Chris pashia's Page
chris pashia's discussions
Wind generators
Started Apr 23
Wind Power
Replied Jan 30
Peanut oil as a fuel
Replied Dec. 27, 2007
Latest Activity
Jul 4
chris pashia commented on the photo DSC00350 Jul 4
Jun 25
May 14
May 14
May 14
May 14
May 14
Profile
- Why are you interested in Alternative Energy?
- I am retired military with time to kill. I started this spring with making windmills that will one day work well. need money and generators and i.ll be there.
i am also working on solar oven, solar frier, solar heat.i,have multiplied the output of my outdoor solar light times 10 to almost 1/2 watt. my latest feat is i,m using, used peanut oil in an multiple fuels space heater. its working very well. no smoke at all.
- Interested in socializing with other members of AlternativeEnergy.com?
- Yes - I need to be coached
Tools
Quick Links
+ Google Toolbar
Gov't Rep's
Latest Activity
3 hours ago 
4 hours ago 
16 hours ago
Jay commented on the blog post Dignitaries write letter to next President urging energy reform 16 hours ago Links
© 2008 Created by AlternativeEnergy.com
Comment Wall (28 comments)
You need to be a member of Alternative Energy dot Com to add comments!
Join this network
First of all, how does a vertical axis wind turbine work?
There are actually two different designs out there. One’s called a Savonius rotor, which essentially, if you take a 55-gallon drum and cut it in half, then offset the two halves and put them on a shaft that rotates, you’ve built a Savonius rotor. It’s similar to an anemometer. A lot of what we see today are Savonius rotors. They’re very crude, very low-tech, very inefficient. We’re talking about something that operates in the, say, 5 to 10 percent efficiency range. People have been able to tweak the efficiency rate — ideally, they might be as high as 15 percent.
Then there’s the Darrieus model — the type that resembles an egg beater. Essentially, you have two vertically oriented blades revolving around a vertical shaft. But the Darrieus models use an airfoil design. A wind turbine airfoil works in the same way as an airplane wing. An airfoil has a flat side and a curved side. The result of air passing over the two sides is a force known as “lift.” When an airplane speeds down a runway, air passing on both sides of the airfoil wings, the lift force literally lifts the airplane into the air. This will continue as long as there is forward motion over the airfoil to generate the required lift.
A wind turbine uses this same principle, but instead of flying up and away, the airfoils are secured to a hub, which in turn is attached to a generator shaft. The air passing over the airfoils (wind turbine blades) are converted into rotational momentum which spins the generator.
On the Darrieus rotor, since the airfoils are the same as horizontal axis turbines, they will operate at the same efficiency. However, the difference occurs because a horizontal axis turbine's swept area always faces the wind. But with a VAWT, the swept area is a cylinder perpendicular to air flow. As such, part of the “swept area” is working, while part is simply being blown around, not at an optimal angle to generate lift. This results in a VAWT rotor that is less efficient than a horizontal axis rotor.
Jim C.
I up-loaded the rough drawing of the generator I have been working on in my pictures page. As I said you are going to have to use your imagination some. The wedge and air deflectors are formed out of sheet metal and extend horizontally from the base platform up to the top sheet metal cover. The blower wheels and pullys are mounted on pillow block ball bearings and mounted on the top of the platform (pully on the bottom). The alternators are mounted on the bottom of the platform with only the pullys showing above the top surface of the platform. I am going to try to draw a side and front view of this, but I only have a "weak sister" paint program.
I would be concerned about charging a 12 volt battery with a generator that is capable of putting out 38vdc and that kind of amperage. I have seen firsthand what can happen when you over volt and over amp a battery and it is not a pretty sight. If you are working with automotive batteries the problem will get worse in a hurry! Automotive batteries are not designed for deep cycle charge, they are designed to release a lot of energy very quickly to a high amp load such as a starter. You can connect 3 - 12 volt batteries in series to achive 36 volts, but I would not attemp to charge them without a charge controller as the batteries will charge very quickly and without regulation will over charge and can damage the batteries and and cause serious personal injury if they start to gas. Hydrogen gas can be very dangerous!!! Before I would get into the battery charging arena, I would run field test just on the generator without any loads to determine the output of the generator at different wind speeds. Then I would consider using resistors to see how the generator responds to loads. Only then would I consider charging batteries, but only with a charge controller and a diversion resistor that would pull the excess load away from the batteries when they are fully charged!! Wind generator control is (way) different than solar PV voltage control in that it is so varied in the output of energy due to changing wind speeds, PV on the other hand is more or less constant. I e-mailed you a set of plans for a ground mount double axis vertical I have been working on and just wondered if you got it?
Good luck and be carefull!!
Jim C.
Just stopped in to say howdy. I have been working on a hybred solar - wind job in the area about 20 miles from here and wanted to fill you in on what I have found on this project. I got involved in this project about 4 years ago when the guy who owns the house wanted me to do a load calculation on the home because he was considering installing a diesel generator to run the farm he is on. Some fella had installed the wind ginny and 12 solar panels about 10 years ago and the poor chap was in the generator a year club trying to run this 3000 sq ft 2 story house. I talked him into connecting to the grid and wired the house to run on grid/solar/wind and back up gen. About 2 weeks ago he called me with a problem. Seems that during a storm, lightning hit the wind ginny and came in to the house. Man - what a mess - hit the charge control for the ginny - went to the battery bank (blew the top completly off one of the 20, 190 amp batteries) - went up thru the inverter and smoked it - then went into the house and ate up most of his electronic stuff. MAN, DOES THIS MAKE A GOOD CASE FOR LIGHTNING SUPPPRESSORS!!!! His insurance company is now trying to figure out what to do. We had to drag all 20 batteries out of the basement at 200# each and dolly them 25 yards to a car port. 2 tons of batteries will wear you out man.
Jim C.
View All Comments