Car alternator wind mill generator?

[Jim Thompson]

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.

THREE slip rings?

Wow! What is that?

Automotive Alternators have a fixed 3-phase stator, plus 6 rectifiers,
with a rotating field (TWO slip rings).

...Jim Thompson

 

[ehsjr]

Frogwatch wrote:





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/

I believe we are talking about Southwest Windpower and Windbugger class
machines.

No. We are talking about your claim that
"it ain't gonna happen" when it already has.

Which explains why all you still have in the small class wind generators
are Southwest Windpower and Windbuggers - crap without modifications.

No. It addresses your statement:
"American for some reason are the dumbest fucks around"

 

[ehsjr]

Per ehsjr:



Could that be the same person as the MIT student who, as part of
some kind of initiation, was used to measure the distance from
the campus to Boston in "Smoots"?

That would be Oliver, not George - but it's a humorous story. ;-)

Ed

 

[kT]

kT wrote:

Frogwatch wrote:





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/

I believe we are talking about Southwest Windpower and Windbugger
class machines.

No. We are talking about your claim that
"it ain't gonna happen" when it already has.

No it hasn't. What do you get when you cross a loud vibrating Southwest
Windpower machine with a quiet well balanced but obsolete Wind Bugger?

A modern wind generator.

 

[Tater]

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.

how long does the office have to run per day?

I am amazed no one here asked if the DC motor inthe windshield wider
is permanent magnet. althernator will nee toomuch tourqe and too much
RPM.

figgure out how long you could run on a pattery powered UPS with extra
batteries, then figgure out how long you have to charge the batteries,
then see what can charge the batteries and do the math.

you might want to talk to your superioursabout the cost advantages.
how much does a chinese gen cost? equal to one AIRX400? Two? five?

 

[Nobody]

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.

The main problem with C/R systems is that they filter out a lot of wanted
email. Someone who is merely "inclined" (rather than "desperate") to send
you a message will send the email, get the challenge, then decide not to
bother (or simply not get the challenge because it's been flagged as spam
by an automated system, based upon the fact that thousands of
near-identical messages are sent to many different addresses).

If you want to sign up for any automated mailings (mailing lists,
email notification etc), you have to manually whitelist the sender address
(assuming that you know what it is before they try to send you email).
Someone running automated mailings isn't going to manually respond to
challenges.

Also, because of all the bogus challenges sent in response to spammers
using other people's addresses, C/R systems significantly increase the
risk that your own email address gets blacklisted for spamming.

 

[Nobody]

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.

When posting to usenet, the risk of address harvesting depends upon where
the address appears. The From: header is the highest risk, followed by
other headers, with the message body as the lowest risk.

To harvest addresses from the From: header, spammers only need to retrieve
the summary listing (what the newsreader uses to generate the
group summary pane; sometimes inaccurately referred to as the "headers").

Harvesting addresses from other headers requires the spammer to download
actual message headers, which requires a separate NNTP command for each
message, and significantly more bandwidth.

Harvesting addresses from message bodies requires downloading the entire
message, which requires more bandwidth than just downloading the headers.
It also risks bloating their lists with lots of Message-IDs (which look
like email addresses, but aren't).

In general, harvesting from summary listings provides the greatest
benefit/cost ratio to the spammer, so many of them will stick to that
mechanism.

 

[[email protected]]

Take a oil drum and split it along its length.
Make some sort of verticle shaft that is well supported.

There's a windmill along the west side of Highway 101 in about San Rafael,
California, made up of maybe 20 drum halves circling over the top of a
garage.

It's readily visible from the highway, and it has been spinning for many
years. I don't know if it is generating any power, but I always presumed
so.

 

[MooseFET]

It's not quite that bad. Car alternators will charge the car's battery
at idle (approx 800 engine rpm). There is often some speed step up thru
the fanbelt, but it is certainly less than 2:1. I'd expect useful
output starting around 1000 rpm, and full output by 1500 rpm (alternator
rpm that is).
I beleive the voltage regulator is now a days integral with the
alternator.

I was trying to address the problem in terms of what may be at hand in
the local environment. Bits froma dead car and an oil drum and
bicycle parts sounds like what can be obtained locally.

We could send him a nice solar powered generator etc but that may be a
bad idea. It might get him killed.

 

[Neon John]

Per BobG:

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 email address is easily available on my website in a spambot-proof javascript
format. It'll never appear in a Usenet post.

My web hosting company (dreamhost.com, highly recommended) has decent spam filtering.
My daily report shows about 400 spams trapped. Perhaps 30 get through. Agent's
Bayesian spam filtering traps all but one or two. It learns from each leaker that
gets tagged as spam so it just keeps getting better.

Bottom line: Humans can easily reach me while spambots practically never do. I think
that's a fine solution.

As far as using nyms instead of names, I almost never respond to people who don't use
something that looks like a name. It might be a real name but it's something to keep
track of personalities with. I figure that someone with zero identity probably also
has zero content to offer and so I ignore 'em.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
What do you call 10 blondes standing in a row? Pneumatic air line.

 

[The Real Andy]

I was trying to address the problem in terms of what may be at hand in
the local environment. Bits froma dead car and an oil drum and
bicycle parts sounds like what can be obtained locally.

We could send him a nice solar powered generator etc but that may be a
bad idea. It might get him killed.

Point is, if you are going to gear it up to spin it fast enough, then
you are going to need a hurricane to spin it.

 

[The Real Andy]

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?

The problem it that car alternators do not have magnets.

 

[The Real Andy]

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?

Or hook the alternator(s) to the genny motor, provided its not the
motor that is stuffed

 

[Mauried]

how long does the office have to run per day?

I am amazed no one here asked if the DC motor inthe windshield wider
is permanent magnet. althernator will nee toomuch tourqe and too much
RPM.

figgure out how long you could run on a pattery powered UPS with extra
batteries, then figgure out how long you have to charge the batteries,
then see what can charge the batteries and do the math.

you might want to talk to your superioursabout the cost advantages.
how much does a chinese gen cost? equal to one AIRX400? Two? five?

Firstly how windy is "really windy".
One of the reasons that commercial wind generators are expensive is
the mechanics and electronics needed to stop the blades from flying
apart in strong winds, but still be able to generate useful power at
lower wind speeds.
Wind power is related to the cube of the wind speed.
As others have indicated, car alternators are a poor choice as they
need high RPM to make useful power.
To get a few hundred watts from a wind generator you will need a blade
diameter of around 1 metre, and such a windmill will spin relatively
slowly , less than 1000 RPM.
The Air X , which is a very popular small wind turbine makes 400 watts
at 25 knots, but its expensive because of the rare earth magnets used
in the alternator and the carbon fibre blades which are needed to make
the unit self feathering in high winds.
Its not a trivial task to make wind turbines that are reliable and
self feathering.

 

[MooseFET]

Point is, if you are going to gear it up to spin it fast enough, then
you are going to need a hurricane to spin it.

No, that is your claim. Others like the guy I know, that charges his
batteries at the "Burning Man" with a system like that seem to
disagree.

The wind is more than more than enough to keep his batteries charged.
It is a strong wind but well short of a hurricane.

 

[MooseFET]

The problem it that car alternators do not have magnets.

Any alternator that has been installed and used on a car will "build
up" if you wire it up and give it a spin. There is enough
magnetization left to overcome the rectifier's forward drop.

 

[Martin Griffith]

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.

you may find this interesting
http://www.stanford.edu/~hydrobay/lookat/pmg.html


Martin

 

[Ulysses]

Frogwatch wrote:



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.

I was just agreeing with American dumbfucks in general. There are some very
smart people in the USA and a lot of them in this NG. However, whenever I
go to get something repaired I more often than not discover that I know more
about it than they do which usually is not saying much. The same thing
happens when I go to buy auto parts etc.--the people behind the counter
don't know anything about what they are selling. Then you have the
government. Recently Congress passed a law requiring minimum credit card
payments to double from 2% to 4% of the balance. The result is an enormous
increase in credit card deliquencies, foreclosures, bankrupcies, and
mortgage companies going out of business. How dumb is that?

 

[kT]

Frogwatch wrote:



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.

I was just agreeing with American dumbfucks in general. There are some very
smart people in the USA and a lot of them in this NG. However, whenever I
go to get something repaired I more often than not discover that I know more
about it than they do which usually is not saying much. The same thing
happens when I go to buy auto parts etc.--the people behind the counter
don't know anything about what they are selling. Then you have the
government. Recently Congress passed a law requiring minimum credit card
payments to double from 2% to 4% of the balance. The result is an enormous
increase in credit card deliquencies, foreclosures, bankrupcies, and
mortgage companies going out of business. How dumb is that?

Fortunately I haven't lost any limbs from disintegrating wind generators
yet. But I live in the Bahamas, where wind is a daily fact of life.

If you want to test your wind generator designs, do test them there.

Finally I just gave up, and run two types : high wind and low wind.

Mostly I'm interested in safe, low noise, low vibration solutions.

They have to be easily refurbished too, then can't take a whole day just
to replace the bearings, I'm looking for something I can strip down and
rebuild in an hour or so, since the salt air and water is so abusive.

America is a complete loss but wind generators still have possibilities.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

The same thing
happens when I go to buy auto parts etc.--the people behind the counter
don't know anything about what they are selling.

In a sense this is "your" (the consumer's) fault: Would you go to an auto
parts shop with knowledgeable salespeople if the prices were 20% higher?
Most people wouldn't, so the folks behind the counters are generally making
minimum wager or a bit higher. If you're lucky, you might find some kid
working there who's a gear head and does know a thing or two, but you sure
can't count on it.

Then you have the
government. Recently Congress passed a law requiring minimum credit card
payments to double from 2% to 4% of the balance. The result is an enormous
increase in credit card deliquencies, foreclosures, bankrupcies, and
mortgage companies going out of business. How dumb is that?

That's somewhat difficult to answer and largely depends on how much you think
the government should be "protecting" consumers from themselves. I'm sure
there were plenty of banks that would have much preferred to keep sucking 2% a
month from people indefinitely rather than having them declare bankruptcy and
getting nothing.

Most of the mortage companies going out of business right now were engaged in
such risky practices that they fully deserve it; they probably never should
have been allowed to exist in the first place.

---Joel