I decided I needed to try to build a VAWT. I looked at the Lenz2 and wrote Ed for some additional information. I built the blades based on his method using ½” plywood with wood struts. Instead of using aluminum, I used some mylar drafting film we used to use in the old days of hand drafting (before AutoCAD). Mylar is a plastic film that will not rip. I used a waterproof glue to put everything together. The motor is a tread mill motor I didn’t want to use for my other wind generators because it is not enclosed. I have not secured the top yet. I don’t want to spend any more money on it until I see how it flies and I didn’t have anything handy that would work.
The Saturday I was building it we had some strong winds at about 20mph. It was bright and sunny which followed a 6”snow storm from the night before. I had just completed the final connections on Sunday morning when I looked out to another snow storm and no wind. Needless to say I didn’t get it out for a test flight.
I don’t expect it to work without gearing it up. I wanted to check this configuration to see what kind of torque and speed I get from it. More of a fun experiment than anything else. Total investment was about $4.00 and a few hours of time. This is a half scale version of the Lenz2 4 foot unit.
Test flew my VAWT and was a bit disappointed. I had some good winds and did get it spinning fairly well but it would stop and have a hard time restarting. I believe I need to make the hub bigger. Ed said his 2ft tall unit was 2ft wide. Mine is about 16".
I wish you good luck and hope you figure something out on vawt's. They just don't seem to be very worthwhile. I've explored a couple options and they just don't seem to turn with much power. On youtube you can see quite a few examples. There is one that claims to have vawt figure out, racecom.com's demo shows their proposal. I'd like to see racecom's idea up close. They have a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N22Hs1DNt3I
Lots of blades seem to help, but knowing how week the alternatives are I'm still not impressed.
VAWT
Posted - 01/04/2008 : 15:40:53
