My first primitive turbine attempt :)
Later, several more versions were built from varying sources.
This one was the least effective but the most strange looking, so I loved it.
A whirly-bird style rotor head connected to a charge regulator, two 12V solar panels, and a 12V battery. It represents a miniature low draw, stand alone system which can maintain charge, for free once established, by exploiting natural energy gradients -in this case, air pressure and solar incidence. It's made from an old pedestal fan motor, 4 neodymium magnets, a milkshake bottle, a empty cable spool and 115 old CDs.
It produced 10-16 volts while cranking it by hand, so I had high hopes last night to test her out in the recent gale force winds.... Sadly, the airfoil system failed to catch enough force to overcome the motors slight cogging- interactions between the powerful magnets and the close proximity of the stator,causes the motor to get "sticky" at low speed or force, causing the magnets to lock position briefly. Far more torque is required, which has left me redesigning it's replacement with a larger cog and broader blade surface area.
By moving the blades further out, I should be able to get enough leverage to spin the rotor freely.
I am building version 2 with an old PVC pipe which I have found on a morning walk around the property & plan to slice it vertically to produce "gutter" style blades to be assembled vertically around the rotor. I have a sweet spot for VAWTs, or 'vertical axis wind turbines', as they appeal to my creative rather than scientific side; often forming sculptures of such beauty, that I find it difficult to believe it served a purpose other than aesthetics! Yet these marvelous towers, varied as they may be in design, are still some of the most elegant and efficient green energy systems to date.
More to come in time as I learn more and build more .
So let's make science our Bitch!
For a better world.
By Ken Killeen
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