Post by SpyderLady on Jun 6, 2007 20:21:09 GMT -6
Making a simple Savonius wind turbine
There are many situations where you might need a small amount of electricity, for instance running gate openers, safety lights, water level indicators and other low-power devices.
While solar would seem like the ideal solution, quite often this is not possible due to location and shading problems. Just such a situation arose when I decided to make our new gates automatic. There were just too many trees in the way for solar power to work, and I didn’t want to run power some 30 metres or so from the house, as it would have meant digging a trench for the cables, which is almost impossible in our rocky ground.
Why have automatic gates anyway? Well, our driveway and the one next door share a common entrance, so to open the gates we have to block their driveway. Also, the driveways are very steep, and starting off driving up from a standstill is not too good for the vehicle’s clutch. Besides, when an opportunity arises to install some form of new renewable energy device, how can I say no?
Anyway, I decided to provide power to the electric gate openers from a small wind turbine. While we don’t have many windy days, we do have one or two each fortnight where the wind blasts through for at least 24 hours solid, so I guessed that I should be able to power a device with such modest power requirements as a gate opener in this way.
The gate opener system itself is a home-made job, using car windscreen wiper motors driving long brass threaded shafts. These run through a nut which is attached to the gate via a steel tube, bolt and two metal rackets. The motors are hinged, and when they are run they either push the nut away from them or pull it toward them, thus opening and closing the gates. The control circuit for this is a kit purchased from Oatley Electronics in Sydney, and includes a courtesy light function, remote control, and motor current sensing.
Cont...
www.macarthurmusic.com/johnkwilson/MakingasimpleSavoniuswindturbine.htm
(Costs
The turbine was very cheap to build, the most expensive part being the secondhand tape drive motor which cost $25. The voltage conversion kit cost $24 a couple of years back, and the rest of the material was free. The water pipe was salvaged second-hand from a building site, while the aluminium sheet was from some old signs I found in my workshop after we moved in.
The only other expenses were a dollar or two worth of paint and rivets and $5 for a bag of concrete.)
There are many situations where you might need a small amount of electricity, for instance running gate openers, safety lights, water level indicators and other low-power devices.
While solar would seem like the ideal solution, quite often this is not possible due to location and shading problems. Just such a situation arose when I decided to make our new gates automatic. There were just too many trees in the way for solar power to work, and I didn’t want to run power some 30 metres or so from the house, as it would have meant digging a trench for the cables, which is almost impossible in our rocky ground.
Why have automatic gates anyway? Well, our driveway and the one next door share a common entrance, so to open the gates we have to block their driveway. Also, the driveways are very steep, and starting off driving up from a standstill is not too good for the vehicle’s clutch. Besides, when an opportunity arises to install some form of new renewable energy device, how can I say no?
Anyway, I decided to provide power to the electric gate openers from a small wind turbine. While we don’t have many windy days, we do have one or two each fortnight where the wind blasts through for at least 24 hours solid, so I guessed that I should be able to power a device with such modest power requirements as a gate opener in this way.
The gate opener system itself is a home-made job, using car windscreen wiper motors driving long brass threaded shafts. These run through a nut which is attached to the gate via a steel tube, bolt and two metal rackets. The motors are hinged, and when they are run they either push the nut away from them or pull it toward them, thus opening and closing the gates. The control circuit for this is a kit purchased from Oatley Electronics in Sydney, and includes a courtesy light function, remote control, and motor current sensing.
Cont...
www.macarthurmusic.com/johnkwilson/MakingasimpleSavoniuswindturbine.htm
(Costs
The turbine was very cheap to build, the most expensive part being the secondhand tape drive motor which cost $25. The voltage conversion kit cost $24 a couple of years back, and the rest of the material was free. The water pipe was salvaged second-hand from a building site, while the aluminium sheet was from some old signs I found in my workshop after we moved in.
The only other expenses were a dollar or two worth of paint and rivets and $5 for a bag of concrete.)
