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WARNING! Many of the projects on TheBackShed involve using electricity at potentially dangerous levels. A F&P motor or other types of alternators can easily generate lethal voltages, even when spun by hand. Knowledge of electricity and its effects is your best defence against a deadly accident. If you do not understand the basics of AC power, the difference between single and 3 phase, and ohms law, then I highly recommend you visit All About Circuits, and in particular read the section ELECTRICAL SAFETY. Always use extreme caution when experimenting with electricity. TheBackShed assumes you have a high level of electrical knowledge and safety awareness before you proceed with any project published on this site, and takes no responsibility for any injury or damage to property. |
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 Electrical Information:
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 Mechanical Information:
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Glossary of Terms:There are two forums here at TheBackShed. The original forum was something I put together back in 2004 as a way for web site visitors to share information. In 2005 I started up a new forum using the proven Web Wiz forum software. We now have over 1500 members.
Some basic maths on calculating solar panel, battery and inverter sizes .
Living Off Grid
My own expereince of living off grid.
By Don Brown. Originally a letter sent to Silicon Chip magazine as a comment on my original windmill article, Don explains the complex relationship behind windmill power and windspeed.
The difference between Watts and Watt hours. The two terms are often miss used.
Standby power, the power used by appliances when they're not actually in use, could be costing you over $100 per year. Here's a few tricks to reduce your standby power costs.
Paronella Park Hydro-electric
Power Station
Based on a stepper motor from an old floppy disk drive, and takes about 30 minutes to make. The Mini Mill will generate about 1-2 watts and charge a couple of Nicad batteries in a couple of hours.
Written by Ron Lin of WindyNation, this article describes the pro's and con's of using PVC, Timber, Fibreglass and Aluminium as a blade material.
Some information on windmill blades, materials and options.
Forum member Oztules shows us how he made his windmill blades with a chainsaw.
A very accurate way of balancing your windmill turbine.
A look at how the swept area, and therefore the power, of a turbine changes with diameter.
How much power can we extract from the wind?
There's a limit.
A personal favourite, some info and
links for Southern Cross and Comet windmills.
Chinese Windmills.
The cheap import Chinese windmills are popping up everywhere, and you can buy the blades separately. But they are very noisy. There are two parts to this article, firstly how I modified the blades to give more power and make less noise, and secondly, how a forum member, Kevin, modified the windmills to improve tracking and reliability.
Furling is used to protect the windmill in high winds, but how does the furling system on small windmills work, and some calculations to work out the furling speed, tail lengths, etc.
Homemade sliprings using
hardware store items.
Some best practice tips.
Check out the Kits & Parts page.
How to identify the different F&P types.
F&P washing machine.
Instructions on removal of the F&P motor from a dead washing machine
Cogging can affect the low wind performance of a iron core alternator based windmill, like the F&P. So what is cogging and how can we fix it.
How to reconfigure the F&P stator for charging 12v batteries.
The 7 phase cogless
F&PUsing a magnet hub from a late model F&P washing machine, and a old stator, its now possible to make a cogless 7 phase alternator.
Modifing the F&P stator for a better power curve.
Using a F&P Smart Drive motor, this windmill is capable of producing up to 300 watts. This new design replaces the windmill kit I sold.
What are they and how do you get started.
A little PICAXE project. Reliably controls my water pump for the header tank.
Gizmo's PICAXE Windmill Controller/Charger
Based on a PICAXE 28X chip. Features menu driven setup, serial logging output, staggered dump load and LCD display of volts, amps, watts and watt peak.
Yet another PicAxe project. This unit logs windmill data ( volts, amps, windspeed, RPM ) to your PC via the serial port, and works as a simple shunt regulator. The PC software displays the results on a graph.
Gill has put together a clever anemometer
( wind speed ) logger using a PicAxe chip and EEPROM's for data storage.
The logger has low power consumption and can record weeks of data ( depending on the sample rate ).
Derek has put together a nice windmill data logger and performance testing software package that works with a LM3S6965 microcontroller.
12V sensor light
Converting a mains powered
sensor light to 12v operation.
Pete's step by step guide to making circuit boards.
A crash course in converting AC to DC.
How to make a volt and amp meter for your battery bank.Click Here
Adding a expanded scale voltmeter to my old battery charger
Based on a TL084 op amp, this is a easy to build controller suitable for wind and solar applications.
A dump load is used to drain off excess power. This design uses a few 50watt light bulbs and with some parts from the junk pile, shouldn't cost more than $20 to build
Converting a burned out 240vac fan to 12v operation.
Building encapsulated resistors
How to build a high power dump resistor from used heater elements.
Gordons Cap Mod
Adding capacitors to a wind turbine alternator can improve the output power curve to better match the wind speed. Read how Gordon has used capacitors to increase the power of a F&P and a axial flux wind turbine.
Linear and Switching Voltage
Regulator Fundamentals Great article, thanks to Bryan for finding this one. PDF format.
Handy for measuring magnet strength and polarity.
This little box is a complete computer, programmed in BASIC, and you can plug in a screen and keyboard. Plus, its got 20 I/O pins to experiment with! Comes as a kit for $79.95AU
Looking for Maximite
parts and kits?
Alegro Current Sensors. A few tips to using the Alegro chips for your electronics project.
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Pete's Magnetic Levitation Project. Just for fun, and educational too!
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Building your own pedal powered generator.
How to use a rectifier out of a car alternator.
Oz shows us how.
Rebuilding Lead Acid Batteries.
Ron ( wind-pirate ) has written a proceedure on rebuilding wet cell batteries to give a few more years service.
IRC ( Internet Relay Chat ) is a way for RE enthusiasts to keep in contact, or "Chat" with eachother. This page explains how to get going with IRC.
See how the professionals do it.
A small petrol engine and car alternator can make a handy portable charger. Great for quickly charging a flat car battery.
Building a solar pump on the cheap. Flows about 80 litres per hour.
Build a simple composting bin
This was a little project to convert a small induction motor to a permanent magnet windmill.
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Based on a 300watt 24v DC scoota motor, this little windmill would work well if I could boost the output voltage.
A windmill built around a 3 phase servo motor from an old welding robot.
Now this was an interesting project.
I've been in the electronics business for almost 30 years now and I dont like the way its heading.
A bit outdated, but here for interrests sake.
If you have a interesting home made renewable energy setup that you would like to share, please contact me using the About Us page.
F&P windmill.
A wind powered car built by Oztules
SpitsFire's axial flux windmill and plans.
Members blogs about their own back shed projects.
Lost, looking for the homepage?
