Windmill energy into usable power?

**Sitec** · 26th July 2016, 08:25 PM

Hi all.

So, whilst sat on my arse because its too wet to do anything useful outside, I got thinking about my windmill that I restored a few years back.. When we sold our last place, I took it down again, and brought it with us. It will be re erected in the not too distant future, and will have power and water supplied to it as I plan to build an entertainment bar within/under its frame...
Anyway, I was thinking, could I convert the thing to generate usable power..? I then looked on a few USA forums and there's lots of talk of turning 'up and down' pump action into rotary action using cranks, flywheels and all sorts of other daft ideas.. some involving slip rings, steam, dynamo's etc etc.. My thoughts are to remove the bulk of the gearbox internals (2 large gears, 2 small gears, 2 cranks etc, and install a bevel setup, turning the 'up and down' action into a 'turning' action... This could be geared up within the bevel (poss using an old rover diff guts), and being a windmill it'll only ever rotate in one direction, just at varying speeds.
Here is where my knowledge ends.. And team AULRO comes in.. 1) Is it worth doing, 2) Dynamo direct on the shaft to leisure batteries? Just curious on your thoughts, as I know there's several knowledgable electricians on here...

Here's the windmill....

**Sitec** · 26th July 2016, 08:26 PM

Oh, and if its relevant, its a Metters Windmill....

**pop058** · 26th July 2016, 08:36 PM

Watching this with interest as I have an old Southern Cross and similar dreams.

**Sitec** · 26th July 2016, 08:44 PM

My basic idea is to run a dynamo of the now spinning pump shaft, connected to several 12v batteries.. We are no the process of building a new house, and there is an idea to put a 12v lighting circuit in, that could be run off these batteries.... but in reality is it worth it.. Running lights of a 12v circuit, when modern LED's and down lighters draw so little current.....

**LandyAndy** · 26th July 2016, 08:51 PM

Whilst camping once there was a grey nomad with a windmill on his caravan.
It was a large plastic truck fan with lots of fins driving a 150 amp alternator via a drop belt/pulley.I had some sort of contact ring from a steering wheel assembly to allow it to rotate 360deg.It didnt take much of a breeze to produce 13.5V,if there was no wind he had a Honda EU2 as a backup.
Didnt run his gennie once the week we were there and it wasnt that windy.
Your windmill will power the house and the neighbors too

Andrew

**Blknight.aus** · 26th July 2016, 08:53 PM

depending on how much power you want.....

go old school

pump of the plunger to an accumulator to balance out the power/flow rate and use that to drive a water wheel and use that to run a small generator...

if you replace the stock pump setup with a double acting pump you get double the flow rate. a version of this can be obtained from a rack and pinion power steering assembly.

thats if you want to get all rube golberg about it...

otherwise build a slip ring (use an old alternator), run a gear up conversion to another alternator running off of crank arm in the head. Drop the leads down to a battery bank.

you need to hit around 1000Rpm on the alternator for effective power out of a stock car alternator.

fortunately direct drive washing machine tubs have better units in them that provide the same effect if you do a little thinkery with some suitably rated diodes and then stick some voltage regualtors down near the batteries (and smart people use the regulators to provide the heat for the riser for an ammonia vapour cycle refrigerator) or if you want to go properly home brew you can build your own from scratch by winding the coils and using rare earth magnets

**pop058** · 26th July 2016, 08:56 PM

Your modern LED and down-lights still need a mains supply and that is what I would love not to have to rely on.

**Sitec** · 26th July 2016, 09:05 PM

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

depending on how much power you want.....

go old school

pump of the plunger to an accumulator to balance out the power/flow rate and use that to drive a water wheel and use that to run a small generator...

if you replace the stock pump setup with a double acting pump you get double the flow rate. a version of this can be obtained from a rack and pinion power steering assembly.

thats if you want to get all rube golberg about it...

otherwise build a slip ring (use an old alternator), run a gear up conversion to another alternator running off of crank arm in the head. Drop the leads down to a battery bank.

you need to hit around 1000Rpm on the alternator for effective power out of a stock car alternator.

fortunately direct drive washing machine tubs have better units in them that provide the same effect if you do a little thinkery with some suitably rated diodes and then stick some voltage regualtors down near the batteries (and smart people use the regulators to provide the heat for the riser for an ammonia vapour cycle refrigerator) or if you want to go properly home brew you can build your own from scratch by winding the coils and using rare earth magnets

Cheers for the reply... This is along the lines of some of the replies I saw on the US forum.... They also bought forward that each time you change direction or go from one line of drive to another, you consume valuable energy.. This was my thinking behind the bevel idea... With the ring on the wind wheel shaft, and the pinion on the vertical shaft that runs where the pump rod was, it negates the need for slip rings, and also having to climb the tower to access the generator..

**winaje** · 26th July 2016, 09:09 PM

Grab a rotor and stator from the bottom of an old Fisher and Paykel direct drive washing machine. Be sure to get the regulator too, it's a small plastic piece that the 3 cables plug into. Then look for the info online on converting it into a turbine. I know a guy who buys them and does the work then resells for a tidy profit.

**Blknight.aus** · 26th July 2016, 09:30 PM

every time you use a gear, every time you change direction of force, every time you add a moving part, every time you change the energy state entropy take a bite.

It depends on how efficient you want/need it to be and the "impractical but cool" factor that you want.

Ive setup the water wheel system on the overflow of the water tank. the windmill just kept running, the tank filled, the over flow ran over a waterwheel and back to the storage dam the windmill was drawing from to fill the header tank.

the water wheel ran a couple of small DC motors from a reel to reel through a pair of voltage regulators to charge the 2x 12v batteries that ran the hut lights and electric fence. The overall calculated efficiency was less than 2% but it was free energy and was cobbled from left over bits and junk.

if all you want to do is occasionally run some led lights and a couple of 12v down lights for 4-5 hours on a weekend you potentially have 5 days to recharge the batteries.

This makes the question more about how much do you really want from it?

Sure we could easily build a multi rotor polyphasic alternator regulate and rectify it back to dc charging and drive it off a step governed epicyclic gearbox to maintain shaft RPM in varying wind conditions and then tie a stepper onto the vane to slip the blade wheel across the wind to fine tune the rpms for optimal power. But that costs and well it lacks a certain "cob and co hitched it" factor

First work out how much you need. then work out what it can produce then work out how much effeciency thats going to require.

the slip rings I was talking about are just a means to let you rotate the head of the windmill without twisting the wires, if you do it right they should be nearly lossless.

heres how you make them up..

get an alternator and call it your power source your big naF (thats a Fan backwards) turns that but it needs to turn on the head so how you get around that is...

grab another alternator, strip it down, strip the windings off of the rotor. drill down the center of the rotor from the pully end and then cross drill though the former. Rework connection to the slip rings and run the wires from the rings through the former and up out the center of the rotor. wire out from the slippers on the rings to outside the alternator casing and bypass the regulator and rectifier pack (smart people use the same alternator for in the head and to make the slip ring assembly so they can rework the head alternator)

and theres a quick and easy set of slip rings that will handle up to about 20 amps depending on what alternator you got.

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