Homemade Wind Turbine Generator VAWT Vertical

I have been working on a very similar design. I am getting similar results. Mine starts charging at about 140 rpm or 9mph winds. Spins up and then the alternator drag at cut-in speed limits further speed increases. Most I have seen is 1 amp, but we are getting high winds of 20-30 mph this week.
I have tried gearing. There isn't enough power in the wind at small scale.
My next step is to double the coil count and place the magnets on the perimeter of the 28" rotor. Lets compare notes.

This small turbine does very well in 20-30 mph wind. However, the size alone does limit what it can do. I've considered building a larger alternator. However I'll likely just gear up a couple standard PMAs with a larger turbine in this design or something very similar. It just works. =)

wow 3.5 lbs! what is the wattage rating on your pma. min is rated 1800 watts at 2000 rpm. direct drive is nice but for me to achieve an average of 2000 rpm i have to gear it up. somehow

It's the wind blue low wind PMA. And yes you'll never get 2000 rpm from a turbine this size without very high wind. There just isn't that much energy in the wind even if you reach 100% efficiency. Once I have a turbine design I'm satisfied with I'll scale it up and make a geared up turbine. I suppose if you make a turbine large enough you can max the alternator regardless of efficiency to the wind. So maybe cost of production vs. energy produced is the most important calculation.

The website is windbluepower (com). Their low wind PMA reaches 12 Volts at 130 RPM which is nice for a direct drive system like this. It's about 90 volts X 12 amps at 1000 RPM. So a little over 1000 watts at 1000 RPM.

very nice looking turbine. interested see some numbers. I have a PMA and am in the process of building a VAWT. My biggest challenge is the blade/wings, their placement, their angle. ETC. what does this thing weight, and what did you use for bearings? also is it constructed of wood , plastic, sheetmetal, cardboard or fiberglass ?

Using just the alternator bearing in direct drive and a brass bushing at top. Wood and fiberglass construction, wings at slightly less than 45 degrees in drag configuration. Likely not the best configuration for wing turbine but it works. Efficiency appears to be decent in moderate wind. However, it seems to have a built in drag limitation in higher wind. Likely a result of the drag configuration. It looks nice and works. I'll get more efficiency with a little work. btw 3.5 lb turbine.

Depending of the angle of the rotator and stator wings, the turbine can turn backwords at small wind speeds due to the gap between the two. This might be another contributing factor apart of the influence of the magnets. - The turbine looks great!

Thanks! I just took a look at your star turbines those are very nice looking as well. Kudos.

It's charging batteries right now. It appears to need at least 10 mph wind to reach 12 volts on the alternator. So even though it will start turning at lower wind speeds it's really not charging the batteries in anything less than 10 mph.