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Forum Index : Windmills : Better Mousetrap?
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MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
What if there were a way to get the electricity from the generator atop the tower down to the ground without having to rely on brushes (which fail miserably) or by letting the output wires from the generator simply wrap around the tower, having to be unplugged and unwrapped when they restrict the windmill from yawing? I haven't built this yet, but it looks like it may have some promise. The idea is fairly simple. I will build a carrier, which will hold the windmill shaft while pivoting about the tower. The shaft will have a wheel loaded with alternating "N" and "S" pole magnets facing out radially. The wheel will be suspended above the top of the tower through an opening in the carrier. A large-gauge-wire coil will be inserted down the center of the tower in a stationary position; its output wires traveling down the inside of the hollow tower and exiting through a hole. As the shaft spins the wheel containing the magnets, they will alternately charge the canister with either "N" or "S" fields, while the center pole of the coil will have the opposing pole all at the same instant. As it rotates, these poles bounce back and forth, causing the magnetic flux to run one direction, then change and run the other way -- back and forth, inducing an alternating current in the wire of the coil. As the windmill yaws (spins about its vertical axis with changing wind direction), the magnets continue to spin over the center of the tower (into which the iron canister and central core are immovably positioned), so as their position swivels, the relative orientation of the magnets to the poles does not. Take a look at this diagram and you'll see how it works. As soon as I can scrounge up some iron pipe and a welder, I'll put one together and see how well it works. 
. . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
Errrrrr Ha!!! you have lost me in what you are doing. 
Where do the mouse go? 
Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178 |
best mouse trap is here mouse trap induction good for chargin the coordless tooth brush, I thinking thats where this is going. Jimbo uses a mercury thing excellent but super expensive Luck favours the well prepared |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Pete You may be right. I was merely trying to make electricity and then get it down off the tower without wires wrapping around things or having to use carbon brushes. Theoretically it should work, but I'm not sure how well. I'll make one and then we'll know. For now, just study the little picture and if you've ever taken apart one of those little bicycle generators that has a knurled wheel, which rubs against the tire, you'll recognize the insides are arranged very similar (magnetically speaking) to the way this is set up. I think it will work; I'll let everyone know either way. . . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
[Quote=KarlJ]Jimbo uses a mercury thing excellent but super expensive . . . And this would be exactly what? I looked at all the posts from Jimbo911 and couldn't find anything with mercury. Sounds interesting, though. Different Jimbo? . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Dinges Senior Member  Joined: 04/01/2008 Location: AlbaniaPosts: 510 |
He probably used 'Mercotacs', or a similar product: http://www.mercotac.com/html/threeconductor.html Very nice... too bad about the cost though. But I must admit, should I ever actually get a windmill up, I would seriously consider it over sliprings. Peter. (<-- looks ponderingly at that flask of mercury.... I wonder how hard it would be....  ) |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Peter If my "Better Mousetrap" works, I'll build one and send it to you! 
Edit: Original post lacked an addressee and appeared to be a blanket offer. It was very late and was a response to Peter's (Dinges) post. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
Hi Mac, You better hope it dont work, as 1325 forum members might hold you to your offer on making one and sending it to us.
Still cant make sence of what you are doing?? but guess it will become only to clear when the postman delivers my parcel from the States.
Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| JimBo911 Senior Member Joined: 26/03/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 262 |
At the present time my wire runs just hang down the inside of my tower. Not much problem with twisting as of yet. The Mercotac rotating connnectors are very nice. I feel that it would be a nice alternative to slip rings. I do believe that imsmooth is the forum member that used this connector on his F&P,neo mill. Jim |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
[Quote=Downwind]You better hope it dont work, as 1325 forum members might hold you to your offer on making one and sending it to us. Yaaaawnnnn . . . . Oops! Thanks for the heads-up; it was pretty late. Note "Edit" slipped into original post.  Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Dinges Senior Member Joined: 04/01/2008 Location: AlbaniaPosts: 510 |
[quote]If my "Better Mousetrap" works, I'll build one and send it to you! [/quote] ....some assembly required.... Mice not included....?
Of course I know perfectly well how those bicycle dynamos work - they were the source of my first magnets at age 6 or so. You'll find such a dynamo on practically every bike here. Recently replaced the one on the recumbent, a fancy one with dual ball bearings (Sanyo). Runs *very* smoothly. I love those dynamos - very simple technology, no batteries required, always there when you need them. And back in high school, when I used to have a kink in my front wheel, school mates could recognize me from miles away by the rhythmically on-off flashing lights at about 1-2 Hz....
I think I'm getting your idea, but the stator would require a hollow spherical shape. Bit hard to make, though milling, grinding or EDM could work. Also think it would make less-than-perfect use of the magnets, as only the very bottom of the rotor sees any coil. And you'd have to find a way to prevent it from cogging. Peter. (<-- still prefers his lamp & PV panel solution) PS - your Dutch is improving.... Ik denk dat we onderhand kunnen overschakelen op het edele nederlands? |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
[Quote=Dinges]PS - your Dutch is improving.... Oh, that! Yup, nearly-flawless execution of my online Dutch language translator; thanks! As for the spherical shape of the area into and out of which the stator must swing, I intend positioning the central core slightly lower than the edges of the iron canister -- to match the radius of the stator's swing. I cranked up another way to utilize a coil wrapped around both "legs" of the iron core and canister, but it really is weird! I'll keep the thinking cap on for now. I find it much easer (and way faster) to imagine stuff instead of build it. I'm finishing up the "test stand" for my VAWT in an hour or so and I'll try to get a picture or two up when I do. Like I said previously, we're in for a blow, which should be a good test of my little toy. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Joblow Regular Member  Joined: 05/01/2010 Location: AustraliaPosts: 54 |
Only a bit of trivia here, do you remember the old type of bicycle hub dynamos? we had a teacher at school who rode one every day to and from, so one summer some of us 'handy' kids shorted out the two terminals. Great kids experiment, for weeks later the harder she pedalled the slower she went. The man who never made a mistake never made anything |
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Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Oh, that! Yup, nearly-flawless execution of my online Dutch language translator; thanks! As for the spherical shape of the area into and out of which the stator must swing, I intend positioning the central core slightly lower than the edges of the iron canister -- to match the radius of the stator's swing. I cranked up another way to utilize a coil wrapped around both "legs" of the iron core and canister, but it really is weird! I'll keep the thinking cap on for now. I find it much easer (and way faster) to imagine stuff instead of build it. I'm finishing up the "test stand" for my VAWT in an hour or so and I'll try to get a picture or two up when I do. Like I said previously, we're in for a blow, which should be a good test of my little toy. MacGyver, Take off your thinking cap for a moment and put it back on sideways How about solving your electrical mousetrap conundrum with a mechanical one?
A bevel gear comes to mind (I have a nice one here). Feed your HAWT input in and get VAWT rotation out for any wind direction. Should be all straight forward from there - no more thoughts about twisted wires or slip rings to loose sleep about [LOL. Very little efficiency lost for relatively little added mechanical complexity. Klaus |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
I think it's time for a little VAWT update: I made a small design change to the "Lenz" turbine blade. I added a half-pipe tube to the leading edge of a flat wing and it seems to help catch wind on both the outside and inside surface of the blade, although the VAWTs operation is still nothing to write home about. Maybe I should have enclosed the top and bottom, but I didn't. Here's a shot looking down from the top of one blade. 
As much as I wanted the VAWT to work well, in that it was so simple and easy to build, sad to say, even with the design change, in actual operation, it just doesn't cut it. We're having lots of rain and high winds and even though it scoots when the wind's screaming, as the wind slows, the mill's power drops off drastically. This is likely due to the fact that the momentum is left to push those half pipes through the air, eh? If I can get this thing to "fly" like something special, I'll try to put up a video somewhere. I'm keeping it around for a while. Heck, I took my time making the bearings run like a champ, might as well watch it whir. Maybe the windmill fairy will smack it with her magic wand in the night! That means I'll switch gears and try to get this "Better Mousetrap" HAWT off the ground. Really wish I'd called this thread something else!
Edit: The VAWT is definitely OUT. I stripped things down all the way to a simple Darius and while it does work, it has to be spun up by hand to get it to do anything at all and after a while, it winds itself down. That means I'm switching back to the HAWT for this project. In fact, that means my VAWT days have drawn to a permanent close!  Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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| Downwind Guru Joined: 09/09/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2333 |
What like ? MACHAWTNTRAP
But that sounds a bit Scotish/German and not Dutch?? Pete. Sometimes it just works |
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| Tinker Guru Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Perhaps its your design change that's to blame. If you read up on the Lenz2 idea, its blades give lift like an aircraft wing during part of the revolution. Yours, alas, are only drag, no lift at all. But, since I'm too playing with the Lenz2 design I may have an answer to your dilemma. But, it has to be tested first, will know later this week if it worked. meanwhile, have fun  Klaus |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Tinker I'd read about the "lift" but it didn't seem to make much of a difference in the operation of the thing; at least, the videos online didn't seem to show that much of an improvement. I think the real answer to this can be summed up with a four-letter word. Oh, no; not that one, this one: HAWT Like I said somewhere, my greatest reason for avoiding a HAWT for generating electricity was that the juice had to be transferred from the commutator to the ground via slip rings, which always fail! I too am in the "testing mode" as for the HAWT electric generator and will get back as soon as I have something worthwhile sharing. Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
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