New Member

[Ken Kacel]

Excellent Forum. I have been building wind turbines and solar systems since the 1980s(last century). The designs keep getting better. I went to Jordan College for My alternative energy degree. Never made a career out of the education. Only hippies were green back then. seems times have changed. "I was green before green was cool". It is real good to see the resurgence of green power interest. My hat off to you Rod Beckers for this forum. I have 3 DYI WECS spinning and 3 in the works. I was mentored by my 79year old neighbor who has been off the grid forever. He lives in his lab and has the most practical DYI wind systems I have ever seen. Pictures forth coming. How do you post Pictures?

PS- JCEI alumni out there. (jordan college energy institute, cedar springs, MI)

[Rob Beckers]

Welcome to Green Power Talk Ken!
It's a good thing times are changing and 'green' is no longer on the fringe. Current practices no longer seem sustainable. What's a WECS? That's an acronym I'm not familiar with. Please post pictures; you know what they say, "a picture is worth...". I wrote a small tutorial on how to post pictures (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=5028) (it is very easy), please take a look.

-RoB-

[Ken Kacel]

A WECS is acronym for Wind Energy Converstion System... Many of the older books use this acronym. I will post the blade design I use when I get the chance. It is from a 1930s or 1940s German or Dutch book. I carved a 16footer 2 bladed once.(risky business), 180lbs of blade spinning so fast you couldn't see 'em, crash and burn program. Even 12footers in 45MPH winds will send me running for a safe place. The power=k*V^3 is incredible, (double the wind speed 8 times the power, example: 100Watts in 10MPH winds will be 800 watts(1HP) in 20MPH winds will be 6400watts(8HP) in 40mph winds....you do the math for 80mph winds...NOW THATS REAL HORSE POWER). The 7 to 10footers are manageable. The blades have a 13 degree to 2 degree twist pitch and startup very well in lower windspeeds. The book charts the blades by diameter and 3 wind speeds so you match the generator with the blade diameter and hope the RPMs are reasonable. There are two designs a 7 Tip speed ratio and a 9TSR
I used a computer to chart out the efficiencies and the 7TSR won for effieciency but the 9TSR had high RPM which gave me a higher DC voltage output since wind_velocity/RPM/Voltage are proportional. The amps is to the square in the power curve equation, so as far as I can tell.

Looking forward to more posts... enjoying the DIY technologies out there!!