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Forum Index : Windmills : Easier Way
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MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
New member; minutes-old. Hey! I've been at this windmill-building thing for nearly 40 years. I have a way-easier method to get the job done: All my windmills are Stuart-mill, up-wind devices. The shaft turns a cam (sometimes several), which drives a spring-loaded piston air pump. The whole contraption sits atop a pipe tower and swivels on a quick-fit air coupler when the wind direction changes. I install a ball valve about 7 feet off the ground, which is used to stop the thing in case of over- speeding (the air pump works against a dead-head until it can't move). The compressed air is stored in a receiver and I use a self-designed, hybrid air motor (several designs) to change the potential energy into kinetic by coupling the motor to a generator. I can generate single or three-phase AC or any voltage DC -- or use the air to run air tools. No need for inverters, commutators, batteries, etc. What could be easier? 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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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5124 |
Hi MacGyver Sounds like a interresting project. I've seen the air pump windmills before, but I prefer wires, easier to join 
Tell us more about your windmills, sounds like a interesting setup. I have a couple of pumps from dead air compressors, and would be interrested in adapting them to a windmill. A tank full of compressed air is always handy. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Glen: You pretty much have to build your own pump. Standard air pumps have high internal friction as well as being pretty heavy. There's not a lot of raw power in wind, so you have to make your turbine either scoop up lots of it each revolution (large blades / steep pitch) or spin fast. I like the spin fast method. I build my own pumps (a lathe is handy!) and make it so it'll spin in a 3- knot wind. The trick is to keep the internal friction to a minimum. I've tried using one cylinder as well multiple and my conclusion is "simple is best". The less stuff you have whirring around up there, the better. The intake stroke of the piston is controlled by a spring inside the cylinder. When the cam on the shaft gives it space, the piston moves up and air is drawn in through the top of the piston with the aid of a handy, built-in check valve on the bottom of the piston (inside it). The rotating cam mashes the piston down and there is another check valve of similar design on the output side as well as one inside the mount (to prevent air loss from the rest of the system of several mills). The whole contraption sits on a male "quick coupler" air fitting, which is stuck into a female coupler permanently mounted to the tower. This allows good air transfer without leaks and enables the whole thing to rotate with changing wind direction. I'm a plumbing contractor, so I use copper tubing (easier for me to fabricate) and make the last three feet of the tower pretty stout. This also presents a very small tower "shadow" so I don't develop any harmonic "hum" or "thump" when the blades pass in front of the dead area ahead of the tower. Whenever the wind blows, as long as the system pressure isn't through- the-roof high, my windmills spin. Noise? When the system pressure is low and the wind is up, they whistles a bit. I have the pitch set pretty shallow as a rule (15 degrees). I use flat aluminum blades, which get "stronger" the faster they spin. I've never "launched" one from over-speeding yet! Birds? When the wind is up, my windmills often play "bird golf" :O) Birds aren't so dumb as you might think; they learn. The tree huggers hate that part by the way! That's about it except for the air motors. I generally use my own design; a positive-displacement turbine. I'll have to figure out how to post a picture and get hold of a digital camera. It'd take a HUGE post to explain how to build the motor, but anyone could look at a picture and figure it out. There's also a traditional "steam engine" design that uses external pistons (2). Again, a picture would be about the only way to understand. Whichever air-motor design used, the end game is to couple it to a generator and make electricity. Since the power source is now the wind itself (compressed air), standard governor controls can be used to maintain voltage and keep up with current peaks and demands. Easy! I'll look into the picture thing. And yes, I've had a few disasters over the years! 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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oztules Guru Joined: 26/07/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1686 |
Interesting use of windpower . It will be nice if you can get the picture thing happening. ......oztules Village idiot...or... just another hack out of his depth |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
Hide and watch! 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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| bbbuddy Newbie  Joined: 08/06/2009 Location: Posts: 3 |
 Well, I have now been waiting patiently for a year to find out more about this.
During that time, I went ahead and bought a Quincy 210 pressure lubricated air compressor pump, and now have pipe for a tower. Buying blades soon, probably from TLG Windpower. BUT BUT BUT I would STILL like to see pictures and a better explanation of your home made air pump. How many psi does it go to? How many gpm does it pump at what rpms? and/or per stroke? What lubricates the pump? I would like this info in case the cast iron pump I bought does not give satisfaction. Maybe we could build one like yours... We want to pump water from our well using air rather than depend on a generator...and want to avoid needing to pull a pump inside well to work on it. p.s. MacGyver, I joined up here just to find out more about your PUMP! |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
bbbuddy Congratulations! This was, I think, my first post here on the 4m. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that time. I have had my thinking turned around a bit since then and now am in the process of building an axial-flux wind generator, which at this point in my life, will suit my needs better than the air thing. I have built small air-driven engines as a "hobby" all my life and used the wind-turbine air compressor idea as a way to keep my receivers (tanks) full of around 40 psig air. The advantage of that is, I can couple a small air-driven engine to any generator of my choosing and build d.c. or a.c. or 3-phase or anything I want. The downside is you have to have a TON of capacity. I'm a plumber, so I come across used water heaters all the time. Many heaters are changed out for reasons other than leakage; I use these for air storage when they come down the pike. I no longer have a working air-pump windmill, but have all the parts out in the shop, so I suppose I could jam one together to show you if you really need that. I don't wish to disappoint you, but "my" pumps for the last several years have been $10 bicycle air pumps, which use o-rings as both internal seals as well as check valves. I often disable one of the o-rings and that allows the wind turbine 180-degrees of no-load to get up a little momentum before the cam, which operates the pump, mashes into the pump rod and begins the pumping process. First off, tell me more about your goals in all this. Exactly how much air are you trying to compress (volume, pressure, flow rate). If I knew that, perhaps I could better direct my comments to you and save you some time and $. I just re-read your post and see you are interested in blades. If you'd like to build your own blades, I'll be posting building instructions here (on the 4m -- not right "here") using a plastic cardboard-like stuff called corflute. We call it corplast here in the USA. I use 2 mm corplast with a partial "wing" spar near the root. A 36" blade 3" wide with a tapered and closed tip (on the order of a "high aspect-ratio" blade) weighs in at under a pound (about 12 to 14 oz. depending on that spar). I've ordered two 4' x 8' sheets of corplast and it should be here this or next week. I'll post pictures and tutorials when it arrives. . . . . . 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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| bbbuddy Newbie Joined: 08/06/2009 Location: Posts: 3 |
Hi Mac! Well, I want to pump water from my well using air, as in an airlift pump like this: http://www.airliftech.com/ but probably using this Geyser type of pump in the well with no moving parts: http://www.geyserpump.com/index.php?option=com_content&view= article&id=53&Itemid=100 Our water is at 80 feet deep, the well is 240 feet deep total, so with the pump down toward the bottom we would need about 100 psi. The higher the air flow, the more water we will pump, and we want the most we can get. The well has the capability to pump 1200 gpm if we put a HUGE electric pump on it, so capacity is not a problem. Just want to pump using no electricity as we are off grid. |
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| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
bbbuddy I'll try to give you an educated guess. I'm a plumber by trade. A water column will calculate out at approximately 1/2 pound per foot. In reverse, it means you'll have to supply that 1/2 pound per foot from the top of the water down to whatever level it will escape the injection tube. If you want more flow than mere gravity will do, it needs to come out of that hole in the pipe at more pressure still. If I were doing this, I'd build something on the order of an "eductor'. By that, I mean I'd design the nozzle to shoot a stream of high-pressure compressed air through a chamber that has small holes in its sides, to allow an influx of water. I'd place the stream just a bit towards the surface (ground where you stand) ahead of these holes. This will produce what is called the "venturi effect" and will in effect pump more water than the amount of air being injected. You'll likely need to attack this in two ways. First, you'll need to gather lots of compressed air and second, you'll need to boost the pressure of that air a lot, just before you feed it into the well. I'd use a rotary pump set-up to get the volume handled and then use a piston pump to drive up the pressure. All this is predicated on there being "wind". On days when there is moderate wind, you can do both; pump volume to one part of your system and at the same time use some of that pre-compressed air in a piston pump to drive the pressure up. The two systems can operate at the same time, but NOT together. They will essentially have to be separate systems or you'll get into trouble with the higher-pressure air trying to drive the rotary compressors backwards as air motors. I've used "peristaltic" pumps to gather volume in the past. Each time the windmill turns, it pumps two squirts of air into the low-pressure containment system. When that air pressure reaches a pre-determined amount, it is bled into the intake of a piston compressor and stored in a separate higher-pressure receiver until such time as it is used to pump that water out. In reality, I usually just bled the low-pressure air through air stones in my hydroponic greenhouse and didn't get much more complicated than that. All in all, it'll be quite a daunting project. I'll try to snap a picture or two of my little pump and send it along to you, but I really think you should consider building a moderate-bore, long-stroke pumping arrangement atop a windmill placed directly over your well (bore I think they call them down under!). A "Southern Cross" compression-wheel-type machine might even make more sense for your needs; and forget the compressed-air thing. They (Southern Cross windmills) are just lots of blades and gears; slow, but unyielding. These types dotted the western landscape of the early 1900's in the USA and many are still in operation after standing over 100 years on the job. EDIT: Okay; you're in luck. I'm not much of a saver of things. Usually, i cannibalize parts from one project for the next, but in this case, I was able to scrounge up some stuff that may help you out. Saw a funny bumper sticker once along the line of saving stuff: It said "Save The Whales (collect the whole set!)" 
Here we go: 
This is a little "peristaltic" pump. Two cams inside "squish" a rubber tube inside the thing as it turns, pushing a small bolus of air. 
This is the little $10 bicycle pump I destroy making my piston pumps. It's easier to buy these than to reinvent the wheel (my specialty!). 
This shows the "missing" o-ring on the business end of the pump plunger. Sorry it's blurry; close-ups do that with my little camera. Better than nothing! Removing one o-ring gives the windmill a 180-degree-chance to catch up to itself after mashing the air pump with a built-in cam. 
Here's a simple "DYI" hub and blade-mounting system. 
Note the little plastic "cam" set off-center. This drives the piston pump once per revolution. it works like a champ! 
This shows an easy way to set the pitch on the blades; just twist the mounts! Stay tuned for my new "Coroflute" blades; coming soon to a Homegrown Power Website near you! Hope this helps you out. . . . . . 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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| bbbuddy Newbie Joined: 08/06/2009 Location: Posts: 3 |
OK, thanks! I'm doing this to stay AWAY from anything that has moving parts down the well, thus the typical farm windmill is no good. There are alot of them around here, and while they work they are fine, but they are costly to maintain, what with having to pull everything out of the well to work on the leathers, etc. I see plenty of them not working anymore because of that. I'll go ahead with the cast iron commercial air pump we bought, and the proven airlift geyser pump type system. No moving parts down the well. I am just trying to put together a system I know works, without spending the BIG bucks they cost retail. I think I need WAY more power than you are talking about, lol..but thanks for your time. |
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