Anyone into wind power?

[Bill, KD0HG]

I would like to correspond with anyone that's built or used a homebrew or commercial wind powered generator.
I'm thinking about making one a 2008 summer project. The winds here along the Front Range are outrageous and constant, and I've got a few sections of Rohn 25 lying around.

[WA1GFZ]

I have a friend who lives in CA.....his tower was about 4 feet on a side up 50 feet with 3 -8 or12 foot blades. 25 would be kind of light for high power. I think the generator gear box was about 150 pounds if I remember it on his garage floor. I remember the converter used SCRs. The guy who sold him the place said it made/saved $100 a month and this was about 4 years ago.

[WQ9E]

Hi Bill,

Although I haven't built anything yet please keep me in the loop.  I have been thinking about using wind power to provide some supplemental heat since the only time our central heaters run a lot is during very windy weather.  We are heating around 4600 square feet (plus additional unfinished basement space) on around 800-900 gallons of LP a year (also includes water heaters plus a stove) so the cost is not too bad but it would be nice to make use of the very windy conditions here in rural central IL.  Currently it is 9 degrees with sustained winds of 35 MPH and gusts well over 50.

I have thought about using a wind mill to power an AC generator furnishing power to some water heater elements in a tank/radiator setup in the basement.  Neither voltage (as long as it does not exceed the element rating) nor frequency would be critical in this application so it should allow some simplification of the system.  This would be purely supplemental since we do have a back-up generator to power the existing furnaces and they have never run over 10 hours in a 24 hour period so they have plenty of capacity.  But with the ever increasing energy prices it would be nice (and fun) to see how much we could reduce our "fossil fuel" usage.

There was a 70's era QST article with a Savonius type mill that looked interesting since it was rugged, fairly simple to construct, and as I recall the speed was fairly self regulating as the blade design results in reduced efficiency as the wind velocity increases.

I am hoping to find some time this summer to investigate this more thoroughly.  Having hiked extensively in the CO Rockies I know our winds don't compare to yours on the divide but during times like tonight we do get quite a lot.

Rodger WQ9E

[K6IC]

Hi Bill,

My remote site is off-grid Solar.  Have made provisions for a wind turbine or two,  but the larger ones that neighbors have put up seem to come down in the big winds.  The smaller ones in the area seem to stay up.

In general,  they might just be more trouble than they are worth.  An ham friend in So Cal lost one of his three wind turbines two weeks ago in a big wind.  Last weekend he lost two more in a bigger wind.  These were smallish ones ... about 1 KW output.

Some of the folks with good wind seem to have quite a bit of trouble sleeping when the winds come up.  As an adjunct to off-grid solar,  do have allure,  as there is much less good sun in the winter.  And in the winter,  the consumption rises.

I am still dragging my feet on the issue ... may well go for some more solar panels,  and just gotta Diesel generator ... hate to burn fossil fuel,  but for me that might be a better payoff.

73  Good Luck,  and keep us informed.  73  from bitterly cold CA  42 degrees F now !    Vic

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

You're probably gonna want to go with something newer Bill, but the old Jacobs units from days gone by are pretty nice, very stout, and quite adaptable to the world of wind power today. Back in the 70s-80s they were still commanding big $ and the mill of choice. Three large blades, long tail, looks like a bomb or small torpedo. Forgotten most of what I knew about them. Today there are probably many newer and likely better options, but the Jacobs were the Rolls Royce of wind gennys.

Bet there are a bunch still living out your way, complete with towers. Had a girlfriend in high school whose folks ran their entire house from one, with a big article in the local paper when they disconnected from the grid. Still recall mucking with the banks of telco batteries, checking the electrolyte, adjusting the relays and controls in the panel. Lightning took it out some years later. 

Charlie Hall AA1RW is a good guy to talk with. He was big into wind power for years and still buys and sells stuff last I knew. I don't have his email address, but he's good on QRZ last I knew. One warning: he can talk the hind legs off a donkey!   

[Bill, KD0HG]

Thanks for all the tips.

There are a number of stout wind towers out in the eastern Colorado boonies that are still in use to pump water on ranches for livestock but I've never seen one with a generator on top.

Of all the silly things, having a wind tower on your property seems to have become a stylish accessory in many areas of the West. Completely non-functional, but people have been buying old ones, often shortening them, and installing them with a propeller on top for purely decorative purposes. So good used self-supporting towers are actually hard to find.

I once built a Savonius rotor out of a steel oil drum that I cut in half and welded the offset pieces together. Used a belt drive to an old GM car alternator. Quite the hack job, and it didn't work very well.

[John K5PRO]

Hi Bill
A year ago I saw a really nice windpower system being built down near Big Bend NP in Texas, near Terlinqua, and Study Butte. It was a river outfitter's place, but i cannot find it on the web now. Had a  heavy duty commercial self supporting tower, and big windturbine going in. They had a nice shack full of batteries and a Perkins diesel backup.

John

[ab3al]

I have a frined in baltimore... Glen burnie to be exact that runs an electronic repair shop out of his pole barn.. Well he did some work for bp (british Petro) in their alternative energy research facility.  they were throwing out some large solar pannels converters and a couple of "consumer sized" wind mills.. He took it all home and we covered the roof of his 3000 sq steel building with the system.. we erected 2 wind mills.  all together he was able to go completely green for his shop.  saving about 900 a month in commercial electric bills.   Then he was served notice by the county... You see Baltimore Gas and Electric Managed to pay off the liberal government and get a bill passed that said if a home owner went alternative energy and only needed 25 percent or less of the average household need.. they still had to pay a bill equivalent to the full use to the power company.. His father is a trial lawyer.. and according to him the power co actually has to buy his excess.. 
yes they are suing.. Ill see how it goes

[WD8BIL]

Been thinking about a 12V DC version for the huntin' cabin, Bill.
All homemade with a 100 Amp Ford alternator. I hope to generate enuf to keep the batteries alive.

I've got a prelim design on paper. Just gotta find (make) some time to built the prototype.

[WBear2GCR]

If you folks search the web a bit you'll find a design that has found considerable favor in the DIY wind community these days. It uses truck wheel assemblies for the bearing part and Neodymium magnets for the generator part, very effective apparently. Seems to be most popular in the Northwest and Rockies... I'm not sure if I have a link to see it, but the neodymium magnets are laid out on a flat circular surface as are the coils...

I doubt that you can use an auto alternator effectively because it has to spin at way over 1000rpm to generate useful power afaik. This Neodymium method is designed to work at low rpm, which is what you get out of wind power.

                  _-_-WBear2GCR

[WD8BIL]

"Useful power" yes, Bear.
  But spinning it at 200 rpm in the garage with a gear reduced motor gave me enuf (8 amps) to charge a nearly dead battery. That's all I need for the hunting cabin. We run the lights, all 12 volt, a few 12 volt camping accessories and, of course, the ricebox on 4 paralleled 155 amp/hr cell site batteries.
8 Amps of charge would go a long way in keeping them alive for a week of bowhunting.
 The prelim design has the 22 ga. blades mounted to and turning a 20" bike rim assembly. That 20" "pully" will only need to do 40 to 50 rpm to get 200 rpm at the 4" alternator pully. I should get enuf torque outta the 3 ft. diameter windmill to do the job.

I'll lechya know.

[WB2EMS]

Bear,

I'll bet that web site is http://www.otherpower.com they have a lot of great stuff on there including home built axial low speed alternators based around automotive bearings and disks. http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind_alternators.html is a discussion page on the suitability of various alternators for use with wind power.

I found their whole page very inspiring. I've wanted to play with wind power for a camper or cabin for years.

[KB2WIG]

  " That's all I need for the hunting cabin. We run the lights, all 12 volt, a few 12 volt camping accessories  "

Pre-chilling the beer keeps the power budget down to an acceptable level......  klc

[W5AMI]

We are going to have a cabin built, hopefully this spring on the east portion of my property.  All woods.  Our property is on a thin high ridge which goes east to west.  Anyway, I am considering a commercial wind unit that is huge, on a tubular tower with props that are something like 40 to 50 feet long.  So far all this is just chit chat I've been having with a good friend who is a building contractor.  According to him, this unit comes complete with inverter and batteries for around $18,000, which I will try to include in the loan for the cabin.  I don't know enough about it to really be any good on the subject, however I was told this could power my entire home, and probably send some power back to the mains for a little profit over time.  If and when we get this project going, I will report back on all my findings.

I think wind power for electrical generation in homes is something that will be a lot more prevalent in the near future. 

[WBear2GCR]

Bear,

I'll bet that web site is http://www.otherpower.com they have a lot of great stuff on there including home built axial low speed alternators based around automotive bearings and disks. http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind_alternators.html is a discussion page on the suitability of various alternators for use with wind power.

I found their whole page very inspiring. I've wanted to play with wind power for a camper or cabin for years.

Yeah, not sure if this is the specific site I saw, but this is along the same lines...

Budly,

A 3 ft diameter windmill will likely not produce more than a few watts of power with a continuous wind of ~10mph. I wouldn't count on such a method myself.

If you're at a location where there happens to be continuous wind of some significant speed, maybe you can make that work. But the power available is a function of the diameter of the windmill and the average speed of the wind.

The problem for most "normal" locations is that the wind is actually not present in reliable quantities or speeds. Short bursts of high speeds aren't going to get you very far. The other end of the spectrum is long periods of slow breezes are mostly ignored by most windmill designs.

I think it is useful to look at the old style farm windmills that were used for pumping water... they tended to be larger than you think (like 12ft or better in diameter) and designed to take advantage of relatively slow wind speeds.

That and the Dutch windmill design - useful for slow speed breezes.

As far as WA5AM going for an $18,000 commercial windmill, if it were my $$ I'd get a big solar array for the same money unless there ain't no sun there... Most of the big commercial windmills are worthless unless the site has been studied for a year with an anemometer at the proper height and the equations have been worked through. Most sites simply don't have enough wind to turn the blades often enough to make it viable!

My opinion of the big commercial windgenerators is that the design is butte stoopid - the things are designed for a narrow band of wind velocities, which are simply not available in most locations - they have to shut down in wind over their narrow max range, and produce nothing at all below their threshold. Just not good for most sites.

                _-_-bear

[WB2EMS]

I also have to wonder about the viability of the average commercial installation to power a home. There are several around the finger lakes area and across the state, and I take note of them when I travel because I am intrigued by the technology. Most of the ones I see seem to be 'dead'. Rarely do I see one spinning and making power, or spinning at all. They seem to go up, work for a while, and then they always seem to be not spinning. I suspect they develop issues and it's not cost effective to go up and fix them once the owners realize how little power they got out of the investment and how much tending it needs. That's just a feeling on my part, based on those observations and 'friend of a friend' stories about people's problems with them. The sense that many of them were led to expect far higher output then they actually got also comes through in the stories.

I do have one friend with a smaller windmill, in the 500-750 watt range, and he uses it in conjunction with a variety of solar cells to make power for his small home. He says that day by day the windmill doesn't tend to contribute as much as the solar, and we're by no means in a good solar zone in central NY, but when it's stormy out it tends to offset the loss of the solar, and when it is windy, it contributes a lot in a short time. So it is worthwhile to him. His topography puts his windmill on a low, 20ft tower into a natural venturi between the hills on either side.

OTOH, in the boating community they seem to be very popular and worthwhile. I spent some time on a friend's boat in the Caribbean last year and nearly every boat had one or even two little windmills on them. Typically they were about 3-5 foot in diameter, and are supposed to make as much as 400 watts at 12 volts, but that is in a steady 15+ kt breeze, which is common for many hours per day in most anchorages, and sometimes much more. Air-X seems to be one of the more popular units. http://www.e-marine-inc.com/products/wind_generators/airxmarine.html


I think it's probably practical to build something closer to the 100-400 watt range out of homebuilt parts, maybe even smaller and use it like Bud is planning for a cabin, and in fact I hope to do it myself some day. Bud, it might be worthwhile checking out some of the marine units if you want a prebuilt unit. Many cruisers are cheap thrifty and there are some interesting low end units out there such as the KISS unit
http://www.kissenergy.com/

The low speed axial alternators that the otherpower.com folks build look very interesting for both wind an other means of driving.

Someone commented further up the thread about savornias (sp?) rotors to drive heating elements. I did know a fellow who had a house up on a nice ridge overlooking rochester (referred to in my posting about vhf contesting in winter weather) who was going to do that. Just make some simple low speed wind turbines and use them to drive electric elements totally without any regulation or control. The house was easy enough to heat when there was no wind, but when there was a lot of wind it got colder, and the electric heat was going to help offset that. I moved away before I got a chance to see how the worked out for him but it sounded reasonable.