Otherpower.com's large homebrew wind turbine on a breezy day

[SmallWindGuy]

I like you, your mission, and your gear / books. Keep up the good work!

[HaikuAutomation]

Dan, glad to see you still using this old design with success. I'm hoping you have retired now by all the travel, shows, and talks you have done. I'm assuming you two have put together that book now? Really wonderful to see you doing so well. Brillian solution to some very important problems we have, energy dependency (or in your case energy freedom). More people need to use your knowledge.

[lloyd21964]

I have a surplus of very heavy copper wire. It is 4mm in diameter and I hate to not use it. I acquired this when copper prices just started going up and ran an ad to buy scrap aluminum and copper. Since this would carry more amps than voltage from the coil, could I use this and say use a neo 2" x 1" x .5" on both wides of the stator coil? I would like to use this instead of buying magnetic coil winding wire retail. The wire is very long weighing from 15 to 25 #'s per roll. I have several rolls.

[dogmountainband]

This turbine is the real thing, and has NOTHING to do with GreenEnergyToday or Earth4Energy.

Earth4Energy is a scam! For 50 bucks they tell you to buy a little surplus tape drive motor, stick an 8 foot diameter PVC pipe rotor on it, and have a dangerous machine that will blow into tiny pieces during the first high winds. It doesn't even furl to protect itself, like this one does.

Shame on you GreenEnergyToday -- you are a scammer. Learn how to build a real wind turbine instead,

[otherpower]

GreenEnergyToday: We did not follow your advice. Our design is our own, and very much inspired by Hugh Piggott. I see you promote earth4energy, which is not in any way similar to what we do here. In my opinion, earth4energy is a scam, misleading, lacking necessary information, telling folks what they want to hear and not reality. Its an expensive ebook with very little content! What we do here actually works ~ it's not however easy, or cheap.

[LostInMadness220]

@otherpower why does the tail move to its liking?

[desertblbuesman]

Nice work. Not many can home built them to last, or I should say, many have built them that did not last. How long has it been running for you now?

[otherpower]

The machine has been up/running now for about 2 and a half years.

[otherpower]

Now it's pushing 5 years old and still doing well... definitely more than meeting my needs for energy most of the time.

[ltramd]

have you ever tried to use a centrifical clutch on any of your designs? to change gear ratio during high wind or would that cause too much drag?

[65triumphrider]

Good stuff.

[captncaveman81]

did you make your own inverter?

[otherpower]

No. Mine is an older Trace SW4048. I think one would be hard pressed to build their own inverter for anywhere near the cost of a new one. New inverters these days (even my older one) are quite powerful, good wave form and very clever about managing the whole power system.

[techforumz]

Chances are it would be cheaper to buy a car inverter.

[elsuperfantasma]

That is Dan B's wind turbine. Those folks in know how to get their own free electric energy.

Check out their site.. lots of information.

Cheers!

[ricekenn]

...Baby steps... but at least it's a start.

[vicmeuk]

How much current are you getting and volts? Thanks for any replay.

[otherpower]

Our system runs at 48V. The machine is setup to furl at about 3KW (60 amps or so) although I do sometimes see peaks of twice that. I could do things to get more impressive performance in high winds but there's little point in a battery charging system - if its windy, I have more power than I can use. I'm more concerned with good efficiency in low to average winds. (most of my energy is from 10ish mph winds). There is a page about the project at: otherpower(dot)com/20page1.htm­l

[mathtutorsnm]

what is the purpose of the rotating tail of the wind turbine? I'm not sure i understand why it is there.

[otherpower]

it allows the tail to stay with the wind, while the thrust against the alternator, once it overcomes teh weight of the tail, pushes the alternator sideways, reducing the blades exposure to the wind. It is a sort of very simple, automatic 'furling' system so that the wind turbine can reach full output at about 25 mph but not have to suffer through the extremes of higher winds. Power in the wind is related to the cube of wind speed, any sane wind turbine design needs some system to save itself.

[StandUPProductions]

AWESOME, WE WANT ONE! TIME IS COMIN

[DrKaber]

is this is canada?

[robbryn]

Awesome!