, got my own little company going).
The reason why I post in this thread is because the original poster, Andy, showed something that struck me as just about plain perfect!
"A reasonably cheap motor/alternator that should be possible to locate is a good thing" I thought to myself. Looking on eBay revealed that there were no sweet deals to be had at the moment. Two people I've emailed on eBay regarding other alternators seems to be reluctant shipping out of the US, and thus I had to turn elsewhere.
Googling for "hub motor 36V 200W" revealed an amazing thing - those motors are available over the counter! And not very expensive either, $77. Au!
This seems to be a very reasonable alternative for me, living where I do. Shipping is steep no matter where I find a motor/alternator as long as it is located outside of the EU. (Not to mention customs!)
Until I saw this thread I had my mind set on the Windblue 540 but now my plans might just have changed.
I emailed the place where I had found the hub motor, greenprobike.com, and they replied that they absolutely ship internationally, and that their motors are brushless. (I forgot to ask if they also are gearless but that answer is just an email away.)
Now I am only a day or two away from ordering the hub motor that can be found here: http://www.greenprobike.com/dispdet.php?ids=0808061836470991
I am not looking to power my house using this but only a few reading lights and maybe a radio and so. About 3-4A in a medium wind would be totally satisfying for my needs. Battery bank will be something in the order of 150-200 Amps for starters. Maybe go bigger later on but for now that is all I need.
Any thoughts regarding this "find"?
Cheers!
Per
(If anybody would happen to know where I can find this motor, or a similar one, within the EU for a competitive price then please let me know.) |
| windymiller |
Posted - 28/08/2008 : 09:07:09
Hi andycap...
Nice to see another brushed scooter/bike hub as a wind genny.
Did something similar many moons ago with good results .
I eventually took it down after concerns about safety (12 blades)
Best up to date relating to good wattage per rpm(for me that is )....no cogging felt also.
Commutator and brushes checked afterwards for wear.....absolutely no wear evident on commutator...brushes showed a tiny bit of wear...quite a bit of dust circulating though.
A bit awkward to mount securely also .
I also liked it because it was gearless,so less to go wrong.
Cheers WM |
| Andycap |
Posted - 27/08/2008 : 22:21:27
Hi.
It would be nice if you could get that output all the time Tim, I think I will have problems with wind shadowing, my best direction is SW and that is the direction that the wind has been blowing the last few days. I think come winter that I may have problems with wind direction and turbulance.
Ben do you get a regular 3amp? mine is up and down like a yo yo. Today I have not seen hardly any output due to low winds.
I have managed to generate 538wh in the last 4 days, not near enough to go off grid but enough to run some garden lights, my network switch, garage alarm, weather station, my security cameras and a few other bits and peices.
Shawn the motor has a planetry gearbox and is part of the hub, I know that i get some loss from the gearbox but I don't think it would be practical to remove it. Brushed as in DC permenent magnet motor inside the hub. I mentioned the fact that it was a brushed motor because you can get brushless hubs that look the same.
I have designed and built a new dump load controller today and so far it seems to have passed every test that I have thrown at it. The specs for it are, N channel mosfet output for dump load with a current handling of 30 amp (easily increased by adding more power fets), 10 second delay to hold dump load ON after trigger to prevent rapid switching, dump load soft start and soft stop, adjustable trigger voltage. If anyone would like to build one then just ask and ill post the diagram for it.
Cheers. Andy. |
| shawn |
Posted - 27/08/2008 : 10:22:46
Hi Andycap, Have you cracked the motor open to see if its possible to get rid of the internal gearing? Gearing usually means less efficiency. What do the brushes do as well? has it not got permanent magnets inside it? |
