Car alternator wind mill generator?

[no spam]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild

offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).

Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap" wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).

So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!

Maybe I'm a little dense here but is you have a dead genny or two why don't
you just rig a windmill to turn the power head off of the dead genny?

 

[kT]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild
offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).
Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap" wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).
So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!
Cheers
-Gaiko
Car alternators are all but useless. You need a permanent magnet
motor.
I disagree. If the bits of cars are what he can get then that is what
he has to work with.
The alternator from a car needs to be turned at a few thousand RPM to
make useful power. This is the point that causes the trouble.
He needs to list out what he can get his hands on. Can he get all of
the parts from the electrical system of a car? Does he have lumber
and tools? Does he have pulleys? What are the locals able to
improvise?
Heres sort of the idea I had:
Take a oil drum and split it along its length.
Make some sort of verticle shaft that is well supported.
Run a couple of 2x4s crosswise and attach them firmly to the shaft.
Attach the drum halves near the ends of the crossbars.
Use something like a bicycle wheel as a pulley on the shaft to take to
power off. Or perhaps take a bicyle chain etc to do it.
Bicycle parts will give you about an x10 step up in speed. He will
need more than that. Perhaps two x10 step ups could work.

I like MooseFET's idea. However, getting an old truck generator
should not be hard. Third world countries always have lots of old
junk trucks. The bigger the better. He can use one of the old style
mechanical voltage regulators.

The generator solves several issues. You are not drawing field current
when speed is low (net loss) and it only connects to the battery when
it is charging (cutout relay function) It still needs to turn fast,
but if he can get a MILITARY truck generator it will be 24 volts, and
using a 12 volt regulator he will get useable output at lower speeds.

Almost all modern 12 volt wind generators today start life out as 24
volt motors.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild
offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).
Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap"
wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).
So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!
Cheers
-Gaiko

Car alternators are all but useless. You need a permanent magnet
motor.

I disagree. If the bits of cars are what he can get then that is what
he has to work with.

The alternator from a car needs to be turned at a few thousand RPM to
make useful power. This is the point that causes the trouble.

He needs to list out what he can get his hands on. Can he get all of
the parts from the electrical system of a car? Does he have lumber
and tools? Does he have pulleys? What are the locals able to
improvise?

Heres sort of the idea I had:

Take a oil drum and split it along its length.

Make some sort of verticle shaft that is well supported.

Run a couple of 2x4s crosswise and attach them firmly to the shaft.

Attach the drum halves near the ends of the crossbars.

Use something like a bicycle wheel as a pulley on the shaft to take to
power off. Or perhaps take a bicyle chain etc to do it.

Bicycle parts will give you about an x10 step up in speed. He will
need more than that. Perhaps two x10 step ups could work.


I like MooseFET's idea. However, getting an old truck generator
should not be hard. Third world countries always have lots of old
junk trucks. The bigger the better. He can use one of the old style
mechanical voltage regulators.

Or, seeing on how this is America and everything, we could apply our
considerable scientific and engineering expertise to the problem of
small wind generators. Wouldn't that be something? But it ain't gonna
happen

Wrong - it already has happened: http://www.bergey.com/

And they are already in use in Afganistan.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

The reason why cars switched to altenators is that
they charge well at or near engine idle speeds.
Since there is never a free lunch, I'm guessing
generators are more effecient at higher speeds.

Actually you are not quite right. The advantage of an alternator is it
can run at extremely high RPM without unwinding - unlike a generator,
so it can be "geared" to run fast enough at idle to put out a good
charge, and still not self-destruct at full speed. You will note
alternator pulleys are roughly HALF the size of the average generator
pulley.

 

[BobG]

I'm no wind power expert. The guys that are wind power experts are
the ones who say car alternators aren't very good for wind turbines.
This Hugh Piggott guy has been working on low tech wind turbines
that folks can build themselves for years so I would think he would
qualify.

===================================================
Yeah, but he aint an electrical engineer. I am. He wants something
simple and mechanical like a Kettering ignition that a shade tree
mechanic can keep running. He doesnt want to rewrite the coil pwm vs
rpm schedule to tweak the generator efficiency.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

BobG brought forth on stone tablets:


One problem not considered is that a coil-driven alternator requires
field current whenever you *might* be able to get power. That is, you
will likely be supplying field power in the hopes that the wind will
blow enough to pay back the investment.

The PM alternator does not have this requirement - when the wind blows,
it makes power. When the wind stops, it uses no power.

bob

But unless you have a "cogless" PMA, it will not start turning
without a significant wind speed (or at least a gust to get it going)

 

[BobG]

Maybe I'm a little dense here but is you have a dead genny or two why don't
you just rig a windmill to turn the power head off of the dead genny?-

==============================
generator head has to spin at 3600 rpm to put out 60hz.... Honda
generators just spin a pma alternator and generate the AC with a 90
something % effcient solid state inverter. That's sort of my idea with
the el cheapo car alternator with an inexpensive microcontroller to
manage it.

 

[clare at snyder.on.ca]

...
I'm no wind power expert. The guys that are wind power experts are
the ones who say car alternators aren't very good for wind turbines.

This Hugh Piggott guy has been working on low tech wind turbines
that folks can build themselves for years so I would think he would
qualify.

Anthony

There is no arguement that they are not "very good", but beggars can't
be choosers, and with the wind available in Afganistan, particularly
in the hills, something is better than nothing - and properly done, an
alternator WILL produce useable power.Most of the time. And a lot less
work than building a Piggott axial flux machine.(which would, in all
likelihood, be destroyed by one means or another within a short period
of time anyway - may as well use something less labour intensive, and
possibly lower cost). I do like the DC generator idea better though.

 

[[email protected]]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild
offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).

Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap" wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).

So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!

Cheers

-Gaiko

Cheap solution: learn to repair cheap Chinese generators. Maybe with
some carb cleaner...? Or do you need to rewind the generator?

Michael

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

But unless you have a "cogless" PMA, it will not start turning
without a significant wind speed (or at least a gust to get it going)

You can always spin it up as a motor. ;-)

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Gary Tait]

Yes. It's been that way since the '60's. See my patents

For GM anyways. Ford caught on in 1986 or so. I am not to sure about
Chrysler, and non-American makes.

 

[Ulysses]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild
offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).
Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap" wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).
So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!
Cheers
-Gaiko
Car alternators are all but useless. You need a permanent magnet
motor.
I disagree. If the bits of cars are what he can get then that is what
he has to work with.

The alternator from a car needs to be turned at a few thousand RPM to
make useful power. This is the point that causes the trouble.

He needs to list out what he can get his hands on. Can he get all of
the parts from the electrical system of a car? Does he have lumber
and tools? Does he have pulleys? What are the locals able to
improvise?

Heres sort of the idea I had:

Take a oil drum and split it along its length.

Make some sort of verticle shaft that is well supported.

Run a couple of 2x4s crosswise and attach them firmly to the shaft.

Attach the drum halves near the ends of the crossbars.

Use something like a bicycle wheel as a pulley on the shaft to take to
power off. Or perhaps take a bicyle chain etc to do it.

Bicycle parts will give you about an x10 step up in speed. He will
need more than that. Perhaps two x10 step ups could work.

I like MooseFET's idea. However, getting an old truck generator
should not be hard. Third world countries always have lots of old
junk trucks. The bigger the better. He can use one of the old style
mechanical voltage regulators.

Or, seeing on how this is America and everything, we could apply our
considerable scientific and engineering expertise to the problem of
small wind generators. Wouldn't that be something? But it ain't gonna
happen because American for some reason are the dumbest fucks around.

It seems like I should say something clever or witty here but all I can
think of is yea, you're right.

 

[kT]

I am presently working for an NGO in Afghanistan and some of our feild
offices are waaaaaay out in the boonies (no electricity, no running
water, nada). At the moment they have a cr*ppy chinese generator and
funding is apparently so tight that we can't afford another generator
(since the chinese generators have proven to have a life of about a
year and the higher ups don't seem to have a concept of spending more
money for a better generator [like a Honda generator]).
Anyway, the point is that three of our offices are on the sides of
mountains or very tall hills where 3/4th of the day it is *really*
windy. Since we have very little funding i was trying to think of a
cheap means of power and thought about putting together a "cheap" wind/
generator from a truck/car alternator and fan and a few car batteries.
The problem is, my background is agricultural development so i have
little concept of if the afore mentioned setup would even work or how
much it would power or how much it would cost. The most power our
offices use is to power a TV or Computer plus flourecnet lights and
thats it. I have looked around on the internet for plans for cheap
solar or wind power setups but haven't found many (I am told they are
there, but the ones i have found seem to be insanely complicated or
way too expensive).
So if anyone out there knows of such plans or NGOs that deal with such
things (I tried geek corps but it appears that was a bit low tech for
them) please let me know!
Cheers
-Gaiko
Car alternators are all but useless. You need a permanent magnet
motor.
I disagree. If the bits of cars are what he can get then that is what
he has to work with.

The alternator from a car needs to be turned at a few thousand RPM to
make useful power. This is the point that causes the trouble.

He needs to list out what he can get his hands on. Can he get all of
the parts from the electrical system of a car? Does he have lumber
and tools? Does he have pulleys? What are the locals able to
improvise?

Heres sort of the idea I had:

Take a oil drum and split it along its length.

Make some sort of verticle shaft that is well supported.

Run a couple of 2x4s crosswise and attach them firmly to the shaft.

Attach the drum halves near the ends of the crossbars.

Use something like a bicycle wheel as a pulley on the shaft to take to
power off. Or perhaps take a bicyle chain etc to do it.

Bicycle parts will give you about an x10 step up in speed. He will
need more than that. Perhaps two x10 step ups could work.
I like MooseFET's idea. However, getting an old truck generator
should not be hard. Third world countries always have lots of old
junk trucks. The bigger the better. He can use one of the old style
mechanical voltage regulators.

Or, seeing on how this is America and everything, we could apply our
considerable scientific and engineering expertise to the problem of
small wind generators. Wouldn't that be something? But it ain't gonna
happen because American for some reason are the dumbest fucks around.

It seems like I should say something clever or witty here but all I can
think of is yea, you're right.

Small wind generators is a glaring example of American blindness.

At least I see people now discussing the subtle nuances of it here.

C'mon people, this is not a difficult problem to solve. I've already got
an excellent set of aluminum airfoil blades you can use for the motors
and electronics, if you ever get around to doing some real engineering.

 

[Trygve Lillefosse]

The most power our

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/axialflux/ has info on DIY $1 / watt wind
gens (including tower) which will work a whole lot better than a car
alternator.

I am on very thin ice here. But would it not be possible to descemle a
couple of alternators, and use the magnets and other stuff inside them
to build a windmill?
They might be able to use the fan or the fan hub and put better blades
on.
Or maybee even better, get some wheel bearings and stuff, to make a
low friction windmill hub. Guess they need to be able to weld a litle
bit though.

Just my 2cents, dont bite if I'm totaky off the charts.

 

[BobG]

There is no arguement that they are not "very good", but beggars can't
be choosers, and with the wind available in Afganistan, particularly
in the hills, something is better than nothing - and properly done, an
alternator WILL produce useable power.Most of the time. And a lot less
work than building a Piggott axial flux machine.(which would, in all
likelihood, be destroyed by one means or another within a short period
of time anyway - may as well use something less labour intensive, and
possibly lower cost). I do like the DC generator idea better though.

================================================
How does one send email to a person with a handle of
'blankblankblankblank'? Why dont folks just use thei names? Are they
all hiding from bill collectors or something?

 

[[email protected]]

Aug 27, 1:58 pm, Anthony Matonak wrote:

Yeah, but he aint an electrical engineer. I am. He wants something
simple and mechanical like a Kettering ignition that a shade tree
mechanic can keep running. He doesnt want to rewrite the coil pwm vs
rpm schedule to tweak the generator efficiency.

Sounds interesting. I wonder what that means, exactly.

Nick, BSEE, MSEE

 

[kT]

Sounds interesting. I wonder what that means, exactly.

It means wind speed is variable.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per BobG:

How does one send email to a person with a handle of
'blankblankblankblank'? Why dont folks just use thei names? Are they
all hiding from bill collectors or something?

Dunno about names, but email addresses are a sensitive topic
because of spam.

Some people report almost zero spam in spite of posting their
email address in news groups. Others are deluged with the
stuff.

My vanity domain name gets something like 8,000 spams per day.
Granted they're mostly dictionary attacks where somebody takes a
list of first names and a list of last names and sends an email
to every combination.... but a couple hundred of them every day
are still to addresses that I foolishly used in NG posts.

I guess some ISPs spam filtering is better than others.

The ultimate seems tb Earthlink's challenge/response system.

People Who Know internet-wise despise it; but long term it looks
to me (who knows nothing) like a solution.

Short term I can see that it generates all sort of extraneous
email issuing the challenges - aggravating the existing spam
overload problems for mail servers. But long term, it seems
like if everybody had it spamming would cease tb profitable and
therefore go away.

 

[Jim Thompson]

For GM anyways. Ford caught on in 1986 or so. I am not to sure about
Chrysler, and non-American makes.

Ford's were bolted to a flat machined on the back end of the
alternator housing.

...Jim Thompson

 

[bearchow]

I bought a house that has one of the commercially available wind
generators (the exact
brand escapes me right now, the house is 200 miles away). The
generator was broken.

I took it apart and found liberal democrat electronics inside. All
burnt, smoked, yet the
peace sign on the back of the potting compound was intact. Too bad the
designers just
don't have a "robust" frame of mind towards life, the delicacy of
their electronics reflects it
(I can hear them now: well the circuit can negotiate with the
transients, and ask them
to please not destroy them).

Luckily they had three slip rings that I fed the raw 3 phase output
down. I'm rigging up the
remains of a car alternator to rectify, and sorting out a regulator as
I write this.