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Forum Index : Windmills : Need the Dummies Version
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| Guests Guest  Joined: 01/10/2003 Location: Posts: 52 |
OK, I want to do this wind mill thing but the electronics jargon, well most of it, is not in my line of expertise. I understand that generators make DC and alternators make AC. If you put power in you get motion out. If you put motion in you get power out. That much I get. I also understand that I can't just hook the wind mill up to my house power without seriously screwing up my TV. I have several DC motors I've pulled out of things like furnaces and such and I've fashioned blades that spin in very little wind. I'll probably try a vertical axis version as well. I don't expect to get off of the grid completely and I don't want to use batteries (or even deal with them in any way). I want to run the power I create with the wind mills into the house to defray my energy cost. I don't expect to run the meter backwards. I also cannot afford 1200 bucks for fancy electronics. I need to know, in the simplest terms possible, what I need to do and what stuff I need to have in line from generation to usage that allows me to use what I make first and then take up the slack from the grid without burning out every electronic item in my house or burning my house down. Is there a dummies version of this or do I need to be an electronics savant? Thanks for any help, Gary in Texas |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hi Gary in Texas. The other guys will have some info to help you in the right direction, but I would like to say this. If your already on the grid, you wont save any money by building a windmill, or adding a solar panel, etc. Unfortunately, the cost of home made power will always be a lot more than cheap grid power. If you built a cheap windmill for $500, and it made 500 watts, then that would save you about $50 per year on your power bill. Thats just the way of things. Solar is even more expensive ( a lot more ). But! If you are like the rest of us and enjoy making "stuff", building machines and learning about how they work, then you will love making windmills. Its a very rewarding hobby, and you get to chat to people from all over. Some of the guys here also had no choice but to make their own power. In a remote location where there is no grid power, then making you own IS cheaper than paying the power company several thousand dollars to connect power to your property. And lastly, if you do build your own wind power system for the fun of it, its a real buzz when the neighbourhood has a power blackout and your the only house in the street with the lights still on. 
Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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whirlybird Newbie  Joined: 08/02/2006 Location: Posts: 27 |
Hi Gary I think I have seen you ask this question in another forum before. The reluctance on your behalf to have anything to do with batterys generaly, will put you behind the eight ball. Direct conversion of wind energy to air or water heating looks to be your main alternative here.Heating or cooling uses a lot of power from the grid. As you live in texas your climate would be close to ours here in South Australia,So maybe you should consider Solar Water and Air heating before wind power. Glens comment about payback is unfortunatly correct,You can save far more money by practicing energy conservation in and around your home. There are a lot of things you can do from the obvious to the not so obvious.The downside to this is of course you will have to make some life style adjustments.These are not hard especialy if you treat the grid power as though you made it yourself and it was going to last longer if you did not waste it. Educate your familly and make sure they practice conservation as well. Even simple things like switching of the light if you leave the room,if you have an electric hot water service then wrap some old blankets or quilts around the thing.Pull your fridge out from the wall and clean the evaporator coils and dont have them hard up against the wall when you put it back.Shade all windows on the south side of your house in summer in winter let the sun in. The cost of replacing every light in your home with cfl globes is not going to be high and will pay for its self in no time flat. Sorry about the long winded answer but it is a subject dear to my heart. If you would like to discus this we have quite active yahoo chat system running nearly 24/7 you will need to download yahoo messenger and have a head set and microphone available.You can email me:bevelec at tpg.com.au if you need the contact details. Good luck Whirly I am because I am.I am not always right but often I am. |
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| RossW Guru  Joined: 25/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 495 |
As others have said, given your constraints, it's going to be really difficult to help you. The best I can think of doing (as has been mentioned above) is to use your available "free power" for things like water heating (which is often a major component of your power bill) - adding an additional low-voltage heater to the tank and using the wind gen to power that. You could probably install some low-voltage lighting and run that off the wind gen, but you'd need a secondary source for when there's no wind, and you would need some sort of regulator otherwise you'll keep blowing globes! The next idea is one I haven't really thought through a whole hell of a lot, but may be worth considering. Glenn may have some input on it too.... You have the grid, so you're "grid-tied", meaning you have a decent and "mostly stable" power source. Rather than a DC or permanent magnet machine, I wonder about the practicality of a "Synchronous" alternator on a windgen. In simple terms (well, as simple as I can make them), unlike a conventional AC machine that generates an output that is *directly* proportional to the shaft speed, a synchronous machine uses electro-magnets. Where this may be useful, is that if you run the electromagnets from the grid (ie, on AC), you should get output from the windgen that is exactly synchronised to the mains. Yes, you will use a little of the mains power, but in theory, you should get the same frequency out, but more "power". I'm not sure if you would need to do anything terribly clever with the output in order to make it useful in your house - it is remotely possible that with a SMALL amount of electronics (perhaps just a voltage comparator - or perhaps this could be done with a relay even) - so that the windgen is isolated when it's not making anything useful. Something to think on and ponder. Producing wind power at the right frequency and phase would make it a lot easier to use in a grid-tie application. Thoughts, anyone? [edited....] Just went to do a little looking up and found this. Quite interesting: http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/12/6/173732/267 |
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| whirlybird Newbie Joined: 08/02/2006 Location: Posts: 27 |
Hi Rossw Synchronous motors are a bit of a grey area with me but I have several of them here,From my reading I have gleaned that they need a D/C voltage to start and then they get in sync with the a/c power on the other part of the motor as far as using them to make power I am not sure.But I will try it on a small scale to see what gives. Regards Whirly I am because I am.I am not always right but often I am. |
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| RossW Guru Joined: 25/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 495 |
I actually meant synchronous ALTERNATORS. They may be the same as a sync motor, but it's a loooong time since I touched them :) I'll try to re-explain. In a conventional AC-output machine (alternator), you have a magnetic field which rotates and induces an AC output in the output (stator) windings. Usually, this magnetic field is made either by permanent magnets, or a "field winding" - basically, an electromagnet. The DC current fed to the field enables voltage regulation because you can wind up (or down) the magnetic field to suit the needs. Downside with either of these is that the output frequency is directly tied to the shaft speed and number of poles etc. Ie, as you increase the shaft speed, you increase the frequency. My suggestion is that the "field windings" inside, could be run from the local mains. If the machine were stationary (not moving at all) you would still have a magnetic field rising and falling as the poles on the field winding go from north one end, to north the other end, as each mains half-cycle passes. IF everything works "just right", you would be able to run the alternator at any arbitary speed, feed the mains to the field winding, and get in-phase output from your stator. |
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| whirlybird Newbie Joined: 08/02/2006 Location: Posts: 27 |
Howdy Ross I see where you are going with that idea and i am sure it would be a fun project.But not one for the electronically challenged among us (insert whirlybird here ) Anyway you might like to ponder this for a bit. As I mentioned I have a number of small synchro motors and as I had insomnia last night I decided to have some fun with one. He started to run up quite well on 6vdc on one pair of windings the other pair I applied 6vac to and on the Dc being disconnected the motor continued on its merry way. Some hot melt glue and an organ transplant from a dead ball mouse and viola an optical chopper. A dual trace CRO,one channel on the mains and the other on the output of the chopper seems to show a direct correlation between mains frequency and shaft speed. Neet huh. What next I wonder, Maybe a way here to feed power from another source backwards through your meter and not damage equipment in your neighbours house etc. Good chance this thread should be in the electronics section but I guess Glen will shift it if he feels so inclined. Regards. Whirly. I am because I am.I am not always right but often I am. |
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| RossW Guru Joined: 25/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 495 |
Yes, that's pretty much what I'd expect. What would be interesting to try (and I'd try it here except I don't have any spare sync motors!) would be to hook a motive source up to it (say, a variable speed drill?). With DC applied to the field, you should get AC out of it with a frequency proportional to the shaft speed. That's a standard alternator. Now for the fun. Replace the DC with your 6v AC and with your CRO, watch the output on one channel and the AC "excitation" on the other channel. Ideally, put a small load on the output ("small" in this case would depend on the motors size of course. Perhaps a 6.3V dial lamp from an old radio or something?) If my theory works, you should have an output that is the same frequency as the input excitation, regardless of the speed of your motive force (drill). The real proof of the pudding is to see if you get more power OUT than you put IN the excitation winding. f you stop the drill, you will probably get a small output while the motor acts somewhat like a transformer, but when the drill turns you should get additional power out. |
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