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Forum Index : Windmills : Howdy from Calgary
| Author | Message | ||||
| Clive Newbie  Joined: 29/09/2008 Location: Posts: 8 |
Hi I am one of the new kids on the block. I have just joined up and will be studying this site with great pleasure. I got hooked on wind power about 15 years ago at the same time as I gained much love for the straw bale construction mediums. I have made a few blades but I live in the city and cant get them high enough for any real satisfaction. My focus is on miniatures with wooden rotor and stater. I really enjoy the carving part and have some good power tools. I have built a 12 and 8 magnet rotors and 12 coil 5 inch diameter disks, and looks not bad. OK I am rambling - Glad I found this resources... |
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| windlight Guru  Joined: 03/03/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 331 |
Welcome Clive, would you like to share some construction details of you minatures and pics if you can. allan "I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - (Act II, Scene IV). |
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SparWeb Senior Member  Joined: 17/04/2008 Location: CanadaPosts: 196 |
Howdy, yourself, neighbour. You didn't actually try to build a staw bale house in Calgary, did you? If you did, I know somebody who might want to come by and see it.... Steven T. Fahey |
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| Clive Newbie Joined: 29/09/2008 Location: Posts: 8 |
I would love to share some photos - I was studying the rules to see if is ok. I consider myself some what of a jig builder for many different projects. I have to go to work but will do a little tutorial on the construction when I get home - I will need to know more to wire this in 3 phase because I consider my self as a know little on electrical. As a plumber/gas fitter I am amazed by the R factors in a straw bale home. There is a straw bale home at Siffton blvd and Elbow drive have you seen it - the burnt orange house with the big sunflowers and green house. Did you know that all commercial buildings in Calgary must have fire suppression unless it has straw bale walls, I am sure this is based on the size of the structure. There is no code for straw construction only guide lines that look a lot like the California building code. I an so happy I found this plethora of information. Can I leave you with an off the topic picture of a stained glass window I made with 1050 peaces... I have been building tutorials on stained glass construction at http://writers-voice.com/Photo Alot of the pieces in this window are 3/16 wide. 
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5117 |
That must have taken forever to make! Hi Clive. If you ever want to start a thread about straw bail houses, stick it in the "Other" section, since its not solar or wind, but definately a power saving technology and I know some of our members would be very interested. Welcome to the site Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Clive Newbie Joined: 29/09/2008 Location: Posts: 8 |
====================================================== Here you will see an 8 and 12 pole rotor and a 12 coil stator. A large roll of magnet wire 21 gauge, and just in front of the nabob coffee, is my coil winder built with the (HDFB) high density fiber board. The magnets are 11/16 x 1/8" thick neodymium finger pinches. Oh the magnet wire has a sponge glued against the large coil to prevent spooling off - I can adjust the board holding the sponge to create tension. 
-------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- Below is a coil in the 3/4" (HDFB)it is much harder then the mdfb or medium density board. The coils are 50 turns of 21 gauge wire. The coil is about a 1/2" deep and wrapped in transformer tape - the expensive stuff. When I drilled the hole with a spade bit it left a hole in the center under the coil where I ran the center coil wire through and then I drilled a hole on the edge of the coil slot to feed the second wire the one that comes off the outer section of the coil. 
-------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------- This has been wired and un-wired and re-wired so many times it no longer looks straight and plum - for fear of breaking a coil lead. I chose the outer wind of the coil to be represented by red I am going to have to learn some real electrical rules. Show me a boiler with controls all over and I understand what is happening inside the pipes but electrical is a different beast. Stand by I am working up to the question... 
--------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- When I build a gig to do a task, the main thing is that it works but more important if you are hacking away at an idea you need the re-tool ability so you spend less time building stands - make it adaptable and not as small as you can get away with but as big as will work for you. 
OK so I have a 12 coil stator with 21 gauge magnate wire 50 windings per-coil and the above mention magnets. So I have this stator labeled as follows A 1 + --- A 1 - B 1 + --- B 1 - C 1 + --- c 1 - A 2 + --- A 2 - (...)AND SO ON(ELLIPSIS POINTS). HA HA HA... With this pattern abc x 4 with (+ - ) Can you suggest some wrings for me to try - I am not charging I am running a little light 1.5 volt- or want to. A wiring layout for the 8 and 12 on the 12 coil stator would be wonderful and greatly appreciated. To the Admin/Admins of this site/forum is it better for me to hold photos on my domain and link in to your page or to upload the photos to your site -- what is better on bandwidth if need be. (I have owned and run writers-voice.com for 12 years and we are not going away - so photos are safe here). But if you want the photos on your site then I will comply... Just let me get in to edit them. (Open source is the source) all my photos are free to use for education as well as my stained glass tutorials but you cant print them for sale. I love this site already... HHO test to come later from the gas fitter.... |
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| Clive Newbie Joined: 29/09/2008 Location: Posts: 8 |
Gizmo you are very much correct - it took about a year working all my time when I was not working for the man so to speak - all off time was obsessed in the completion of the most complex design I have ever done, and I bet I have over a thousand windows under my belt in the last 35 years. I love glass as a medium as well as wood but I am not as good at wood as I am at glass. It is all done with 1/8" lead so divide that by 2 and subtract the heart of the lead and there is no room for even one chip or shell on a piece of glass. I loved every hundreds of hours of it...ha ha muha ha... |
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| SparWeb Senior Member Joined: 17/04/2008 Location: CanadaPosts: 196 |
A couple of questions: What's the stuff in the center of the coils? Is there any metal on the back of those magnet rotors? Did the 8-magnet rotor do anything useful? (I wouldn't expect it to) You have 12 magnets and 12 coils. That is a single phase alternator, there. When one coil is experiencing a peak, all the others are, too. If you have every second magnet alternating S to N, then every second coil will be at the opposite peak to its neighbours. You will have to hook it up accordingly. Your trying to wire it up like it's 3-phase, by the magnet arrangements don't match. Connect the wires instead in 2 phases. One phase will be opposite to the other, so you can either hook them up parallel to each other or in series. You should take some time to look at Hugh Piggott's alternator construction manuals because you'll better understand what's happening. Also, you could look at this: The Axial-Flux Alternator: How It Works Steven T. Fahey |
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| Clive Newbie Joined: 29/09/2008 Location: Posts: 8 |
The black material in the middle of the coils is metal fillings mixed with epoxy resin. There is no metal behind the magnets or coils. The coils and rotors where made in a few hours so I would not mind building a different rotor or stator to work in 3 phase. The 8 magnet never produced anything but it may not have been wired correctly. Back to the drawing board. I will be laminating another piece of hdfb on the backs of the stator and use banding. |
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