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Forum Index : Windmills : Hi from France
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| Debra Newbie  Joined: 22/03/2007 Location: FrancePosts: 3 |
Hi all, First post from Debbie & Alex in Northern France. We have been reading all the WT sites for a while and found this one to be the most informative and friendly, so here we are. After three years of house renovations we find now that we have some time to devote to being greener and (hopefully) save some money on power bills by building a wind generator. I (Debra) have worked in communications and I am fairly capable of putting together the electronics involved. We have studied a lot of plans for windmills and intend to build a homebrew 1kw unit. However, we think it would be right for us to start small and learn along the way. (small mill = less expensive mistakes) We have a very large pile of junk PCs, printers, scanners etc so a good source of components including neos. Our first project (just starting) is using a stepper motor from a HP office printer/scanner, we know that it will have only a very small output, but it will give us some experience, and it will give us something to fly whilst we design a bigger unit. A couple of questions we'd like to ask are: 1/ Has anyone used the components from a PC power supply to build a voltage regulator (or anything else)? 2/ Has anyone tried a means of mechanically moving the stator towards the rotor by centrifugal force (and away from the rotor by means of a spring) to a) reduce startup speed of a HAWT, and b) to reduce cogging in low windspeeds? (Q2 refers to a homebrew rotor/stator with mags on the face not the edge) Debbie |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
Hi Debbie Welcome to the board, and hi to France. Its a good idea to start small with your first windmill, you can learn a lot and the mistakes are cheap. The stepper motor makes a good test bed, its has the same problems that you will face with larger windmills, like cogging and weather proofing. You will find you will need a bigger blade to get the windmill to start, but too big and the windmill will be to slow, so you need to find the balance between big for easy startup and small for more speed/power. And those little stepper motors hate the weather, not very water proof and rust quickly, so you need to find ways to make them last. The PC power supplies are good sources of diodes and caps, and a few other goodies depending on your electronics skill. They can be turned into a MPPT power supply with regulation for a windmill if you have the skill. Moving the stator or hub with a centrifugal system doesnt work, the power of attraction of the magnets is much greated then the centrifugal force. But it is possible to use a centrifugal system to change the angle off attack of the windmill blades. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Debra Newbie Joined: 22/03/2007 Location: FrancePosts: 3 |
Hi Gizmo, Thanks for the reply and welcome. Interesting about the PC power supply, I know there are lots of goodies in there, rectifiers, mosfets and caps etc. I have the skills to put together even a complex circuit and know how it works. But I don't think I have the knowledge and skill to design those circuits, that's why I am very grateful to those who can and put their ideas on the net. We did wonder if the magnetic attraction would make mechanically moving the stator away from the rotor impossible, we will leave that idea alone then. We are in a valley, the lower end of which is towards the west, when the wind blows from the west (which it usually does) we do seem to get some useful wind speeds, do you think that this has anything to do with some sort of 'funnelling' along the valley? Has any research been done on this? Our land does extent uphill to the valley ridge (about 300mtrs) but we think that if we put a mill that far away from the house we would lose in the resistance of the cables what we would gain in extra power generated. Debbie |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
Hi Debbie Sounds like you have a good wind location, does the wind come from the same direction all year round. Where I live it changes with the season, in winter the wind comes from the other direction and my place is behind a hill so I get no wind, but in summer the winds hit my place straight on. I know if I cut down a few trees I would get better winds, but I would rather keep the trees for the shade. A longer power run of 300 meters is ok if you use thicker wire, first you need to work out how many watts you expect to make. This page might help. http://www.thebackshed.com/windmill/Docs/WireSizes.asp Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Debra Newbie Joined: 22/03/2007 Location: FrancePosts: 3 |
Hi Gizmo, Without data logging the site here I can't give an accurate estimate of wind direction but it does seem to blow from the west most of the year.. This is borne out by looking at the roof tiles on the houses hereabouts. They all overlap so as to not lift in a wind coming from the west, there's probably a fancy name for that but I don't know what it is. Most of the barns and animal shelters also have entrances facing the east. We even built our goat shelter with the entrance facing the east on advice from a local farmer. Joining the forum has given us the 'boost' to get something flying even if it is a bit heath robinson. We took some photos and there's a link to our 'six hour experiment' wind turbine Here In the meantime we are collecting hard drive magnets to build a bigger mill. When we feel we have mastered the techniques involved we will go for the big one. Thanks for the link to the wire size chart ... That will be very helpful should we decide to go uphill away from the house. On our website there is also a link to our house photos, There are some views of our garden and our field beyond it. Debbie |
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