need a wheel

yah, so things have slowed down a little bit... i got my magnets in the mail and had a laugh seeing how strong they are. quite strong for their size and if you get them too close to each other they snap together and are a pain to separate :)

now i need to get my hands on a wheel assembly. a climbing buddy of mine, Erick, is trying to get one from his brother. if that falls through then i'll see what the junk yards have. but i'd rather get one for free so i'm waiting to see what he can come up with.

i also need some wire. i think that's gonna be one of the more expensive parts of this endeavour! we'll see...

magnets

well has been a week since my last post... umm... this sorta sounds like i'm confessing :)

k, well i ordered some magnets... i ordered 30 magnets today of this type....

Rare-Earth Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) Disc Magnet Size - Diameter 1.000" (25.40mm) x Thickness 0.063" (1.59mm); Grade N40; Pull Force - 5.39lb/2445g

this should be plenty for my first alternator, with a couple left over for my fridge :) going to head to a junk yard tomorrow at lunch to see what i can get for a front wheel assembly. i'm hoping to pay at most ~$30 for this. now i realize that this isn't likely if i were buying parts that could be used on a working vehicle... but i'm guessing there will be a car there that is too busted up to be worth reusing the parts. this is my hope anyway... the project i link to in a previous post used a volvo assembly, but i don't think i'll need to go this classy *-)

i have also realized that i'm going to need to make this thing a lot sturdier than i was intending. so i'm going to have to learn to weld... not that big a deal, but is another step in the stairway to wind-power generation...

local knowledge

so i've discovered that one of my coworkers has taken the same path i'm embarking on. only he has made conventional wind turbines... ie., three blades rotating around a single axis. he's going to be a good source of information for the coming months.

he also pointed me at a site that i had come across the other day but hadn't delved too deeply in. the site is a great place to find project descriptions and some theory behind the science (k, maybe not a science for everyone) of building wind turbines.

i sorta keep switching gears here, which is par for the course for me, but i'm going to make my alternator concurrent with the structure. going to order a bunch of rare earth magnets tomorrow. will find some wire soon too. am going to need a lot of wire :) then i just need a front wheel assembly with disc brakes and a couple other common items and i'll have the materials i need for my alternator. gotta get moving on this. keep momentum going...

draft

well, i guess i should just call the previous image as a sketch because i've since looked into drafting programs and found some pretty neat stuff.

Solid Edge is a cool app that provides a tonne of ultra-convenient tools to draft an object in 2D. it is hard to know where to begin but the tutorials are pretty helpful. there are tools called 'relationships' that allow you to link the sizes of certain lines etc... would love to be in on coding it! :)

so in a couple more days i'll post a draft of what i'm going to build. complete with dimensions and everything!

i also checked out some aluminum yesterday. going to shop around though. i think i should be able to find some old shielding or something somewhere... we'll see. also have to pick up an alternator soon.

a drawring

so here's a little drawring of what the thing looks like... as you can see it doesn't really look like much of a turbine... let me explain a couple things...


so, as you can see on the overhead view on the right, there is a central blade that spins on its vertical axis, in the circle described by diagram. this is the only moving blade in the entire thing. the other three blads are fixed and are positioned so that if a lines continued from both ends of each fixed blade, one end would meet the proximal point of the triangle, and the other would cross the lines extending from the other two fixed blades at the exact center of the triangle, which also happens to be the point of axial rotation of the moving blade. (wow that sorta sounds like i know what i'm talking about haha)


so looks pretty simple eh?? i'm thinking of making this structure from sheet aluminum reinforced by some angled metal bars... still thinking about it. need to head to hardware store to see what i can get around here... also going to need parts for the inner workings... an alternator and such... working on it...

intentions

So, I guess I should lay out the reasons for starting this thing...

...about a year ago or so I saw a radical design for a windmill on tv. I seem to recall the design being created by some yank but I have yet to see any sign of production of this design anywhere. i've scoured (well, if using the cleaning metaphor maybe i've only swabbed) the interweb for evidence of this design but have yet to find ANYTHING on it...

so my plan is to build one. i have no experience in building anything mechanical. i've worked as a carpenter before and helped build a structure that was to become a dive shop. i've also done limited electrical work. so i think this will not only be a learning experience from the side of actually bringing an idea into fruition, but i will also have to learn practical skills to be able to complete this project.

but moreover, i see this is an opportunity for me to do something good for my world. yah i planted trees, don't drive a car yadda yadda... but that is just avoiding the issue. the reality is we need solutions in this day in age and people to push those solutions... one more drop in the bucket. so hopefully this little experiment will result in success with a turbine that produces electricity, and me having greater knowledge of how to do better the next iteration.

the first thing to do is to do up a drawring (thanks simon) and put together a list of materials needed...

Well this is how they all start I suppose... with intentions of updating regularly and being 'interesting' and all that... or at least to have a place to voice your opinion where no one (save blogspot.com) telling you you're wrong ;)