My 17 foot axial flux

[Dale Sheler]

I recently got my 17' axial flux up on a test tower, it has some refinements to the standard design, the yaw tube has delrin bushings between the tower stub and the yaw tube, the top of the yaw tube has a tapered roller bearing between it and the tower stub.
The tail also has a tube with delrin bushings, there are also rubber bump stops for the tail top and bottom of the tail travel.
I also added a ring on the back of the rear magnet rotor for a brake shoe to run against, the brake shoe is operated by an air cylinder, air is supplied by 1/4 inch UV resistant poly tubing, it has a solenoid valve to actuate the brake, eventually it will likely be actuated by some sort of an RPM sensor.
Hopefully in a month or two it'll be on a permanent tower and the power station in the basement will be set up, it's a 48 volt battery charging machine.
I'm already putting together a 25 foot machine in my head...........

YouTube- Movie of first flight with a load

[Rob Beckers]

Dale, that is a work of beauty! Congratulations!
What are the blades made from? Did you carve them from wood? (Forgive me if that's mentioned elsewhere)

-RoB-

[Dale Sheler]

Thanks Rob, the blades are carved from yellow pine, I laminated a lot of 1" X 4" boards together, then used the chainsaw bulk wood removal method, then a lot of sanding.

[Dan Lenox]

Dale,

Looking great! You'd never see me getting that close to my turbine when it's spinning!!! I'd be afraid of something happening, I don't know what - but cr*p happens! With my luck a huge gust of wind would come by, crank up the rpm's and the trailer would go flying...

But seriously - at one time you asked about the sound level coming off from my 17' and I can see from the video that you now see (at low wind) exactly how many decibels. Of course that will change with the higher wind speed and loading, but I've always found it to be a rather pleasant sound.

One minor suggestion would be to color code your cables coming off the rectifier, I see that they are both red right now, avoid polarity confusion and put some black tape around the negative cable.

Beautiful work.

Dan Lenox

[Danny Oakes]

Dale,

Great job.

Was the wind speed in MPH?
Do you have any power output numbers from the axial flux?

Danny

[Dale Sheler]

Dale,

Looking great! You'd never see me getting that close to my turbine when it's spinning!!! I'd be afraid of something happening, I don't know what - but cr*p happens! With my luck a huge gust of wind would come by, crank up the rpm's and the trailer would go flying...

But seriously - at one time you asked about the sound level coming off from my 17' and I can see from the video that you now see (at low wind) exactly how many decibels. Of course that will change with the higher wind speed and loading, but I've always found it to be a rather pleasant sound.

One minor suggestion would be to color code your cables coming off the rectifier, I see that they are both red right now, avoid polarity confusion and put some black tape around the negative cable.

Beautiful work.

Dan Lenox

With the wind blowing you pretty much have to be right underneath it to hear anything, I did put a 3 inch radius on the tip of the leading edge, the cables will definitely be color coded when they are in a permanent setup.

[Dale Sheler]

Dale,

Great job.

Was the wind speed in MPH?
Do you have any power output numbers from the axial flux?

Danny

Yeah, mph, from what I have been able to measure so far at cut in which is 8 mph, it is putting out around 54-56 volts, my permanent meters are on their way here from Hong Kong right now.

[Dan Lenox]

Dale,

I think that you will find that once your turbine starts turning (probably about 6-7 mph) that it will continue turning even with the wind going down to 2-3 mph. Once started the mass and momentum will help keep it going until essentially there is no wind.

Of course you won't get much (if any) real power below 6 mph wind speeds. On low wind days keeping your batteries at or near charged is the most that can ultimately be expected. Even at 8 mph my 17' wind turbine was putting out about 200 watts.

I can't remember or not if you also are planning on putting in PV arrays in conjunction with the wind turbine, or is that a future project?

Dan Lenox

[Dale Sheler]

A large tracking array is definitely in the near future.

[Jarrod Cram]

My 13 footer is putting out around 200 to 300 watts at 10 to 15 mph winds max I saw before furling in a storm was 3510 watts . I am getting about a thousands watts a day average wind now is around 8 to 12 for about 6 hours a day. this is a axial flux with a 18 inch rotor.