If you want to have a look at those special videos become a member and join by clicking this link / @thinkingandtinkering A 775 DC motor is what you find in a drill
you just make me chuckle.. I used to do all of these things as a young man.. and now as an old man I am doing it again.. I have always been one that just hated to throw thing aways.. Some called me a pack rat but I could whip up whatever someone needed quickly any time they had a need.. then I became more successful and had more money than time and I more or less left that behind.. not totally but anyway.. now I have all the time in the world and a lot of great things to play with.. just need an idea to start me out.. You always have the grand ideas and you are teaching me how to play again.. What fun I am having now.. thanks Rob..
Bob, your positive energy is contagious! Idea, attach wind sockets at both ends, and mount it horizontally on a pole that allows it to rotate. This way it will always be oriented perpendicular to the wind, so that the squirrel cage spins all the time when it’s blowing outside.
Another idea, if you live in an area that serves as a natural Venturi, you can string up a bunch of these horizontally mounted wind socket guided squirrel cages together, hook them up to a generator, and produce your own power off the grid!
I can see a horizontal application set at the end of a funnel with a vertical fin on top on the back end over the fan, all set on a free turning base to orient it directly into the wind at all times. it could be attached in a fixed position to the top of a travel trailer to get use of the wind while traveling and then a removable pin could allow the base to turn freely at the camp site. Great for places that don't get enough sunlight for solar power.
I love looking back at these older videos. "I couldn't build anything as balanced as that" Gets a 3D printer. "Nevermind, im going to engineer a revolutionary, new, super accessible and efficient home generation system"
Wonderful video. I helped a guy put up a 60 ft' (about 20 meter) tall vertical wind generator. It was 4' in diameter (1.2M) we used it to store compressed air to drive an induction AC motor that was plugged into the home line. When you try to overspin the motor via a compressed air motor it becomes an in phase AC generator. That was back in 1983 or so.
There is a pressure envelope that is formed at a certain speed with a VAWT ( vertical axis wind turbine ) and that means reduction gearing is a way to get more out of the turbine. The reason most wind turbines are horizontal is because they can over speed. The issue is that, while you do get more current out of the same wind with a horizontal axis, you also get exploding turbines and a much more expensive turbine as opposed to the VAWT, not to mention the extra maintenance cost. Your on the right track with the vertical system if you incorporate reduction gearing as well as a housing to guide the wind, like a sail does for my sailboat ( a reduction gear for the wind you could say). Great vid Rob.
@Michael Walter I think they have a similar type of brake to help prevent overspeed on horizontal turbines, would have no need for one with a VAWT due to the preassure envelope that limits the speed despite the wind speed, while increasing tourque. After all, tourque is where it is at for higher wattage output. The added weight, cost, and maintenance on the horizontal turbines make them prohibitively expensive/ dangerous ( in high winds ). There is also the bird killing issue. They can not see the horizontal turbines but can see and avoid the vertical turbines.
I love how your smarts makes the things I've been wanting to try but lake the tech skills to try ! I threw away a similar vertical heater I was eyeballing for that very reason . Well done and charge on!
"If one is a little difficult to undo, persuade it apart with a hammer and chisel..." that's also great advice for getting out of a bad relationship. 😁
God has said in the Quran: { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 ) [He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know [that there is nothing similar to Him]. ( 2:22 ) And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. ( 2:23 ) But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.( 2:24 ) And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit therefrom, they will say, "This is what we were provided with before." And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally. ( 2:25 ) Quran
The screenshot at 6:15 looks like a horizontal turbine I saw at a school in Israel in 2008. It was about 8 feet in diameter and 25 feet long and powered the school in a 20 km wind. It was fenced and had a ramp coming from the ground up into the bottom of it with a wind deflector on the top half. It seemed to be very efficient, simple and easy to service as everything was low and nothing to fall on anyone.
Awesome idea Rob! Having been addicted for many years of taking things apart before throwing them out, i'd like to share a couple of useful tips. Sometimes screws are hidden under glued-on labels. You may also have to remove rubber plugs of various sorts to find other hidden screws. Happy scavenging!
@@ThinkingandTinkeringhow do you remove the capacitor? Mine is a square 250v one connected by 2 wires. I don’t see where I can short it out with a screwdriver. Is it ok to just clip the wire with rubber handle snips?
I have been thinking to put this into a kind of chimney where, when there's no wind, you create a draft by heating part of it with a mirror-solar-arrangement or some other method... the fans are protected from weather, you might even be able to put several fans "in line"?! I love it
Try building a partial box, shielding the front 1/2 to 2/3rds to the wind and venting the other side. It is counter-intuitive, but the case it came in is still worth using. Though with a small winglet in the way of the input side. It focuses the gusts longer to drive the gen steadier. Then allow the entire thing to spin freely against a pivot point and it becomes an energy generating wind-vane. Put a light on it and stick it on a pole, with a battery, and seal up the electrical connections with spray lacquer. !Abrakadabra ... a parking lot light, or such as that. I am having so much fun watching your videos. As you may have noticed from my comments. I should go join your club. LoL More of the free stuff though, please.
Señor Robert. Disfruto de sus interesantes experimentos. Gracias por compartir. Disculpe le planteo algunas sugerencias. Que tal usar: En vez de un generador, usar dos generadores con núcleo de aire que hacen un menor frenado que con núcleo de hierro, uno en cada punta de la turbina. En vez de un rotor y un estator, usar dos rotores, el que tenga los devanados o las garras que también gire y se conecte con escobillas. En vez de usar un solo devanado usar dos devanados de manera que los imanes permanentes roten en medio de los dos devanados rotando en sentido en el mismo sentido pero contrario a los imanes, de esa forma se aprovecharían los dos polos simultáneamente y se multiplica la velocidad de cambio del campo magnético.
This is great to see. I used to work for a science organisation in Australia and we were into electric car technology and I asked one of the engineers about mounting a similar device onto one of the cars we were investigating to generate enough electricity to maybe help with operating some devices on the car that usually took power from the main battery. I was told that it isn't efficient as it added to drag and you would use extra power to move the vehicle. I tried to point out that there are numerous places that you can mount such devices that would not add drag, like wheel arches and other such places, but they would not even consider it. We could have designed much more efficient low drag fans and generators but due to the fact no one would consider it was due to engineers were working on outdated ideas. Considering they add extra weight to said vehicles with useless solar cells that only work when there is sunlight and the sun is in the correct angle to said panel, when you are moving there is always wind to operate the generator. This would be better than solar panels due to the fact you use more power at night and as you have guessed it, there is no sun to be able to use the solar panels. And of course there was no funding to look into this form of generator.
Could couple it with an array of wind collectors and diverters. Large sail areas that collect the wind and funnel & divert it towards the rotor. You could leave a gap between the funnel and the rotor so you can position multiple collectors in an fixed array to collect wind from different angles and still power the rotor regardless of which direction the wind is coming from and which collector is feeding the rotor.
Add a 775 motor to each end and put a shroud over it to funnel the wind over the top third of the fan and ensure the motors are waterproofed and put it o n your roof. Bob's your uncle, you have a generator capable of up to 30v (depends on if motors are in series or parallel). Just need to add a regulator and batteries and you have a steady DC workshop power source.
@@ThinkingandTinkering I have a fan like that from a water evaporater but it's about a third the length and a bit over twice the circumference. I checked it out after your video and it has a fixed rod on one end and ready for a bearing on the other. I have the motors so I might follow suit.
Great for a campervan 😊👍 brilliant again. I bet it could be fitted with a magnetic base and used when driving at low speed to keep a leisure battery topped up or even led lights battery. Cheers
Even with a magnetic base, it would be wise to attach a safety chain. This is not something you'd want flying off your vehicle and onto someone else's windshield.
Just use your alternator(or solar panels)to charge battery while moving, you would not gain anything, the extra drag caused by this would have a negative effect on your fuel consumption.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Hi mate, the magnetic sheet that the emergency services, driving instructors use is available online and can withstand speeds of upto 60mph on a surface area of 50cm by 25cm area 👍 but I was looking at touring speed of 30mph here in the uk 😁
Hey sir, I had an idea of combining that squirrel cage fan with the aeromine concept. I think the use of the Venturi and the squirrel cage fan running the entire length of the wing would generate a lot more power. It would be very similar to a drone concept I saw a long time ago called Fan Wing. They had a squirrel cage fan blow air over the top of the wing to create extra lift. In the vertical direction, between two wings, it should generate thrust. Hope you like the idea
The horizontal position would be great for roof ridges, I've wanted to try that for years. The show Hillbilly Blood made a similar design using bike wheels connected by 4 or so half sections of steel barrels turning a car alternator, but it wouldn't be as simple to do horizontally. BTW Eugene Runkis has a survivalist RU-vid channel - not sure what happened to Spencer. A lot of their hillbilly hacks aligned with Rob's - the wood gasification contraption they made not only served a function, but produced carbon as a byproduct.
I have been pondering gasification for a while now mate - another one mot my neighbours is a plumber I am waiting for him to show up with an old boiler and some flue pipe
Hi Robert, Voltage is nothing without amps! Try putting a 12v headlight bulb across the output then see what happens. Also VAWT's are unidirectional which makes them unique, as opposed to HAWT's which need to face the wind, so need extra mechanical engineering to accommodate this. Thanks for the idea though I'm afraid it won't give much energy out.
it's not the point mate - the point is it was easy to do - took me an hour start to finish - it, fun, it's a great project for the kids and there is a lot of extension work that can be done to improve it - it's an easy intro to wind generation for those who have never done it. If you do a video telling folks how hard it is to do something you can guarantee they won't do it - if you can do a vid showing how easy it can be in it's basics there is a much higher chance they will try - that is the point!
Can't say easy to do when it doesn't do what it's intended to do. It can't work if it can't output any usable voltage. If the point is it's easy to do, then a pinwheel is much much doable... Hope that makes sense
I would agree about the general tendency of friction due to any flexing. But it looks to me that much more prominent effect is the horizontal orientation vs vertical one. On horizontal orientation you have to align the device according to (perpendicular to) prevailing wind. In vertical orientation, any wind is essentially equal. Just the small deflections caused by the base plate.
A scoop may be worth while, so you are getting energy from a larger surface area, (i.e. 4 times the fan width) You will not get a great deal of power out of it but would be useful for trickle charging a battery/capacitor
I like that idea, a big suction cup to stick it on top of your car in the driveway, trickle charge the battery overnight. There's a product right there. With a few attached tabs it could also be made into a music box type of wind chime to annoy the neighbors.
That's a cool idea, I'm going to look out for one of those types of fans and try it myself , as usual really good ideas thanks, look forward to seeing the next video
I have a old motor with a turbine thanks for sharing I think I have the rest of the stuff I need to make this .I love watching what u do. Simple stuff to make electricity that's what I like to do take stuff and make something useful
Good idea,with regards to those other heaters I'd test the continuity of the thermal fuse,I recently fixed an an electric blanket for less than £1 an them radiators ain't getin any cheaper
Brilliant. Imagine a wall crwated of varying size speakers and blades. It would look artistic as it also generates a series and parallel mass of electricity.
Fix it onto the ridge line of your roof which acts as a venturi accelerating the air speed as it goes over. Alternatively, fix it in the alleyway or driveway running between 2 houses as the air always accelerates through a gap.
if you mounted that in the flat horizontal plane on a model railway train turntable bearing ( i used one for a model windmil ) you could add a tail to it and it would always follow the wind . just like a windmill.
Give me a design and I'll make it 😂. Looking at horizontal version with roof air on factory funneled to the top blades to get speed up. Wonder could a fan on the exit of the centers improve the combined power output. Also thinking counter rotating cages to increase the combined speed. one cage with power going thru axel shaft and the other cage with magnets.
The verticle wind turbine is quite well developed. Usually the designers/builders use a "square" "funnel" or many "funnels" to create more "air pressure" so to speak that concentrates the velocity in a narrow verticle slot. Significant increases in rotor speed can be obtained.
What sort of Volts & amps would this generate? I’m new to this stuff so could you connect this to a battery and thus a ‘dump load’ to prevent overload?
A wind deflector is a must, as it stands you have wind blowing above and below the axis of the fan, the air going over the top turning it one way, over the bottom the other, divert the air from the bottom to the top and you'll get much more energy generated. (I've assumed the blades are curved to scoop more air from the top).
I have no electrical knowledge and am mechanically declined, but am fascinated by your designs and their simplicity. It also goes without mentioning that you've just created something useful out of garbage.
Best used as a vertical turbine - the overwhelming advantage that offers is that the turbine is always "facing the wind", though it would need to be mounted onto a skeleton frame, so that the mount doesn't impede the air flow to a significant degree. No load voltage is quite a poor indicator of the value of any particular design - it's possible to test a particular setup under no load and get a misleading impression, only to find that under even a minimal load it ceases to produce any power at all - better to use a minimal load (the same load for all tests of similar designs), which will allow a true comparison of efficacy, and potentially save time chasing a theory that doesn't pan out. Not being deliberately negative, I find many of your videos interesting and thought provoking, thanks :-)
I'd like to see you perfect that windmill so that some useful work could be done. You said 12 volts can you also mention the amperage? I'd like to see your ideas for how you might vent wind into the rotor in a more efficient manner. Keep up the good work this could be very useful when I go camping.
@@ThinkingandTinkering I've long thought of making one with serious power output using a RWD car tailshaft. By mounting it on a pulley to easily separate the motor from the alternator/ generator. It needs a central shaft and a well anchored base mount plate or be concerted into the ground. Then to clear the top of the rotor a central bearing with a guying arrangement with spokes like a wheel which could be a bicycle wheel if a suitable bearing to match the shaft to the wheel to hold against strong winds. 120 degree blade spacing welded to the central shaft using 8 to 10 mm rod to surround each blade the same length as the tailshaft. The wider the blabes, the lower the speed but shorter are better to ballance. I guess 200 to 300 millimeter would put out maybe 2 horsepower. (Just a guess) I'm always too busy to try this but the made in china rooftop ones put out up to 750 wats in strong winds I hear. Your demonstration gives reality to a useful idea.👍
Hey Robert. Just found your channel a few days ago and love it! Could do with a bit of help for this. The motor in the tower fan I used was also no good. Could you tell me what kind of motor I need? Any what decide I could potentially find one in? Thank you!
Many thanks for sharing this informative and educational video. It would be great to know the amperage production of the wind turbine. I hope you can share it
You do some interesting content, but I always feel like you are failing to quantify your results. It would have been so easy to add a load resistor and an ammeter and measure actual power output, the most useful bit of information that people need. Even better still use a cheap wind speed meter from ebay, and quantify what power output you got at different wind speeds. That little bit of extra effort to quantify your results makes your videos many times more valuable to the viewer. 👍
These videos have been showing up in my feed a lot. Every time I watch one I think it looks promising but I'm disappointed. If it technically makes power but you can't harness that power to do any work, what's the point?
@@bobadam7021 ... I agree. He shows some interesting concepts but some real world measurements is what separates the useful videos from all the "free energy" over-unity conmen, and there's way too many of those guys already. Just using a voltmeter plus an ammeter instead of just a voltmeter is all it takes.
@@bobadam7021 you must be in dippers and need to be spoon fed every thing he is giving you an idea and all you do is cry the point is oh forget it its a waste of time with you
@@miitheweirdartist6794 you Must be having a bad day? The man is genius and great minds think alike. It's just a shame you can't grasp what he is talking about!
As a VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine) it would work well on a “pole” with metal angle supports holding it out some distance with a counterbalance weight to reduce strain on the pole. As a horizontal turbine it could be mounted on a swivel platform balanced on top of a “pole” with a wind vane to automatically orient it to the wind. I put pole on quotes because in either case the pole would need to be very stout and anchored well or to save weight and material cost it would be better if the support structure was a tripod with the attachment as close as possible to the apex.
You have convinced me that getting such a long fan to spin true would be near impossible. Knuckle bearing are needed top and bottom to really give this some get up and go. Or one bearing on the bottom. The limitation I see to making this a serious turbine is that the fins are oriented in one direction, and it has to catch in a very sharp angle to even turn. Make a great water wheel though.
Design can be improved with a way to funnel the wind to a narrow point onto the blades. I would use a wide enough PVC pipe that I can cut the inlet and then mold the funnels into 3 points around the cylinder. I would also build stand to keep this fan vertical with 3 narrow bars (again narrow width PVC pipes or flat plywood come to mind). This way I can harvest and focus wind from almost any direction. Added bonus, if you can seal off the fan into the PVC cylinder with the focused inlets on one end of the vertical face and allow one outlet point in the axis on the other end, you will get a Tesla turbine vortex effect and that could greatly enhance your power generation efficiency.
I really enjoy your projects, I think I may make one and also you could use it as a battery charger the fac that it needs wind means charging a battery would be an ideal use of it when there is no wind it will not matter as the charging would not need to be constant
I've got a small 24hr stream down in a valley around 250' down . I would love to see how you might address electricity to charge battery's however small .
I have heard of plans to attach bigger ones to roof edge of tall buildings; as wind hits the walls it starts to flow up(and down, as the people on the street may find out) so when it gets to roof level it is way stronger than normal. Also, you would be collecting power for the generator from the whole length of the building, not just the few square meters a regular turbine's blades cover. Downsides, I guess, would be that people might get antsy about few tons of weight hanging over the edge of the building only held up at the ends. Given you'd want it made as lightweight as possible and that often means it is fragile, what if snow or hard wind bends it in the middle so the axle slips out of the holders and the thing falls? Actually, rain and fog + fast winds seems like a recipe for the thing to freeze over as soon as temperatures drop. Even if it won't freeze solid and break from the weight, the potential rain of ice on the street below sounds like something that needs to be tested out before anyone actually builds one... Though more likely the holdup is that making one of those cylinders is more complex than regular blades and that means the cost rises way faster than the power produced.
With that induction motor off that fan if you drill a series of holes around the rotor and glue in neodymium magnets north and south you can get voltage out of the Windings
Interesting I was thinking of making horizontal wind turbine to place at the ridge of a barn. Regular wind rushing up the barn roof and over to the other side, any thoughts .
