Behind the scenes content is here: th-cam.com/video/NZDZXdZAW10/w-d-xo.html Please don't jump to the conclusion I'm some "free-energy" nutcase. I consider myself an engineering educator, willing to run experiments much of the public wonders about. When this project is done, no one will have to wonder what a turbine on a car does. I'm grateful most viewers can appreciate that! Thanks for watching. Quint
😊 I'm glad your doing what your doing, spending time with your son, opening up a world for him to pursue engineering, and letting us follow along with you. I still have my fingers crossed for a chance at an aerodynamic slip stream with a pocket of low pressure slower moving air over the vehicle presenting less drag than the drag presented by taking power taken from turbines. Its Not free energy. It's just that a potential for a reduction in overall drag could mean higher efficiency. And there is president for aerodynamic slip stream where two truckers following close to eachother will use less combined fuel than if each traveled seperatly. But realistically, it's still probable that adding turbine blades infront will create more overall drag. 😊
I have no doubt that after a long time, one day, your son will watch those series, see himself grow up on the screen and think that he had the coolest dad in the world. Both of you are awesome!
From the footage you showed, the biggest issue I can see actually seems to be the fact that the turbines are leveraged out in front of the car on those small mounting bars. They look like they're amplifying the movement of the suspension on every little bump and causing a ton of lateral stresses on all your components and pulling everything out of alignment. The turbine explosions also seem to happen on a good bump as well. I wonder if they were mounted in a more secure manner, with more bracing, or perhaps isolated from the suspension in some way, you might have more luck? Everything else seems to work great in bench conditions but they're really bouncing around like crazy on the road and I can see all those momentary impacts just destroying all your careful adjustments. Love the project, I love that your kid is as into it as you are!
@quintBUILDS I love the fact that you include your son in this project. The fact that you respect his opinion and take his advice is awesome. You’re a smart man and a great father.
Isn't that the one that was used multiple times as "evidence of terroristic intent" down in the sandbox, all because some dudes wired a few cheap watches to some very spicy roadside gifts? My mom had one of those way back when, got questioned about it once, too.
You can prevent overspeed by letting the arduino short-circuit the generator as soon as it detects the RPM getting too high. That turns the generator into an electromagnetic brake Then make it automatically adjust the pitch to lower the RPM and undo the short-circuit.
Nice to see you back after quite some time... Long time ago I had some critical remarks on 3d-printed plastic-alternators and stuff, and now I am in the middle of building my own experimental 1kWp double-rotor-wind-turbine...
It is neat, but while parked is an entirely different thing. But the front of an RV would be an even better candidate for energy capture with the idea they're trying.
@@IstasPumaNevada the energy that you generate while driving comes from the car's engine. There is no free energy. You would need less fuel without that windmill on the car.
Amazing to see you guys both being completely involved in this project. Thank you so much. I really hope you succeed in keeping your head above the water.
Are you sabotaging this so you can spend more quality time with your son? I am following this for many years now and you still haven’t figured it out 😋
Your son is so patient. I would be going crazy fighting my dad every step of the way, explaining what we need and, as usual, getting ignored as my dad and my older brother (both accountants) shush me, and in the end finally come to the conclusion i had been hollering about since the beginning and in true form, my dad will take the credit cause all that matters is his path and my brother will tickle me till i cry and then I'll run around the house telling anyone who will listen, but they won't. I miss the 80's, good times.
Seems like the fan assemblies are bouncing around a lot and that movement could be contributing to your issues. It may help to place some cross bars between the 2 Fan assemblies, so they are more stable. Glad you revisited this concept. Thanks for sharing
I would recommend a taller mount to avoid ground strike, and better bracing, the torque twisting the blades looks to be gyroscopic in nature and might mean we need to consider letting the blades stabilise themselves. Cars wobble when driving after all.
Man, so far you have spent so much in materials, you could have built a wind tunnel for testing. I cannot imagine how much time it takes you to make and edit these videos, thank you for sharing!
This is true science. You can't just use your intuition and knowledge and call it done. You have to test it to prove it. I appreciate you working on this!
You should try changing up the turbine to the column style blade setup that looks like an old school push mower, run it horizontal across the bumper with a generator on each end. Should be more stable than prop style blades and get rid of a few failure points in the current mounting setup. Although you might find new failures too 😂.
This is a great set of experimentation. Thank you. Super-interesting. My thought here, especially after the ground strike with the magnet, is the mounting boom to the unit is too long, and thus, flexes too much. Can you bring it in about six inches?
okay this makes more sense - from the thumbnail I thought you were trying to power by propeller lol the props are great for comedic value and teaching principles (and constraints) in a visual way, good job!
nice job guys! you have an additional mounting point - it's a front towing hook\eyelet. you can create some frame between turbines and attach that frame to the tow hook, or directly screw it in. hope it helps!
I like what you do, love that it's a father & son experience unlike any other. That being said... please! Please! PLEASE! DON'T stop on any highway and remain at the front or back of your vehicle for any longer than what's NECESSARY. You're a pair that's rare, please don't go there.
Hey just wondering what if you had a longer cylinder shaped turbine? Parallel but just under the front bumper. I wonder if it would help to house it in a larger cylinder so that you could have an inlet path in an outlet path.
Loving this series! You can get Nema stepper motors with position feedback (making them servos) might help with more precise pitch control? Is it also worth making a mechanical governor to limit RPM below the point the blades burst? Great little 3d print project! Keep it up!
i feel ya on that nut, Quint. i just replaced the CV and bearing in my front driverside wheel. i'm driving from anchorage to play a music festival about 2 1/2 hours north. that new bearing fails 20 miles outside of the festival. when i got it towed home the next day, i jack it up...the axle nut was loose. loose happens buddy :-)
2 things I see for possible improvement that will hopefully keep your belt on. 1. Your pulley gears/wheels could be designed with outer edge, raised guides. 2. Putting a shroud behind the fans to prevent air interfering with the belt. It could help with some of the vibration. An areodynamics acting as an airfoil the flow of air to pass by without putting too much pressure on the bracket mounts under the vehicle.
Tip: Using a sine wave lookup table to do incremental stepping on the stepper makes it run much smoother and can allow higher torque and larger speeds. Doing so turns the stepper effectively into a high torque low speed brushless servo motor.
Would be a great way to charge up portable solar banks. Id try a design like a roof scoop that can catch the wind and a smaller low pressure exit for the air and utilize cyclone blades for more compact form.
Been watching the series since the start, great stuff. It is really inspiring how you face all these challenges face-on and you keep coming back, I definetely want to see this project to it's end. Small ideas with someone who is much less of an engineer but why not: 1.Testing the two turbines at once when you don't even have a consistently working solo seems to be a time and money sink and only ends up slowing iterations in my opinion. I agree that they must be designed as a duo but building half of the system should suffice until you have a working unit. 2.I think looking into a stronger mounting point will definetely help the development, as I'm sure an osciallating mount must cause oscillating loads on the fans which would likely impact wear and performance. Also mounting it closer to the car would facilitate that and reduce ground strikes, but maybe there is some engineering reason you already mentionned and I forgot. 3. Also, maybe the fan is going too fast because there isn't enough of a load on the generator ? If that's the case, having a relay connect it to a battery could add some additional load when needed as a sort of electronic brake and the energy would not be wasted. Maybe i'm misunderstanding the problem completely though. Anyways I'm not sure this feedback is very valuable, but it might just be. Good luck to you and your son.
I’m no vibration or sensor expert, but I would want to figure out how much vibration is occurring at 1. The metal bar underneath the car, 2. The supporting bar to the generator, 3. Generator itself, Wire harness at generator side and linkage before cabin entry and 4. Supports for Turbine. It could probably be done with two sensors at a time, where one is kept in the same space each time and the other is placed on different areas per run?
Advanced Turbine Design Tip: In addition to the traditional driveshaft bending modes, there are vibrational modes that are more complex at higher rpm. I cant help guide on this because it is outside my wheelhouse, but maybe a search on "turboshaft vibration modes analysis" will yield useful information.
I have actually been wondering on this. When having it on a ev with like a rounded inverse turbine on top with with air ducting would effect the power on the ev battery. As another way of doing kind of regen braking but using the movement forward to recharge the battery to. Or kind of like the vertical wind turbines and using the spur like on the fins on the humpback whale has on its fins. It was actually tested and it helps with the efficiency on the blades.
Have you considered using a vertical axis wind turbine mounted horizontally on the front bumper of a car? Two supports attached to the left and right sides of the turbine would enhance stability and reduce the vibrations that have caused issues in your previous attempts.
Is it possible that the length of the mounting posts are slightly different, causing one turbine to be in front of the other. This could be causing turbulence that affects the blade behind it. Maybe at that RPM you noticed the over speed, the turbulence of the blades are in sync
Was thinking, is it possible to put the propeller near the rear windscreen to catch the wake of the wind instead of head on? The head on velocity is quite fast
Very nice, I am surprised you didn't use a reese towing hitch and mount it to the front of your car making it a strong easy clip and pin strength and structure to unhook to work on.
Yup it would be alot more sturdy then those poles bouncing the 2nd time you blades broke it looked like it hit the ground but in the 3rd scene I just watched you saw sparks it did hit the ground, mounting a reese towing hitch or two on the front would take care of that for sure and give it more strength from bowing.
Love the series 👍 Have you considered ditching the belt drive and 3D-printing a planetary gearset to increase the RPM instead? All commercial turbines use these to drive the generator. Perhaps a planetary gearset made of resin? Don't know how this would affect cut-in wind speed but it would make for an interesting episode in its own right. Rolling pin bearing could deal with the lateral force. Might be hard raising the center of gravity with the Winco but these smaller generators...
Could you design a backwards mount in the shape of an X. Where the fan is behind all the mounts? This would stick out more but should be less affected by the twisting.
@QuintBUILDs I have a suspicion (based on very little) that the cushion of air being created at the front of your vehicle at speed actually is creating a differential in the stress on the left vs right of the turbine, possibly also the bottom vs top would be effected by the road surface being really close to the blades. I think that may be part of the reason your rigs are getting shredded from angular torque. Mounting them on top of the vehicle at a small height might actually be far more consistent "wind tunnel" conditions, but far more difficult to monitor from within the car. Just armchair advice from someone who only deals with these kinds of forces in video game engines though so take it with a big grain of salt. :D
I was always thinking to put such generators to grab energy wasting due to drag. I think if we use multiple small turbines (may be 10 to 20 numbers) covering all stagnation area in front of the car may produce some more encouraging results...All the best, Keep it up...
Just a quick thought on the pulley. Could you print flanges either side so it will help to keep the belt aligned. Edit @8:12 it looks like you have done that.
Might be a dumb question with regards to the overspeed condition, but could you use the generators as a regen brake when the speed hits a threshold? Sort of like an electronic goveror?
But isn't that what it's already doing since it's used as a generator ? I think rn the load is just too small on the motor so maybe he should have a variable load so that the generator takes more resistance ? Maybe a battery could do that that way the energy isn't wasted. Now that I look at it, maybe we just have the same idea and I just misundertood yours.
I did many similar experiments, so much fun. I directly mounted to the front bumper of my old Saturn SL1 a 24" maple propeller to a 500 watt high power scooter motor. It was a sketchy first prototype, but at 70 mph or so it would start spinning and produce almost 400 watts-even more at higher speeds. I brought it all the way to 120mph which was the maximum speed of the car. Later I had even better results with a 300mm 3d printed propeller-the first prototype I made was just using cheap PLA and the blade design was found on "thing i verse" and was an 18 bladed shrouded parametric propeller that looks like a super cool turbine wheel. Shrouded seemed like the way to go for strength, safety, and durability-same for the many blades. It worked better than I imagined and that original prototype mated to the scooter motor lasted almost 10,000 miles generating current that operated a wet cell HHO "Browns Gas" generator. Somewhere on YT there are videos I made about it, good times. Thank you for excellent videos and builds
@@Clint3571 The engine on the Saturn had 279k or so when I began the HHO injection. MPG seemed to increase sometimes, but just outside the margin of error. The engine blew just before 290,000 miles and that was the end of the experiments
I love your videos! Try using a more consistent load than the rear defroster. I think it's cutting out due to its temperature (safety regulation). A general load as a resistor could be a more reliable load, at least for testing. Also, to save some head aches on exploding impellers try adding a brake on the small pully axle. You could program the brake to like 3000 rpm. I think reinforcing the blades with carbon fiber will cause massive vibrations as it is hard to laminate symmetrically. Lastly, I feel like the mounting of the whole setup is flexing a lot. As there is only a single mounting point under the car. Maybe a steel cable over the bonnet could stabilize the whole rig.
You could set up an LDR to detect when the light goes out with a solenoid to re-activate the button. I've used that as an auto reset before. One problem with the buttons in cars though: Sometimes they say they're doing the thing you asked them to when they're not. Basically the manufacturer thinks they know better than the driver... and for 99.9% of cases they definitely do. It's not their fault you want to use the feature for a purpose the control algorithm wasn't intended.
You.need a 3 blade fan with smaller diameter and shorten the distance from the car to the assembly it is bouncing too much. Also a horizontal corkscrew type fan might be much more reliable and stable at high speeds
Love your stuff man, great way to just attack the problem and see what you can learn along the way. As a fellow mechanical design engineer here's some thoughts I have. Aluminum, while light, has a fatigue limit that steels generally don't. It also doesn't have a ton of stiffness which isn't ideal in cantilevered and high vibration loads. I assume the first tube out is steel but even the vertical uprights have a lot of cantilevered load with the turbine forces. It's a bit more expensive but a carbon fiber tube might actually be best here, you'll get the most stiffness and light weight. Otherwise steel would probably be better in a situation like this. Also square tubing would be better to prevent the twisting, but I'd understand the simplicity of round tubing. One thing to consider is at the end of the extension arm some steel cabling and turnbuckles to pretension everything and reduce the resonances that happen at speed. That might help with some of the durability issues. Those 3D printed turbines are shockingly good!
makes me wanna try this on an ebike to see if range could be increased on those. Would be really benficial consdering the small batteries and small range but I don't know if 30kmh is enough speed
I've already discussed it with an ebike company. But that's an excellent point about the sensitivity to velocity. Even if it works well on a car, it may not on a bike!
lol i glued 2x 100w flexible solar panels to my chevy volts roof for 70$ and just wired them directly into the 12v system. recently i upgraded the 12v agm battery to 280ah of lifepo4, ~4kwh, and added a cheap 28$ easun power mppt. this video makes me realize how much power and how reliable solid state solar power is. they usually put out around 150 watts when im driving around and then charge all day in the parking lot and have been saving me a half gallon of gas on my commute to work... about 2-3$ per day. the battery cost me 350$ and it was already time to replace the ~200$ agm battery (14 year old lol)
I think the car moving up and down while driving, is putting extra stress on blades, bearings etc. The spinning rotor is basically a gyroscope which wants to hold its angular momentum
I still struggle with the physics of all of this. You’re having to use your car’s fuel to move the car and create the wind, which you’re then removing by pushing it into the battery connected to the turbine. You should have a net loss of energy altogether.
@@coreybean8280 Absolutely true, and if he's looking to replace the alternator with this that's perhaps an option, but given just how refined the alternator has become, he's got a lot of work ahead of him to match that efficiency, not to mention dealing with cross winds, bird and bug strikes, dirt, etc.
@@rationalicthus he's not looking to make a viable product, he's experimenting with an idea. An idea that everyone tells him won't work but so far I've yet to see any concrete reasoning given. Only that it "seems" to break some law. Breaking down assumptions births innovation.
I've always pictured wind turbines on cars being built into some sort of tubes or channels to catch air. Something I have thought about for years but never had the means to test. Maybe some sort of structure to use on the roof.
Awesome video, love that you're chasing issues and iterating, this is spacex style development! You know Elon's 6 rules? You're teaching your son so well, that the "failures" are actually successes in finding new ways to improve! and you also optimize and make your own work more efficient, great!!
I love what u are doing and it's great. I see the potential of the wind turbine as a kinetic air brake power recovery system. The dash setup are so cool. Is there a way to move a car with 36volt electric from zero to 40kmh with independent system using 3 car battery and each battery is individual charge with 130watt solar panel with individual controller.
Hi! I love the videos, and I don't know enough to make a smart comment, but I'm wondering if the poles the fans are mounted on are too flexible? Would that cause vibrations and give worse performance?
What if you used paddle wheels about 4ft long and about 6" in diameter? Mount one on the front near the top of the bumper, one on the top of the car and one just on the edge of the trunk.
Your using a HAWT turbine for this have you thought about using a VAWT turbine turned on it's side? You can use the main axis directly into the motor and ignore those belts and gears.
Behind the scenes content is here: th-cam.com/video/NZDZXdZAW10/w-d-xo.html
Please don't jump to the conclusion I'm some "free-energy" nutcase. I consider myself an engineering educator, willing to run experiments much of the public wonders about. When this project is done, no one will have to wonder what a turbine on a car does. I'm grateful most viewers can appreciate that!
Thanks for watching.
Quint
Great video
😊 I'm glad your doing what your doing, spending time with your son, opening up a world for him to pursue engineering, and letting us follow along with you.
I still have my fingers crossed for a chance at an aerodynamic slip stream with a pocket of low pressure slower moving air over the vehicle presenting less drag than the drag presented by taking power taken from turbines.
Its Not free energy. It's just that a potential for a reduction in overall drag could mean higher efficiency. And there is president for aerodynamic slip stream where two truckers following close to eachother will use less combined fuel than if each traveled seperatly. But realistically, it's still probable that adding turbine blades infront will create more overall drag. 😊
Roger that but why not use VAWT and avoid all that mechanical complexity and stresses that comes with HAWT.
@@OnlyUseMeC4s VAWT tends to not be as efficent at HAWT, and changing the pitch of VAWT blades for maximum power adds its own complexity.
Portland hahahahahhaha Did you get get accused of your turbine being misgendered???? Clown world 🤡
I have no doubt that after a long time, one day, your son will watch those series, see himself grow up on the screen and think that he had the coolest dad in the world.
Both of you are awesome!
Absolutely.
I reflect on moments working with my dad as highlights of my childhood.
You're 💯
Yep. Born in '85 & it sucks we didn't have cameras everywhere. Was in college in '03 & manning the videos we would have taken 😂😂😂
still love this channel after all this time
From the footage you showed, the biggest issue I can see actually seems to be the fact that the turbines are leveraged out in front of the car on those small mounting bars. They look like they're amplifying the movement of the suspension on every little bump and causing a ton of lateral stresses on all your components and pulling everything out of alignment. The turbine explosions also seem to happen on a good bump as well. I wonder if they were mounted in a more secure manner, with more bracing, or perhaps isolated from the suspension in some way, you might have more luck? Everything else seems to work great in bench conditions but they're really bouncing around like crazy on the road and I can see all those momentary impacts just destroying all your careful adjustments. Love the project, I love that your kid is as into it as you are!
Yes, I wonder if they could be on some type of gimbal type set up to sort of separate the movement of the fans/system from the car movement.
simple cable mounted with two bolts connecting upper part of the turbine and the car.
Build it into the grill…
Build it on into the car body.
@quintBUILDS I love the fact that you include your son in this project. The fact that you respect his opinion and take his advice is awesome. You’re a smart man and a great father.
Oh no, your son has a classic Casio watch....... He's going to be designing all sorts of awesome stuff 🤙🏼
Casio is titan tier.
His son is awesome lol
@@Aurorajunior7321 indeed, keep up the good work 😁
Isn't that the one that was used multiple times as "evidence of terroristic intent" down in the sandbox, all because some dudes wired a few cheap watches to some very spicy roadside gifts?
My mom had one of those way back when, got questioned about it once, too.
@@littlegrabbiZZ9PZA it sure is, but they was never powered by Arduino's....... Yet aha
Best father son creators on TH-cam. Good job guys
You can prevent overspeed by letting the arduino short-circuit the generator as soon as it detects the RPM getting too high. That turns the generator into an electromagnetic brake
Then make it automatically adjust the pitch to lower the RPM and undo the short-circuit.
It's really awesome to watch your son grow up and be able to help you out so much
This time you are spending with your son is priceless. Have fun!
I love that you guys share this passion and he is young. Getting real life experience
Nice to see you back after quite some time... Long time ago I had some critical remarks on 3d-printed plastic-alternators and stuff, and now I am in the middle of building my own experimental 1kWp double-rotor-wind-turbine...
Wind energy on RV’s while parked is something I witnessed and it looks great
It is neat, but while parked is an entirely different thing.
But the front of an RV would be an even better candidate for energy capture with the idea they're trying.
@@IstasPumaNevada the energy that you generate while driving comes from the car's engine. There is no free energy. You would need less fuel without that windmill on the car.
Amazing to see you guys both being completely involved in this project.
Thank you so much.
I really hope you succeed in keeping your head above the water.
Are you sabotaging this so you can spend more quality time with your son? I am following this for many years now and you still haven’t figured it out 😋
Your son is so patient. I would be going crazy fighting my dad every step of the way, explaining what we need and, as usual, getting ignored as my dad and my older brother (both accountants) shush me, and in the end finally come to the conclusion i had been hollering about since the beginning and in true form, my dad will take the credit cause all that matters is his path and my brother will tickle me till i cry and then I'll run around the house telling anyone who will listen, but they won't. I miss the 80's, good times.
This 100 watts you harvest from the turbine is taken from the engine to compensate air resistance and turbulences the turbines make
Do you have testing to support this?
@@pilotdog68 no need to test
Just study aerodynamics and you will understand
Seems like the fan assemblies are bouncing around a lot and that movement could be contributing to your issues. It may help to place some cross bars between the 2 Fan assemblies, so they are more stable. Glad you revisited this concept. Thanks for sharing
I would recommend a taller mount to avoid ground strike, and better bracing, the torque twisting the blades looks to be gyroscopic in nature and might mean we need to consider letting the blades stabilise themselves. Cars wobble when driving after all.
Man, so far you have spent so much in materials, you could have built a wind tunnel for testing. I cannot imagine how much time it takes you to make and edit these videos, thank you for sharing!
This is true science. You can't just use your intuition and knowledge and call it done. You have to test it to prove it. I appreciate you working on this!
If I've learned anything about wind turbines it's that they loooove to explode.🤣
But it's net zeo innit....🤡
You should try changing up the turbine to the column style blade setup that looks like an old school push mower, run it horizontal across the bumper with a generator on each end. Should be more stable than prop style blades and get rid of a few failure points in the current mounting setup. Although you might find new failures too 😂.
Interesting on how the icestorm dated this video. My fence and roof got destroyed by that ice storm and I was out of power for a week.
I've been subscribed for a long time now but whenever you upload I always think of you as "rain water electric guy"
Can you use a custom 12V accessory to give the extra load, rather than the back window heater? Then you're in control of it.
If you strapped two of these to a Tesla model X at optimal conditions you could give it and extra 1.5 miles of range
i love your videos easy to follow for the uninformed individuals great stuff sir
These are so rare but so satisfying. Love the videos in this series.
Keep experimenting and sharing!
Thx guys for doing this, filming it and sharing it with us.
This is a great set of experimentation. Thank you. Super-interesting. My thought here, especially after the ground strike with the magnet, is the mounting boom to the unit is too long, and thus, flexes too much. Can you bring it in about six inches?
Your son is so lucky! You're doing something amazing for him there.
I LOVE these project and this channel! Keep it up guys! You’re awesome
okay this makes more sense - from the thumbnail I thought you were trying to power by propeller lol
the props are great for comedic value and teaching principles (and constraints) in a visual way, good job!
nice job guys! you have an additional mounting point - it's a front towing hook\eyelet. you can create some frame between turbines and attach that frame to the tow hook, or directly screw it in. hope it helps!
Iam not subscribed but watched the older videos, its nice and comforting to know that the TH-cam algorythm doesnt dissapoint :)
I like what you do, love that it's a father & son experience unlike any other.
That being said...
please! Please! PLEASE! DON'T stop on any highway and remain at the front or back of your vehicle for any longer than what's NECESSARY.
You're a pair that's rare, please don't go there.
Hey just wondering what if you had a longer cylinder shaped turbine? Parallel but just under the front bumper. I wonder if it would help to house it in a larger cylinder so that you could have an inlet path in an outlet path.
You should try a fan shroud or a funnel around the fan blade making the air funnel to it maybe it might help with the fan blade being stable
Loving this series! You can get Nema stepper motors with position feedback (making them servos) might help with more precise pitch control? Is it also worth making a mechanical governor to limit RPM below the point the blades burst? Great little 3d print project! Keep it up!
i feel ya on that nut, Quint. i just replaced the CV and bearing in my front driverside wheel. i'm driving from anchorage to play a music festival about 2 1/2 hours north. that new bearing fails 20 miles outside of the festival. when i got it towed home the next day, i jack it up...the axle nut was loose. loose happens buddy :-)
2 things I see for possible improvement that will hopefully keep your belt on.
1. Your pulley gears/wheels could be designed with outer edge, raised guides.
2. Putting a shroud behind the fans to prevent air interfering with the belt. It could help with some of the vibration.
An areodynamics acting as an airfoil the flow of air to pass by without putting too much pressure on the bracket mounts under the vehicle.
ever think about doing a rotor blade, with a wind scoop that controls the airflow over it and or angle or stop airflow?
Tip: Using a sine wave lookup table to do incremental stepping on the stepper makes it run much smoother and can allow higher torque and larger speeds. Doing so turns the stepper effectively into a high torque low speed brushless servo motor.
Now m getting it why roads starts to get empty as soon as you guys take ur car out on road, flying propellers🤣🤣🤣
Would it not be possible to use a vawt style turbine that way the blades are more stable and less likely to explode?
11:48 DO. NOT. HIT. 88. MPH!!!!
If Im ever a dad, I hope to be like you Quint!
I hope you tell your son how proud you are of him!!!
to follow up, Im sure you think he knows, but hearing it said is important :)
Love your videos, stuff like this is why I dream of having a little workshop of my own someday, cheers!
@QuintBUILDs
Great video!
Thank you for sharing your experiments with us!
Keep up the good work!
cops stop you: "they have some kind of flux capacitor on their dashboard, possible time travelers, over"
So funny seeing engineers trying to work on mechanical issues. Love the content
Would be a great way to charge up portable solar banks. Id try a design like a roof scoop that can catch the wind and a smaller low pressure exit for the air and utilize cyclone blades for more compact form.
I've been subscribed but haven't seen any videos from you in 2 years. I was shocked to see what I've missed
Been watching the series since the start, great stuff.
It is really inspiring how you face all these challenges face-on and you keep coming back, I definetely want to see this project to it's end.
Small ideas with someone who is much less of an engineer but why not:
1.Testing the two turbines at once when you don't even have a consistently working solo seems to be a time and money sink and only ends up slowing iterations in my opinion.
I agree that they must be designed as a duo but building half of the system should suffice until you have a working unit.
2.I think looking into a stronger mounting point will definetely help the development, as I'm sure an osciallating mount must cause oscillating loads on the fans which would likely impact wear and performance. Also mounting it closer to the car would facilitate that and reduce ground strikes, but maybe there is some engineering reason you already mentionned and I forgot.
3. Also, maybe the fan is going too fast because there isn't enough of a load on the generator ? If that's the case, having a relay connect it to a battery could add some additional load when needed as a sort of electronic brake and the energy would not be wasted. Maybe i'm misunderstanding the problem completely though.
Anyways I'm not sure this feedback is very valuable, but it might just be.
Good luck to you and your son.
Glad to see you back up to this
I’m no vibration or sensor expert, but I would want to figure out how much vibration is occurring at 1. The metal bar underneath the car, 2. The supporting bar to the generator, 3. Generator itself, Wire harness at generator side and linkage before cabin entry and 4. Supports for Turbine. It could probably be done with two sensors at a time, where one is kept in the same space each time and the other is placed on different areas per run?
Advanced Turbine Design Tip: In addition to the traditional driveshaft bending modes, there are vibrational modes that are more complex at higher rpm. I cant help guide on this because it is outside my wheelhouse, but maybe a search on "turboshaft vibration modes analysis" will yield useful information.
I have actually been wondering on this. When having it on a ev with like a rounded inverse turbine on top with with air ducting would effect the power on the ev battery. As another way of doing kind of regen braking but using the movement forward to recharge the battery to. Or kind of like the vertical wind turbines and using the spur like on the fins on the humpback whale has on its fins. It was actually tested and it helps with the efficiency on the blades.
Awesome work, and very well documented
Do you go back and clean up all the road debris?
About the defroster, it might be easier to bypass it and put in a fixed resistor bank or charge a large battery for a constant load instead.
this is the stuff of real science. Love it.
Have you considered using a vertical axis wind turbine mounted horizontally on the front bumper of a car? Two supports attached to the left and right sides of the turbine would enhance stability and reduce the vibrations that have caused issues in your previous attempts.
Sir, I envy you in a good way.... you rock!
Is it possible that the length of the mounting posts are slightly different, causing one turbine to be in front of the other. This could be causing turbulence that affects the blade behind it. Maybe at that RPM you noticed the over speed, the turbulence of the blades are in sync
Have you tried using a blower wheel instead? Be alot stronger i think
Was thinking, is it possible to put the propeller near the rear windscreen to catch the wake of the wind instead of head on? The head on velocity is quite fast
Great video. Always interesting to see problemsolving like this 😊👍🏻
Can’t you use a cylindrical fan across the car like from a tower fan?
Very nice, I am surprised you didn't use a reese towing hitch and mount it to the front of your car making it a strong easy clip and pin strength and structure to unhook to work on.
Yup it would be alot more sturdy then those poles bouncing the 2nd time you blades broke it looked like it hit the ground but in the 3rd scene I just watched you saw sparks it did hit the ground, mounting a reese towing hitch or two on the front would take care of that for sure and give it more strength from bowing.
Sorry it looked like it hit the ground.
Love the series 👍 Have you considered ditching the belt drive and 3D-printing a planetary gearset to increase the RPM instead? All commercial turbines use these to drive the generator. Perhaps a planetary gearset made of resin? Don't know how this would affect cut-in wind speed but it would make for an interesting episode in its own right. Rolling pin bearing could deal with the lateral force. Might be hard raising the center of gravity with the Winco but these smaller generators...
Could you design a backwards mount in the shape of an X. Where the fan is behind all the mounts? This would stick out more but should be less affected by the twisting.
@QuintBUILDs I have a suspicion (based on very little) that the cushion of air being created at the front of your vehicle at speed actually is creating a differential in the stress on the left vs right of the turbine, possibly also the bottom vs top would be effected by the road surface being really close to the blades. I think that may be part of the reason your rigs are getting shredded from angular torque. Mounting them on top of the vehicle at a small height might actually be far more consistent "wind tunnel" conditions, but far more difficult to monitor from within the car. Just armchair advice from someone who only deals with these kinds of forces in video game engines though so take it with a big grain of salt. :D
Granted, that kind of goes against the idea of trying to convert part of the energy from the vehicle breaking through the wind into electricity 🙅♀
I was always thinking to put such generators to grab energy wasting due to drag. I think if we use multiple small turbines (may be 10 to 20 numbers) covering all stagnation area in front of the car may produce some more encouraging results...All the best, Keep it up...
where is the generator from ?
Just a quick thought on the pulley. Could you print flanges either side so it will help to keep the belt aligned.
Edit @8:12 it looks like you have done that.
Might be a dumb question with regards to the overspeed condition, but could you use the generators as a regen brake when the speed hits a threshold? Sort of like an electronic goveror?
But isn't that what it's already doing since it's used as a generator ? I think rn the load is just too small on the motor so maybe he should have a variable load so that the generator takes more resistance ? Maybe a battery could do that that way the energy isn't wasted.
Now that I look at it, maybe we just have the same idea and I just misundertood yours.
Such an interesting journey!
I did many similar experiments, so much fun. I directly mounted to the front bumper of my old Saturn SL1 a 24" maple propeller to a 500 watt high power scooter motor. It was a sketchy first prototype, but at 70 mph or so it would start spinning and produce almost 400 watts-even more at higher speeds. I brought it all the way to 120mph which was the maximum speed of the car. Later I had even better results with a 300mm 3d printed propeller-the first prototype I made was just using cheap PLA and the blade design was found on "thing i verse" and was an 18 bladed shrouded parametric propeller that looks like a super cool turbine wheel. Shrouded seemed like the way to go for strength, safety, and durability-same for the many blades. It worked better than I imagined and that original prototype mated to the scooter motor lasted almost 10,000 miles generating current that operated a wet cell HHO "Browns Gas" generator. Somewhere on YT there are videos I made about it, good times. Thank you for excellent videos and builds
Did you gain more power than you lost on decreased mpg?
@@Clint3571 The engine on the Saturn had 279k or so when I began the HHO injection. MPG seemed to increase sometimes, but just outside the margin of error. The engine blew just before 290,000 miles and that was the end of the experiments
I love your videos! Try using a more consistent load than the rear defroster. I think it's cutting out due to its temperature (safety regulation). A general load as a resistor could be a more reliable load, at least for testing.
Also, to save some head aches on exploding impellers try adding a brake on the small pully axle. You could program the brake to like 3000 rpm. I think reinforcing the blades with carbon fiber will cause massive vibrations as it is hard to laminate symmetrically.
Lastly, I feel like the mounting of the whole setup is flexing a lot. As there is only a single mounting point under the car. Maybe a steel cable over the bonnet could stabilize the whole rig.
New Videos! Great channel, love the work you put into it
Why are the turbine not got some sort of bracket on the top for stabiiy
You could set up an LDR to detect when the light goes out with a solenoid to re-activate the button. I've used that as an auto reset before.
One problem with the buttons in cars though: Sometimes they say they're doing the thing you asked them to when they're not. Basically the manufacturer thinks they know better than the driver... and for 99.9% of cases they definitely do. It's not their fault you want to use the feature for a purpose the control algorithm wasn't intended.
You.need a 3 blade fan with smaller diameter and shorten the distance from the car to the assembly it is bouncing too much.
Also a horizontal corkscrew type fan might be much more reliable and stable at high speeds
This is an excellent experiment. Perfect anount of failure in this episode.
An extra brace between both might help with vibrations.
Is that on an electric car so that it might charge the batteries a little bit while driving?
Love your stuff man, great way to just attack the problem and see what you can learn along the way.
As a fellow mechanical design engineer here's some thoughts I have. Aluminum, while light, has a fatigue limit that steels generally don't. It also doesn't have a ton of stiffness which isn't ideal in cantilevered and high vibration loads. I assume the first tube out is steel but even the vertical uprights have a lot of cantilevered load with the turbine forces. It's a bit more expensive but a carbon fiber tube might actually be best here, you'll get the most stiffness and light weight. Otherwise steel would probably be better in a situation like this.
Also square tubing would be better to prevent the twisting, but I'd understand the simplicity of round tubing. One thing to consider is at the end of the extension arm some steel cabling and turnbuckles to pretension everything and reduce the resonances that happen at speed. That might help with some of the durability issues.
Those 3D printed turbines are shockingly good!
makes me wanna try this on an ebike to see if range could be increased on those. Would be really benficial consdering the small batteries and small range but I don't know if 30kmh is enough speed
I've already discussed it with an ebike company. But that's an excellent point about the sensitivity to velocity. Even if it works well on a car, it may not on a bike!
lol i glued 2x 100w flexible solar panels to my chevy volts roof for 70$ and just wired them directly into the 12v system. recently i upgraded the 12v agm battery to 280ah of lifepo4, ~4kwh, and added a cheap 28$ easun power mppt. this video makes me realize how much power and how reliable solid state solar power is. they usually put out around 150 watts when im driving around and then charge all day in the parking lot and have been saving me a half gallon of gas on my commute to work... about 2-3$ per day. the battery cost me 350$ and it was already time to replace the ~200$ agm battery (14 year old lol)
I think the car moving up and down while driving, is putting extra stress on blades, bearings etc. The spinning rotor is basically a gyroscope which wants to hold its angular momentum
I still struggle with the physics of all of this. You’re having to use your car’s fuel to move the car and create the wind, which you’re then removing by pushing it into the battery connected to the turbine. You should have a net loss of energy altogether.
You could say the same thing about the alternator, this really is just a battle of efficiency of the alternator vs. these turbines
@@coreybean8280 Absolutely true, and if he's looking to replace the alternator with this that's perhaps an option, but given just how refined the alternator has become, he's got a lot of work ahead of him to match that efficiency, not to mention dealing with cross winds, bird and bug strikes, dirt, etc.
@@rationalicthus he's not looking to make a viable product, he's experimenting with an idea. An idea that everyone tells him won't work but so far I've yet to see any concrete reasoning given. Only that it "seems" to break some law. Breaking down assumptions births innovation.
@@pilotdog68 It’s called the first law of thermodynamics.
@@rationalicthusI fail to see how switching between air and physical coupling somehow breaks physics
I've always pictured wind turbines on cars being built into some sort of tubes or channels to catch air. Something I have thought about for years but never had the means to test. Maybe some sort of structure to use on the roof.
Awesome video, love that you're chasing issues and iterating, this is spacex style development! You know Elon's 6 rules?
You're teaching your son so well, that the "failures" are actually successes in finding new ways to improve!
and you also optimize and make your own work more efficient, great!!
Wait, wouldnt the fan create more drag and the Energy of the fan essencially comes from the combustion in the engine ?
I love what u are doing and it's great. I see the potential of the wind turbine as a kinetic air brake power recovery system. The dash setup are so cool. Is there a way to move a car with 36volt electric from zero to 40kmh with independent system using 3 car battery and each battery is individual charge with 130watt solar panel with individual controller.
Hi! I love the videos, and I don't know enough to make a smart comment, but I'm wondering if the poles the fans are mounted on are too flexible? Would that cause vibrations and give worse performance?
What if you used paddle wheels about 4ft long and about 6" in diameter? Mount one on the front near the top of the bumper, one on the top of the car and one just on the edge of the trunk.
so could this be used on EVs to charge the battery while driving?
Your using a HAWT turbine for this have you thought about using a VAWT turbine turned on it's side?
You can use the main axis directly into the motor and ignore those belts and gears.
Did you ever think of trying to use a tower fan blade but mount it sideways?