@@greatscottlab @greatscottlab Hey Scott, dieser TH-cam Kanal erklärt ganz gut, wann sich so eine Anlage lohnt und wann nicht: www.youtube.com/@Kleinwindkraft Unter anderem sollte man auch auf eine Testung nach der Norm IEC 61400-2 achten. Vielleicht ist er ja auch an einer Kollaboration interessiert.
You won't get any real power out of those at those wind speeds, modifications or not. You’re dealing with two fundamental issues: - The Betz Limit - The Power in Wind equation The Betz Limit is basically a theoretical number of the maximum efficiency you can possibly get. At most, only 59.3% of the kinetic wind energy can be used to spin the turbine and generate electricity. Remember this is a theoretical limit; in practice, you’re going to be closer to 40%. The Power in Wind equation is given as: P = 1/2 x ρ x A x V³ With: P = power in Watts ρ = air density (kg/m³, at about 1.2 at sea level) A = Swept area of the blades (m²) V = Velocity of the wind So, no matter how good your turbine is, you will get in practice at most 40% of the wind energy converted to electricity. To capture the wind energy in the first place, you have two variables to increase (one in your control, the other not): swept area and wind velocity. The smaller you make the turbine, the faster you need to spin to make any meaningful energy. The only variable you control is the swept area, which means making the blades as big as possible. Note that the velocity is cubed in that equation, so you’ll generate much, much less power at low wind speeds. No amount of rewiring changes this. In other words, small wind turbines don’t work except in ideal situations because physics.
I was going to make a similar comment, but you've summed it up perfectly. The second turbine is 1.2 metres in diameter, so at 40% coefficient of performance you would get 7 W of mechanical power at 3 m/s and 34 W at 5 m/s. No doubt the electrical side can be optimised, but as you say the upper limit on the mechanical side is very low. Add in gusts and the poor location and you'll never make significant power with a small turbine like that. You'd need an incredibly windy and exposed location to make the rated power output. The rated wind speeds of the two turbines are 13 and 12 m/s (47 and 43 km/h). As you say, it goes with the cube of the wind speed, so if the speed is halved the power will be 8 times lower.
the mppt controllers suck so bad on the turbines too. with the wind blowing so fast that they were sounding like airplanes, i only got 50-100 watts in total with 2x 400 watt wind mills. after that, didnt really seem worth it... cause they eventually spinned so fast that the solid iron pipe bent ( standard 1" sch40 pipe ) and smash the turbines. and at those speeds, have to fear for them spontanously exploding.
When I saw the video title I wondered if this was a genuine effort with research into the subject or more of a blind stab at producing a little electricity. The last time I saw a homeowner install wind power on their property the region was adequate and the project cost $25k. The system produced more electricity than the owner needed, with the excess going into the grid, providing monthly rebates.
Small wind turbines are fantastic as part of an off grid system. Particularly if you already have solar and batteries. With solar, wind, and if you're really lucky micro hydro, you don't really have to sacrifice anything to live where the grid isn't anymore. With the Starlink you can be completely modern.
The ultimate curse of home wind generation is that the power you can extract from the wind is proportional to the rotor area, multiplied by the CUBE of wind speed. Low wind speeds, like those you can get close to the ground, have just a pitiful amount of energy that you can extract no matter what turbine you stick in the airflow.
@@99domini99 It'd be better than sitting at ground level, but not by a lot. For comparison, the average commercial wind turbine sits atop an 80 meter tall tower.
@@99domini99 Yeah, solar-battery systems are the big push these days, not just for overnight, but to shift overproduction surplus from midday into the late afternoon when demand peaks.
Yep, which is why modern wind generation plants use huge sized blades rotating at lower speeds but at large heights. Basically, might as well use battery power at home with Solar.
15 years ago, I was part of a team that researched and purchased a wind turbine for my then work place. The consistent wind is about 150 feet /46 meters up. Your insurance is probably going to demand you have enough space around the tower that it can't fall on anything. And even if your location has strong and steady enough winds, you still have to account for your turbine's maintenance. We learned that part the hard way. Those things need **constant** maintenance. Unless you're building a windfarm, solar is definitely the preferable way to go.
I know of a business next to an airport that put some vertical axis wind turbines on their roof to get some green energy from the near constant high winds from the open field. Just two problems: The poles were too short so the turbines were too close to the rooftop, and I'm not sure if they ever maintained those things so they were turning very slowly just a year later...
My dad and I made a fan like this during the quarantine and tied to a long pole. I connected a little motor I got from a drone and it was enough power to get me interested in electronics!
I went through the same issues, you need to be about 20 meters up above the turbulence to get wind enough to generate any significant current. These things really need to be moving fast and constant. I did this for a test. I used two in series with an MPPT controller. I first put a 2700 UF 40v cap on each of my three phase rectifiers. Then put them in series to my MPPT charge controller. As long as both were moving , I got a good amount of power. Get them as High as you can, or go with your first idea and rewind them for lower speeds at higher voltages. It looks like you can simply solder the windings in series internally for higher voltages. I'd try that, but again you really need to be up high to get any power.
So, first step is to determine our area's wind speed, when and how often we get any meaningful results. Otherwise save the money and use it elsewhere. This is the most useful information I've seen yet on these 'cheap' wind generators.
Doubling the Voltage of the Wind Generator does not require rewinding. Looking at 10:10 we notice that the Wind Generator is all ready wired for Two different Voltages. Notice that the winding of this Generator has Two Wires in Parallel. All that is necessary to Double the Voltage is to resolder the Two Wires so that they are in Series instead of Parallel. Doubling the Voltage of the Generator without Rewinding. That would make a nice video.
This isn't true, it's a 3 phase motor not 1 phase. Series/parallel does rarely exist in 3 phase motors, namely dahlander. Star/double star connections instead of star/delta connections. But sadly it's already star configured so no improvements can be made. He needs a boosting converter or rewinding the motor
@@Robbedoes2 Take a close look at 10:23, you can see one of the legs it has two wires coming off it in parallel. He pulls off the center star solder joint that looks six wires (not three) coming together, the star. To me, it looks like they wound the two wires in parallel, to double the wire size that they wound. They could have wound a bigger wire, or as they chose, to wire two smaller wires in parallel. Take the one of the proper center star wire and run it back to the proper leg instead of going to the center star. This mean the current has to make two loops to the center star instead of one loop thru the windings to the center star. The essentially ran two parallel wires like it was a bigger wire, it can be reconfigured to make two loops thru the windings instead. I could be wrong, i'm just a Rocket Scientist, not an electrical engineer.
@@Robbedoes2 There are multiple windings for each phase which you can choose to put in parallel or series. I've done that on a 1.5 kW industrial motor to lower its rated voltage (all 4 windings per phase were in series, I reconnected them to 2P2S)
@@EngineersFear It seems to me that pulling power at different voltages within the windings, would allow a controller to optimize the rotational speed of the of the blades. This would allow the wind turbine to run at it's optimal rotational speed for all wind speeds, optimal power output for all wind speeds. Instead of having a design rotation/wind speed of a single fixed voltage, fixed windings, fixed blade angles... meaning than the turbine generates less power whenever it's not at design speed which it never is.
Man, these bring back the days. Back in the early 2000's I always went on renewable energy sites to find info on the wind turbines. Yes, they need to be placed VERY high to get good wind speed and low turbulence. Also remember people saying they are really loud, so it's nice to see how it works instead of just brochure and word of mouth.
It looked like the flange was stainless steel. I've never welded stainless steel myself, but I understand it's a lot more difficult than carbon steel, especially with a stick welder.
Thank you for making this video. While I do engineering I am not an electrical engineer and had always wondered if these small wind turbines could be made to work at wind speeds under 7m/s which it looked like they could not. This is excellent confirmation that they do not.
A lot of these problems were interesting engineering challenges back in the days of mechanical wind turbines. If you were running a water pump, it just ran slower. Mostly, mechanisms were needed to prevent the mill from generating too much power. Today, we just use capacitors to get around the problem of intermittent supply for electrical applications, not unlike the hydraulic accumulators during the first industrial revolution.
Oh that is really cheap electricity! Here in Germany, where Scott also lives, it is around 0,35€ per kWh, so it "only" takes between 20 and 25 years to pay for itself
For this to work properly it needs to be above the general ground obstacles, 25m up is a good start. That's why traditional windmills used to be on a hill.
Just getting it above the roof of the house would be a good start. Above the trees, even better. I would never expect it to work effectively between two buildings. Also, as other people have mentioned, the size of your propellers make a huge difference. If you are into DIY, look into making your own blades. Just remember to balance them.
They were placed on the hills because of physical phenomenon, not because of the obstacles, same way it's better to place one on the highest place of the rooftop since it amplifies wind force by a lot.
I lived with a wind generator like that on my boat for years. It only produced a significant number of amps in 20 knots of wind or more, so a few hours a month. On my next boat, I put all the money into solar and we never had to run the diesel generator. Now, on my house, we have 18,500 watts of solar panels in tropical Mexico. We can run the A/C all year.
Thats awesome! I'm currently running a 6000btu window ac off a 400 watt solar setup 200ah lithium. It works ok but ac uses 450-500 watts so im adding 200 watts so I can run it all day. Already saves me money not running my hvac much.
If you want a small wind turbine, you definitely want a vertical one, not a horizontal one. The reasons are simple: A vertical one is much quieter, and it will produce much more power even at very low wind speeds because it requires very little force to even get started. The downside is that the higher the wind speed and the bigger the wind turbine, the less efficient the vertical will be, and eventually the horizontal will take over. So if you want to build a really big turbine optimized for high wind speeds, you want a horizontal one, but so low to the ground that a horizontal one is pretty useless unless it's mounted on a boat in the open sea. A vertical one also has very little vibration and is suitable for mounting on a roof. You can't mount a horizontal one on your roof because it would have to be very high above the roof so that the blades can rotate freely (a vertical one can be mounted directly on the roof and even on a sloping side) and horizontal ones cause so much vibration that your whole roof will start to vibrate and you definitely don't want that. In most parts of Germany (depending on the state), you can mount horizontal turbines on a pole as long as the blades don't exceed 10 meters above the ground (so if the blades are 1 meter, you can mount them 9 meters above the ground). But that's still too low for a horizontal. Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein even allow 15 meters. At that height you want a vertical one.
As a retired engineer and sailor, I've experimented with many wind generators (turbines). They were all a disappointment and none met claims. My advice is: cover every available square centimeter with photovoltaics (solar panels) before resorting to wind generators.
I live in a VERY windy area - and have one test wind generator (3 phase alternator). You really need to be about 15ft above ground level to get decent results. Due to an unfortunate storm earlier this year, my gen's pole snapped in half (yes, causing mass destruction!). When I remounted things, it's only about 8ft up - and almost doesn't spin unless there's a hurricane. :/
It's a similar thing with sailboats. You may feel no wind on the ground but once the air is more free from the resistance of the ground it can move more freely and often has more speed.
@@greatscottlab - I got lucky. It spewed blades (then the whole head, and pole a second or so later!) away from my shed, detached shop/garage, house, and solar array! There was about a 60-70* span viewed from above where nothing would get hit.... and it landed right in that span! I found parts about 100ft away. :O
@@ThylineTheGay you should be able to dump to a resistor bank if the speeds get too high, that resistance would act like a brake to the turbine. the bigger issue at that point would be the blades themselves acting like a sail and snapping off. some way to feather/alter the pitch of the blades would allow it to function even at higher wind speeds. would be an interesting project making a system to actively control blade pitch in order to get the most efficiency out of varying wind speeds
The thing I like, beside the informative content of course, are the drawings. Instead of using the usual digital sketches, that are nice but also consume time and they are less personal, you use yours that are very personal and are also a joy for those that like drawing, as they provide an inspiration to do similar things.
Interesting. I have never thought about it that way, but now that you said it, it makes perfect sense. I have no talent for drawing myself, but I definitely love taking notes, writing down equations, and sketching little diagrams with a good pen, on actual paper.
Good video. Back in the 1920s Admiral Byrd went to antartica and set up a Jacobs Wind Generator. It lasted 50 years and was taken down in the 1970s. Wind generators can work but they have to be made right. Those little cheap generators have many problems. Look for an old wind generator. Chances are that the new generators aren't using copper in their windings. In the 1970s in the US there was a lot of interest in "back to the land" topics. There were many articles on building wind generators. You could build a generator from an old automotive 12v generator. Good Luck, Rick
@@greatscottlab Perhaps in a follow-up video you could temporarily take the generator somewhere you can mount it higher and get those high wind speeds for comparison? I have also thought about getting a wind generator to supplement my solar power, but I do not have much wind at my home.
Way too low , On the ground the wind is minimal the higher the better, if you go up 3 m probably 2-3 times more 5-7m would be the best max wind speed so it needs A very heavy duty solid Mounting system on the roof ,regardless of what electronics you use it'll be pointless if you can't install high
You guys miss the fact that between houses/buildings you get a tunneling effect that actually increases wind speed. Not saying it’s the equivalent of putting it on a 2nd storey roof, but it’s still something
Well, according to various sources, the power of wind is given by pi/2 * rho * R^2 * V^3, where rho = 1.225 kg/m^3 is the air density, R is the blade radius (0.6m in the case of your newer 3-blade turbine according to the AliExpress site). Now if we assume a wind speed of v = 3 m/s, then the above formula gives us roughly 18.7 Watts -- which would be at 100% efficiency, of course, so there simply isn't all that much wind energy to harness at those wind speeds and with such small rotor blades in the first place...
I would be very interested in seeing a video of you modifying windings and another video where you design a low wind-speed controller. Additionally, I'd love to see a comparison of the results from these videos with those obtained from one or more Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. It makes perfect sense for individuals with a strong electronics background to explore alternative energy sources, especially the potential of affordable Asian products. This is not only because we need energy for our projects and embedded electronics, but also because the results can help more people with limited resources make informed decisions about investing in these products. Your work on TH-cam is truly inspiring. GREAT WORK, GREAT SCOTT!
It's carrying very low-voltage. I don't know about the codes where you are, but that might make a difference. The codes might not even say anything about such a use at all since most don't care what you do with things running at like 12V. In the USA, all our national electric code says about low-voltage wires is to keep them separate from AC mains wires from what I could find online.
This is super cool! Wind power is like nature's own energy drink for our homes! 🌬️💡 I'd love to see how that setup holds up on a stormy day. Keeping my fingers crossed for your next video! 🤞
Many years ago my neighbors purchased two massive, commercially made wind generators. They had concrete poured and a 1 meter pipe installed to support it. Each are about 45 meters high. They became the world's largest paperweight.
@@FBPrepping Honesty, I don't know much more than that. About 10 years ago, I stopped by the owners house to ask them a few questions about it. I'm interested in DIY alternate energy, and I was curious if it was viable for my property. I live in 'farm country'. Regardless, they said it was the biggest waist of money. They showed me around, and gave me a small tour. They had a small building next to the windmills where all the electronic are housed. Everything was rusty and broken. It was all turning to dust. ...and no, I don't work for the electric company. lol
@@sky173 Of the farmers and sailors I know that have tried small scale wind they have all came to that same conclusion. Underwhelming performance, surprisingly high equipment failure, for way too much time and money.
I've been waiting on a new wind video!!!! Wind is a lot more tricky to work with compared to solar :( but you are like the king of diy and education so I have faith! P.S. next time you weld, get a grinder and clean the rust protector coating. then gind a tiny bevel on the pipe. then just fill it with stick and do small circles while you move the pool of liquid metal around. Also i really think you should try a diy version. I saw a video not too long ago where someone was making diy wind turbines with resin. made 3 discs, 2 with magnets and 1 with the windings. was making really good power at low wind speeds. its just quite large in diameter. and VERY heavy.
Thank you for the interesting test. How would the neighbors react to the noise generated when the wind passes through the blades of the wind turbine and drives the generator? Is it noticeably audible, and if so, what does it sound like?
You could use those generators to power small watt garden pumps, for light irrigation. Also, what is the wind speed at 3-4 m off the ground (like on your roof)?
Technically, it's "negative" results. A useless result would be something like an experiment done so badly you can't tell whether the result is negative or positive.
One key to gaining any decent amount of wind power at low elevations... is the use of an Air-Funnel, that directs and concentrates the wind. One of the more recent innovative designs, is a vertical stack of large rounded funnel shapes, spaced about a few inches apart from each other. The air can enter from any direction (360 degrees) and the air gets driven into the large center hole diameter... which makes a decently powerful air-column... that I believe is driven upwards, due to the funnels being inverted. At the top of the device, in the center of the air column, is a Bladed Generator. Supposedly, even in very low wind conditions, it performs well. Long before that design, there were similar funnel concepts (not sure if they were ever built), where the collector funnel was a massive horn shape.. and it lead into a sealed chamber where.. I believe it was a blower fan style of blades, was installed. The main issue with this design, was how massive the horn shape was, and... that it only captured wind from a single wind direction. Long before seeing the brand new funnel concept... I thought about a vertical design... where you basically have many long vertical horn-like entry points (with fins that guide the wind inwards), that guide the wind into the center... from almost any direction. Similar squirrel-cage center blade system... with the generator being mounted below the cages floor. The problem with this design, would be the way in which you have to get the air Out of the center. Possibly by directing the air upwards, by altering the blower system, with a spiral blade design, and Sealing the center... preventing any air from passing into the center. In this way... you would basically have a vertical "water-wheel" like system... but with spiral collector troughs (wings). Eventually, the air would come out of the top... using a "wind shielded" exit port (as you dont want wind blowing into the exit ports). Now... is my idea better than the modern version? I have no idea. But seeing those long Spiral wind decorations... spin like Crazy... its very possible, that it could be an excellent design... when placed into a spiral wind-directed enclosure.
I do not know for sure, but I think your idea is total nonsense because you cannot push wind through a narrowing funnel. There is back pressure that just pushes the wind around the perimeter of the funnel opening and the wind that does go through the funnel is slowed down by the back pressure. If you want wind to pass through and cool a house, you open the windows wider on the leeward side and open the windows only slightly on the windward side. The lower pressure on the exterior leeward side of the house sucks air out the wide open windows, drawing air into the house through the windward side windows. There may be a slight increase of psi in the narrowing section of a funnel, increasing the speed of air movement, but there is less air by area and volume passing through the funnel than if you simply face as much blade surface as possible to the largest expanse of wind.
Many start-up companies tried to develop wind turbines with large cones in front of them. It never works because the wind sees that as basically just a wall and largely goes around it. Wind, like electricity, prefers the path of least resistance, especially at low wind speeds. The faster the wind is moving to start with, the more such a funnel works as the wind is less able to move in another direction to go around it, but also the less necessary it is since the wind is already then moving fast enough and larger blades are generally cheaper than a huge funnel.
In theory, a vertical-axis wind turbine can produce power in low-speed wind. You may also need to lengthen the propeller blades to increase torque. But it may take up too much space in your garden. I wish you could put the wind turbine on the roof. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
Quick calculations give me ~ 12W at most (aerodynamically speaking) for a 1m diameter turbine at 3.5m/s Dynamic pressure is 0.5*1.25*3.5^2 = 7.5 Pa Area swept by the blade is π/4m² ~ 0.75m² Betz limit says at most you get out 59.3% of the momentum of the air as power, so the total power is 0.59*7.5*0.75*3.5 = 12W So even in the best case it's going to be quite useless. Power goes up with the cube of the velocity so find a place with high wind speed close to the ground
@@pepegac9999 the same 1m diameter turbine needs approx 11m/s for 400W, or you need a 5.7m diameter rotor at 3.5m/s. In the end due to the atmospheric boundary layer and to the fact that to get more area you need to place the hub up high the amount of power that you can generate grows exponentially with the stem height. You get more wind speed according to an empirical power law depending on how far you are from the ground, and power scales by the cube of that speed. Then the higher you go the more area you can cover, so power scales with the square of your height (assuming a constant stem/diameter ratio). Wind turbines are not really my thing tho, I did two exams on the subject but I'm focusing on a different part of aerodynamics so there may be mistakes in my comments
Practical Cp value for small wind turbines is a WAY below Betz limit (and is a as well changing depend of wind speed!). I found some quite reliable data "as sample" - but for tiny turbines like this it never will be better than around Cp=0.3 at range of 8-10 m/s. Probably even lower. When we count additional problem with a non-laminar flow it goes crazy low. Wasting time on anything smaller than around 3m diameter is a total waste of time and money. Especially if "customer" is not living on the ocean coast.
for those of us in the outskirts of town, more choices & opportunities to build bigger & higher will make a difference. Where I live, plentiful solar in the day, and after 3 pm , plenty of wind until late in the evening. I have permanent solar. Now I will finish & complement with wind.
You are a gun man with the electronics. IMHO the best element of extracting energy from the wind is to ensure that the tip speed to wind speed ratio (TWR) is kept close to the ideal of 7 to 1. A fair target would be 6 to 1. So use an anemometer to measure instantaneous wind speed. A rev counter to measure instantaneous RPM. That gives instantaneous TWR. Then use the electronics to feed back into the generator coils to regulate how much power you take out (power out being the drag) to modulate the TWR to stay around the set point (TWR=6). The advantage of that process is that you will ensure the turbine is always operating in a state of maximum efficiency wrt extracting energy from the wind rather than hunkering down around stall speed. In practice it will allow the turbine to spin up to higher revs before energy is extracted (drag is applied) meaning you will better catch the peaks of wind velocity. That's my penny's worth! Good luck!
I‘d love if you made a diy low wind speed controller! I‘ve also got a vevor turbine (the slightly bigger one with 5 blades) and am facing the same problem. It‘ll probably be easier to rebuild a wind controller than to rewind the generator for most people (and it would be more interesting). Great video!
Looking at the segment around 12:14 I can without a doubt say that the rotor does not look balanced at all and it's clearly mounted out of alignment. It looks like a really badly designed generator. This misalignment also looks like this causes the wobble we see when the generator is spinning. This will surely hinder the power production as it gets stuck in oscillations which cost a huge amount of energy and lower the efficiency by a lot.
I've been bin watching all your videos for the past two monts or so, they're great. It's the first time I'm commenting though. Even if my YT channel is about woodworking, I'm making a lot of electronics and even used some of your ali express tips. I also put a wind generator at my cottage 23 meter up the ground, yes it's well over all the trees top. It was a waste of money and even cost me a bundle in the end. My generator is 12V DC not tri phase like the ones you described. Even if it's that high on the shore of a 40Km long lake it was useless. I was needing a lot of wind to make a bit of power and during a wind storm the controller stopped working and my 250Ah battery actually exploded, yes half of the top was gone and the remaining filling caps were also gone. So this cost me a new 250Ah battery. The wind generator is still there, but not hooked up at anything, it's too much work to get this down just to throw it away. At least the tower gave me a place to put my solar panels, this is working way better, if you wish to see this set up this is a link for it. th-cam.com/video/Ntf-9GW0Nw8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/E1SwtB2UPmA/w-d-xo.html
@@brucecox8693 you should watch it again as many times as needed, then. He literally states that solar has a severe shortcoming (when the sun is down) and wind doesn't generate a viable amount of power (and that's when the wind is actually blowing).
I"ve been looking for such a video for a long time and finally found this, which is a good one. Good job on showing how this works in such a deep and nice way I would like to see some more tests from you :)
You saved me some money. I was thinking about buying one of those to supplement my solar array. I'll just stick with solar and buy more batteries. Thanks for the informative video. I love your content.
Wind power increases with cube of wind speed, so if a wind turbine is 400W at 10m/s, then it'll do approx 40W at 5m/s. You have to live in a really windy place (often have 8-10m/s or more) for these to make any sense at all.
And in a windy place you always risk extreme winds which will rip the thing apart. A huge problem for wind speed measurement / small scale wind power on mountain peaks.
Wind generators always seemed like the most high maintance power production with the least amount of production. Great for very specific locations. but otherwise seems overrated. cause in most cases it seems to be better to just increase the size of solar power. if you want an off grid source
@@patrickcoyne1292 if there is no sun then hydro is better. and im saying this in a country where we only get a lot of sun 5 months of the year, and the rest of it is very dark(i live in a place that has less than 6 hours of somewhat brightness, not sun, at the worst) your scenario is so farfetched, its closer to insane. wind power is more of a hassel than solar power at places with little sun, cause they would also be cold places. and thats an absolute headache with moving parts. one day wrong and your fan blades are slightly crooked and bent cause of ice we even got a valley where they put mirrors on top of a mountain, to shine down in a city, and thats still a better option, with solar than wind.
@@patrickcoyne1292 the farthest north greenhouse uses solar and heat storage, from the sun, to get heat and power for the plants. not wind. that itself should explain how bad wind is as an option essentially what you do is size up the solar storage capacity to take in more solar and store more solar power, during the darkest times, wether its heat or straight up wattage. wind is a bad option, in every way possible. unless youre in the medieval times, and wind is all you got EDIT: as a technician in production machinery. every moving part is an increase in error and breakdowns. solar has no moving parts. wind has essentially 3(blades, rod and stator/rotor). if you break it down to what can go wrong
Brilliant work, dude! Really well done!!! 😃 But you know, I also have solar panels here at home, but without battery. And it's in the maximum of the equipment's capacities... But I still think about buying or even building one of those! Perhaps I could get a small battery and use it to power some reflectors... I don't know, but something! 😬 Oh, and here the wind is pretty strong! Sometimes a bit too much, at the point of damaging the roof. 😬 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Would it be better to rewind the generator coils or use gears to mechanically increase the speed of the generator? Would love to see a DIY solution you come up with.
This was depressing, but unlike you, I live in Hurricane Ally. Which means, probably could get the full benefits of these turbines, since it's usually pretty windy consistently, and I live in a two story house, so can get to 30ft easily as well. YAY BIG HOUSES.
mounting turbines on top of houses is definitely beneficial, but the house itself is also an object in the way of wind, so it's likely not super ideal. Especially if you mount it at the face of a wall, where you're going to get lots of redirected upflow.
@@harisalatas9062 I have a 2 story house, and an acre to play with. BUT THANK YOU, that's good info. Luckily my house is decently sized at 4700sqft or 1432m^2. Did away with many of the pesky trees as well.
I am always reminded of Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge when they made wind generators. One team made an omnidirectional one and I've always wondered why you don't see those more often. The generators you see in fields and whatnot are always the giant fan kind.
Gibt ja auch solche die wie eine aufrecht stehende Turbine arbeiten. Sehr informativer Beitrag. Hier an der Küste auf unserem Dach käm wohl mehr zusammen 😊
I would love to make a wind generator with hoverboard motors (they make about 20 - 30V at low wind because of the amount of poles). I have a bunch of them laying around collecting dust.
@@greatscottlab Would be very useful project, because you can get secondhand hoverboards for about 20 - 40 euro. That includes 2 300watt motors an ESC and 18650 LI ION battery pack!
@@greatscottlab I tested them recently. They do provide a lot of voltage, but the "performance" is rather poor. I still have an original one and a modified one lying around. If you need it, I can send it to you. =)
@@jackrenders8937 The hoverboard motor was intended for a small 250W water turbine. Unfortunately, it didn't perform nearly as well as the "internet" predicted. You can easily get voltage to over 100V, depending on how the coils are wired, but the internal resistance of the motors is quite high. In addition, the housing of my engine was made of plastic.... I measured the generator at several load points, but realistically no more than 100W is possible permanently.
Thank You. In the USA, Missouri Wind & Solar has been selling wind generators for a long time. They even manufacture/assemble some themselves. I don't recall anyone testing these as you have. If cost wasn't the major deciding factor ( I live completely off grid in a cabin where the wind blows at night), are any of the available wind generators worth installing in combination with my day time off grid solar? If so, which one(s)?
0:33 - _"One time it blew so hard, it ripped apart my garden shed. "_ Or typically a wooden structure located in Europe, with the equivalent strength of an American house...
@@teebob21 You're probably right. It's just funny to joke about American houses, in order to get an annoyed American response. I estimate that about 98% of all houses in the country I live, are build using brick and concrete. However, my family in Sweden live all in wooden houses. Those houses are in my experience, equally sturdy and comfortable to live in as brick ones. It's on camera however that wooden houses look flimsy, compared to brick or concrete buildings...
From what I have read & heard if you use a vertical access Wind turbine it can work with the lower wind speeds found near ground level & I wonder if you could compare that in a future video.
I think you just simply bought terrible wind generators and converters. Such generators, roughly the same sizes, are very effectively used on sailboats to charge batteries since decades. There are even some very quiet ones too.
There are much higher wind speeds at sea so that's not comparable. Windmills for home are just not feasible because of the physics. It's output power increases with the diameter squared times windspeed cubed. Just put a few massive ones at sea and you can power entire cities with it
@@pietheijn-vo1gtnah, he's right. Of course more speed is more better but even at low wind speeds in port those charge the house batteries just fine. They are however 10-20x more expensive.
@@JanPeterDeVries I call BS. How big of a windmill can you fit on a sail ship??? Where would you even mount it. Just seems like such a stupid idea compared to solar panels. My grandparents have a 1kW PV array on the roof of their boat which means in the summer they don't even have to dock to charge the batteries. Good luck doing that with a windmill, it will never work
@@pietheijn-vo1gt You're very quick to judge. Of course adding solar panels is a good idea but the sun is not always shining sufficiently, not to mention the fact that most older solar panels lose most of their output when even a small part of them is in shadow. And good luck charging your batteries at night.
I've successfully used small wind generators in two situations. One was on my yacht where there was plenty of unobstructed wind - charged the batteries reliably for years, supplemented with solar power on still days. The other was in Antarctica with the same 'Ampair' brand (top of the range then) but larger size. This is the windiest place on earth at sea level (Mawson's Huts in Commonwealth Bay). With cold, dense, katabatic winds it generated large amounts of power. It was on a hinged 4m pole for easy maintenance. In both cases the noise was considerable and intrusive. They work, but only with strong winds - you simply haven't got enough wind for a small turbine.
Bin there done it. The Grid is very handy with power on demand. Charging up a bank of used cranking amp batteries with an invertor was the most convenient setup.
In 1980 we hooked up an anemometer to a PET computer and prospected for wind power. The Seattle area has very poor wind for power, with mostly too fast or too slow wind.
Would charging supercaps that then charge the battery work better as caps are quicker charging? I was thinking of using a couple of 16v one in series connected to my solar (19v) because they charge faster than LiPo batteries. But not got that out of the shed yet...
Great video as always 👍🏻 I want to see your DIY version where you optimize it for your wind speed. Please check different types, axis orientations and design all possible parameters like size, gear ratio, windings and so on so that you have maximum power output.
At the start of your video, you have an interesting display on your home assitant app for the power generation. Can you tell me what "card" that display is using please?
Have you ever tried building your own wind-generator, using a car alternator? It already has the electronics to charge car batteries, so that's a plus. I don't know what RPM speed it needs to work properly, or if it would even work at all, but I was considering building one when I can get my hands on all the components I need. And yes, it would have to work on relatively low wind speeds too for me.
Definitely do a DIY low speed generator! That would be an awesome video! I've wanted to build one myself for a while! But as a regular electrician, I don't have the same level knowledge as you. Would love to learn though!!! You know what would also be a great video! Tell us how you learned how to do all this stuff! I'm curious what you do for work! It seems like it would be very interesting! P.S, another great video would be making a "online" type Uninterruptible Power Supply! I'd love to know the pro's and con's of the different types of batteries that could be used!
Would be cool if you make a review of your welding machine, I have been looking for one of that brand for months ago and yet I have some questions if it would be a good investiment You might say that are a lot of reviews out there, but I care only for honest reviews, and I know that I can expect honesty and reality from this channel Back to the video, thank you I was looking foward to learn more of generators and MPPT
So the outputted voltage is lower than the minimum voltage to charge the battery right? Why not use 7.4v batteries in parallel in the input and use a step up circuit when used to output?
I've seen some people use Hoverboard Motors as DIY wind turbines or even build their own Axial Flux generators from scratch. Definitely ways of extracting power from lower wind speeds like this 😊
I’d definitely be interested in a follow-up video where you either modify the windings or DIY your own version!
Noted!
You still gotta have some big ass wings
@@greatscottlab why do you have such thick german accent if you are Scottish?
@@greatscottlab @greatscottlab Hey Scott, dieser TH-cam Kanal erklärt ganz gut, wann sich so eine Anlage lohnt und wann nicht: www.youtube.com/@Kleinwindkraft
Unter anderem sollte man auch auf eine Testung nach der Norm IEC 61400-2 achten.
Vielleicht ist er ja auch an einer Kollaboration interessiert.
@@greatscottlab Cant you mount it on the roof?
You won't get any real power out of those at those wind speeds, modifications or not. You’re dealing with two fundamental issues:
- The Betz Limit
- The Power in Wind equation
The Betz Limit is basically a theoretical number of the maximum efficiency you can possibly get. At most, only 59.3% of the kinetic wind energy can be used to spin the turbine and generate electricity. Remember this is a theoretical limit; in practice, you’re going to be closer to 40%.
The Power in Wind equation is given as:
P = 1/2 x ρ x A x V³
With:
P = power in Watts
ρ = air density (kg/m³, at about 1.2 at sea level)
A = Swept area of the blades (m²)
V = Velocity of the wind
So, no matter how good your turbine is, you will get in practice at most 40% of the wind energy converted to electricity. To capture the wind energy in the first place, you have two variables to increase (one in your control, the other not): swept area and wind velocity. The smaller you make the turbine, the faster you need to spin to make any meaningful energy. The only variable you control is the swept area, which means making the blades as big as possible.
Note that the velocity is cubed in that equation, so you’ll generate much, much less power at low wind speeds. No amount of rewiring changes this.
In other words, small wind turbines don’t work except in ideal situations because physics.
I was going to make a similar comment, but you've summed it up perfectly. The second turbine is 1.2 metres in diameter, so at 40% coefficient of performance you would get 7 W of mechanical power at 3 m/s and 34 W at 5 m/s. No doubt the electrical side can be optimised, but as you say the upper limit on the mechanical side is very low. Add in gusts and the poor location and you'll never make significant power with a small turbine like that.
You'd need an incredibly windy and exposed location to make the rated power output. The rated wind speeds of the two turbines are 13 and 12 m/s (47 and 43 km/h). As you say, it goes with the cube of the wind speed, so if the speed is halved the power will be 8 times lower.
the mppt controllers suck so bad on the turbines too. with the wind blowing so fast that they were sounding like airplanes, i only got 50-100 watts in total with 2x 400 watt wind mills.
after that, didnt really seem worth it... cause they eventually spinned so fast that the solid iron pipe bent ( standard 1" sch40 pipe ) and smash the turbines. and at those speeds, have to fear for them spontanously exploding.
When I saw the video title I wondered if this was a genuine effort with research into the subject or more of a blind stab at producing a little electricity. The last time I saw a homeowner install wind power on their property the region was adequate and the project cost $25k. The system produced more electricity than the owner needed, with the excess going into the grid, providing monthly rebates.
Like with engines there is no replacement for displacement, in the wind turbine case that means swept area/diameter
Small wind turbines are fantastic as part of an off grid system.
Particularly if you already have solar and batteries.
With solar, wind, and if you're really lucky micro hydro, you don't really have to sacrifice anything to live where the grid isn't anymore.
With the Starlink you can be completely modern.
The ultimate curse of home wind generation is that the power you can extract from the wind is proportional to the rotor area, multiplied by the CUBE of wind speed. Low wind speeds, like those you can get close to the ground, have just a pitiful amount of energy that you can extract no matter what turbine you stick in the airflow.
Would one on top of the roof of your house work?
@@99domini99 It'd be better than sitting at ground level, but not by a lot. For comparison, the average commercial wind turbine sits atop an 80 meter tall tower.
@@Nicoya I see.
I guess it would be way more effective to invest in a battery backup system so you can use your solar overproduction during the night.
@@99domini99 Yeah, solar-battery systems are the big push these days, not just for overnight, but to shift overproduction surplus from midday into the late afternoon when demand peaks.
Yep, which is why modern wind generation plants use huge sized blades rotating at lower speeds but at large heights. Basically, might as well use battery power at home with Solar.
15 years ago, I was part of a team that researched and purchased a wind turbine for my then work place. The consistent wind is about 150 feet /46 meters up. Your insurance is probably going to demand you have enough space around the tower that it can't fall on anything. And even if your location has strong and steady enough winds, you still have to account for your turbine's maintenance. We learned that part the hard way. Those things need **constant** maintenance. Unless you're building a windfarm, solar is definitely the preferable way to go.
I know of a business next to an airport that put some vertical axis wind turbines on their roof to get some green energy from the near constant high winds from the open field. Just two problems: The poles were too short so the turbines were too close to the rooftop, and I'm not sure if they ever maintained those things so they were turning very slowly just a year later...
Use biogas and a generator at night.
My dad and I made a fan like this during the quarantine and tied to a long pole. I connected a little motor I got from a drone and it was enough power to get me interested in electronics!
I went through the same issues, you need to be about 20 meters up above the turbulence to get wind enough to generate any significant current. These things really need to be moving fast and constant. I did this for a test. I used two in series with an MPPT controller. I first put a 2700 UF 40v cap on each of my three phase rectifiers. Then put them in series to my MPPT charge controller. As long as both were moving , I got a good amount of power. Get them as High as you can, or go with your first idea and rewind them for lower speeds at higher voltages. It looks like you can simply solder the windings in series internally for higher voltages. I'd try that, but again you really need to be up high to get any power.
Nice nod to Mr. Electroboom!
;-)
Nod, you say? Peace through power!
How is this comment 9 days old when the video is just 30 minutes
Because it was available for paid subs earlier
Why? @@VovelPunch
So, first step is to determine our area's wind speed, when and how often we get any meaningful results. Otherwise save the money and use it elsewhere. This is the most useful information I've seen yet on these 'cheap' wind generators.
i found the ratio for electricity production for the same amount of money for solar is about 100 times more than wind.
Doubling the Voltage of the Wind Generator does not require rewinding. Looking at 10:10 we notice that the Wind Generator is all ready wired for Two different Voltages. Notice that the winding of this Generator has Two Wires in Parallel. All that is necessary to Double the Voltage is to resolder the Two Wires so that they are in Series instead of Parallel. Doubling the Voltage of the Generator without Rewinding.
That would make a nice video.
@@cristibalutanope, short circuit was 700mA so let's say 500mA MPP, at like 10v that's 5w. Not 1w
This isn't true, it's a 3 phase motor not 1 phase. Series/parallel does rarely exist in 3 phase motors, namely dahlander. Star/double star connections instead of star/delta connections. But sadly it's already star configured so no improvements can be made. He needs a boosting converter or rewinding the motor
@@Robbedoes2 Take a close look at 10:23, you can see one of the legs it has two wires coming off it in parallel. He pulls off the center star solder joint that looks six wires (not three) coming together, the star. To me, it looks like they wound the two wires in parallel, to double the wire size that they wound. They could have wound a bigger wire, or as they chose, to wire two smaller wires in parallel. Take the one of the proper center star wire and run it back to the proper leg instead of going to the center star. This mean the current has to make two loops to the center star instead of one loop thru the windings to the center star.
The essentially ran two parallel wires like it was a bigger wire, it can be reconfigured to make two loops thru the windings instead.
I could be wrong, i'm just a Rocket Scientist, not an electrical engineer.
@@Robbedoes2 There are multiple windings for each phase which you can choose to put in parallel or series. I've done that on a 1.5 kW industrial motor to lower its rated voltage (all 4 windings per phase were in series, I reconnected them to 2P2S)
@@EngineersFear It seems to me that pulling power at different voltages within the windings, would allow a controller to optimize the rotational speed of the of the blades. This would allow the wind turbine to run at it's optimal rotational speed for all wind speeds, optimal power output for all wind speeds. Instead of having a design rotation/wind speed of a single fixed voltage, fixed windings, fixed blade angles... meaning than the turbine generates less power whenever it's not at design speed which it never is.
Man, these bring back the days. Back in the early 2000's I always went on renewable energy sites to find info on the wind turbines. Yes, they need to be placed VERY high to get good wind speed and low turbulence. Also remember people saying they are really loud, so it's nice to see how it works instead of just brochure and word of mouth.
3:10 FULLER BRIDGER RECTIFIERER!!!
YEEEEESSSSSS
And it looks like 3 phase bridge rectifier.
FULL BRIDGERTON RECTIFIER. No wait, that's a different show.
I literally heard it in electrobooms voice😂😂
@@alex.theoto lol howd you figure that out
Thanks for doing this so we don't waste our money buying something that would be almost useless. Looking forward to seeing your DIY attempts.
Finally! Finally! Someone who welds JUST LIKE ME!!!!
Thanks for the video!
Haha :-) I mean at least it hold up ;-)
LOL, then you need more current through your welding wire or electrode.
literally me
It looked like the flange was stainless steel. I've never welded stainless steel myself, but I understand it's a lot more difficult than carbon steel, especially with a stick welder.
real world welds dont look like dimes
Thank you for making this video. While I do engineering I am not an electrical engineer and had always wondered if these small wind turbines could be made to work at wind speeds under 7m/s which it looked like they could not. This is excellent confirmation that they do not.
A lot of these problems were interesting engineering challenges back in the days of mechanical wind turbines. If you were running a water pump, it just ran slower. Mostly, mechanisms were needed to prevent the mill from generating too much power. Today, we just use capacitors to get around the problem of intermittent supply for electrical applications, not unlike the hydraulic accumulators during the first industrial revolution.
Easy, just make the pole telescopic. When its dark it extends itself 5 m and when the inspectior shows up during work hours its small again.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
In my state electricity costs about $.10 per KWH, at 1.5 watts of output just the windmill would take 76 YEARS to break even if it ran 24/7.
Oh that is really cheap electricity! Here in Germany, where Scott also lives, it is around 0,35€ per kWh, so it "only" takes between 20 and 25 years to pay for itself
In my country it's 49
@@stivi739 49 years? or 49 cents per kWh?
@Henning_S. 49cents in ozz
1000 mw is only 10 watts a rip off plus.runs battery down wen not going
For this to work properly it needs to be above the general ground obstacles, 25m up is a good start. That's why traditional windmills used to be on a hill.
maybe watch 9:59
Yup but the corruption in government means that it can't be mounted that high otherwise people would be producing their own power.
And modern turbines from 4-6 MW have 150-200 m hub height!
Just getting it above the roof of the house would be a good start. Above the trees, even better. I would never expect it to work effectively between two buildings. Also, as other people have mentioned, the size of your propellers make a huge difference. If you are into DIY, look into making your own blades. Just remember to balance them.
They were placed on the hills because of physical phenomenon, not because of the obstacles, same way it's better to place one on the highest place of the rooftop since it amplifies wind force by a lot.
Finally…. Someone who makes sense and answers the damn question lol.
I lived with a wind generator like that on my boat for years. It only produced a significant number of amps in 20 knots of wind or more, so a few hours a month. On my next boat, I put all the money into solar and we never had to run the diesel generator. Now, on my house, we have 18,500 watts of solar panels in tropical Mexico. We can run the A/C all year.
Thats awesome! I'm currently running a 6000btu window ac off a 400 watt solar setup 200ah lithium. It works ok but ac uses 450-500 watts so im adding 200 watts so I can run it all day. Already saves me money not running my hvac much.
The keyword in the whole story is Mexico and tropics.
solar is always better, no moving parts, good price.
@@GodAlwaysWins7if there’s one rule for solar, it’s always have plenty more than you think you need.
Why run AC alltime
If you want a small wind turbine, you definitely want a vertical one, not a horizontal one. The reasons are simple: A vertical one is much quieter, and it will produce much more power even at very low wind speeds because it requires very little force to even get started. The downside is that the higher the wind speed and the bigger the wind turbine, the less efficient the vertical will be, and eventually the horizontal will take over.
So if you want to build a really big turbine optimized for high wind speeds, you want a horizontal one, but so low to the ground that a horizontal one is pretty useless unless it's mounted on a boat in the open sea. A vertical one also has very little vibration and is suitable for mounting on a roof. You can't mount a horizontal one on your roof because it would have to be very high above the roof so that the blades can rotate freely (a vertical one can be mounted directly on the roof and even on a sloping side) and horizontal ones cause so much vibration that your whole roof will start to vibrate and you definitely don't want that.
In most parts of Germany (depending on the state), you can mount horizontal turbines on a pole as long as the blades don't exceed 10 meters above the ground (so if the blades are 1 meter, you can mount them 9 meters above the ground). But that's still too low for a horizontal. Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein even allow 15 meters. At that height you want a vertical one.
vertical ones do nothing, right The designed scale works perfectly even in low wind..I've done and tried all of these I know what I'm talking about.
Ah yes, the good old Sechspulsbrückenschaltung, LOVE IT 😊
My favourite circuit ;-)
That word is 75 years long😂
My curiosity got the best of me:
SechsPulsBruckenSchaltung
= Six-Pulse Bridge Circuit
Hehe I wonder what's the longest German word.
One pretty long Finnish one is the lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas
Aren't we lucky it's not a 10-phase output
I love in Northern Ireland. In all honesty I could probably put hydroelectric generators in my downpipes and supply half the county LOL
it's been done before: th-cam.com/video/S6oNxckjEiE/w-d-xo.html I would love to see your take on it if you installed one though.
I explored this topic about a year ago and came to hte same conclusion. Great to see someone far more capable than me reaching the results
As a retired engineer and sailor, I've experimented with many wind generators (turbines). They were all a disappointment and none met claims. My advice is: cover every available square centimeter with photovoltaics (solar panels) before resorting to wind generators.
I live in a VERY windy area - and have one test wind generator (3 phase alternator). You really need to be about 15ft above ground level to get decent results.
Due to an unfortunate storm earlier this year, my gen's pole snapped in half (yes, causing mass destruction!). When I remounted things, it's only about 8ft up - and almost doesn't spin unless there's a hurricane. :/
Oh boy. That certainly sounds like no fun when running into problems like mass destruction. Hope nobody got hurt. Take care :-)
It's a similar thing with sailboats. You may feel no wind on the ground but once the air is more free from the resistance of the ground it can move more freely and often has more speed.
@@greatscottlab - I got lucky. It spewed blades (then the whole head, and pole a second or so later!) away from my shed, detached shop/garage, house, and solar array! There was about a 60-70* span viewed from above where nothing would get hit.... and it landed right in that span! I found parts about 100ft away. :O
Do smaller turbines not have the ability to control their rotation speed?
@@ThylineTheGay you should be able to dump to a resistor bank if the speeds get too high, that resistance would act like a brake to the turbine. the bigger issue at that point would be the blades themselves acting like a sail and snapping off. some way to feather/alter the pitch of the blades would allow it to function even at higher wind speeds. would be an interesting project making a system to actively control blade pitch in order to get the most efficiency out of varying wind speeds
The thing I like, beside the informative content of course, are the drawings. Instead of using the usual digital sketches, that are nice but also consume time and they are less personal, you use yours that are very personal and are also a joy for those that like drawing, as they provide an inspiration to do similar things.
Interesting. I have never thought about it that way, but now that you said it, it makes perfect sense. I have no talent for drawing myself, but I definitely love taking notes, writing down equations, and sketching little diagrams with a good pen, on actual paper.
This is the best channel for electronic projects. Thank you.
Germany, can't make objects raised too far from the ground to be useful but allows digging of trenches unsupervised.
Makes total sense to me
Easy dig a trench for the wind.
Only up to 3m3
they would supervised that too if that was possible
I guess they don't have underground aircraft in Germany.
Good video. Back in the 1920s Admiral Byrd went to antartica and set up a Jacobs Wind Generator. It lasted 50 years and was taken down in the 1970s. Wind generators can work but they have to be made right. Those little cheap generators have many problems. Look for an old wind generator. Chances are that the new generators aren't using copper in their windings. In the 1970s in the US there was a lot of interest in "back to the land" topics. There were many articles on building wind generators. You could build a generator from an old automotive 12v generator. Good Luck, Rick
The question is - how much did your positioning of the wind turbine on ground level instead on the roof reduce its power output?
Good question. Probably quite a bit of a difference. Maybe someone in the comments will have some experience.
You can't (well you can) put wind generators on houses because your house is not rated for vibration, and it will damage your house.
@@greatscottlab Perhaps in a follow-up video you could temporarily take the generator somewhere you can mount it higher and get those high wind speeds for comparison?
I have also thought about getting a wind generator to supplement my solar power, but I do not have much wind at my home.
Way too low , On the ground the wind is minimal the higher the better, if you go up 3 m probably 2-3 times more
5-7m would be the best max wind speed so it needs A very heavy duty solid Mounting system on the roof ,regardless of what electronics you use it'll be pointless if you can't install high
You guys miss the fact that between houses/buildings you get a tunneling effect that actually increases wind speed. Not saying it’s the equivalent of putting it on a 2nd storey roof, but it’s still something
Your honesty is refreshing
Well, according to various sources, the power of wind is given by pi/2 * rho * R^2 * V^3, where rho = 1.225 kg/m^3 is the air density, R is the blade radius (0.6m in the case of your newer 3-blade turbine according to the AliExpress site). Now if we assume a wind speed of v = 3 m/s, then the above formula gives us roughly 18.7 Watts -- which would be at 100% efficiency, of course, so there simply isn't all that much wind energy to harness at those wind speeds and with such small rotor blades in the first place...
the minimum average wind speed for any practical power production is 7 m/s.
I would be very interested in seeing a video of you modifying windings and another video where you design a low wind-speed controller. Additionally, I'd love to see a comparison of the results from these videos with those obtained from one or more Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. It makes perfect sense for individuals with a strong electronics background to explore alternative energy sources, especially the potential of affordable Asian products. This is not only because we need energy for our projects and embedded electronics, but also because the results can help more people with limited resources make informed decisions about investing in these products. Your work on TH-cam is truly inspiring. GREAT WORK, GREAT SCOTT!
Did you just connect green-yellow to carry current 6:43 ? TÜV sagt nein
TÜV hat nichts zu melden! VDE rules rule! You can do that, if you remark the green/yellow to black, brown or gray (heat shrink tubing or paint pen).
@@Stefan_Dahn well not where I live. You cannot remark green-yellow to anything here. You may use blue as phase of you mark it with black or brown
It's carrying very low-voltage. I don't know about the codes where you are, but that might make a difference. The codes might not even say anything about such a use at all since most don't care what you do with things running at like 12V. In the USA, all our national electric code says about low-voltage wires is to keep them separate from AC mains wires from what I could find online.
This is super cool! Wind power is like nature's own energy drink for our homes! 🌬️💡 I'd love to see how that setup holds up on a stormy day. Keeping my fingers crossed for your next video! 🤞
Many years ago my neighbors purchased two massive, commercially made wind generators. They had concrete poured and a 1 meter pipe installed to support it. Each are about 45 meters high. They became the world's largest paperweight.
Haha....maybe also the worlds most expensive paperweight.
You should add some additional info. Otherwise these comments are useless. Oh, unless you work for the electricity company 🤣🤣🤣
@@FBPrepping Honesty, I don't know much more than that. About 10 years ago, I stopped by the owners house to ask them a few questions about it. I'm interested in DIY alternate energy, and I was curious if it was viable for my property. I live in 'farm country'. Regardless, they said it was the biggest waist of money.
They showed me around, and gave me a small tour. They had a small building next to the windmills where all the electronic are housed. Everything was rusty and broken. It was all turning to dust.
...and no, I don't work for the electric company. lol
Ouch
@@sky173 Of the farmers and sailors I know that have tried small scale wind they have all came to that same conclusion. Underwhelming performance, surprisingly high equipment failure, for way too much time and money.
I've been waiting on a new wind video!!!! Wind is a lot more tricky to work with compared to solar :( but you are like the king of diy and education so I have faith!
P.S. next time you weld, get a grinder and clean the rust protector coating. then gind a tiny bevel on the pipe. then just fill it with stick and do small circles while you move the pool of liquid metal around.
Also i really think you should try a diy version. I saw a video not too long ago where someone was making diy wind turbines with resin. made 3 discs, 2 with magnets and 1 with the windings. was making really good power at low wind speeds. its just quite large in diameter. and VERY heavy.
I love videos about harvesting your own energy, even if its only enough to charge a battery or your phone! Wind, water, exercise bike, everything!
Thank you for the interesting test. How would the neighbors react to the noise generated when the wind passes through the blades of the wind turbine and drives the generator? Is it noticeably audible, and if so, what does it sound like?
Love your honesty and thoroughness.
Thanks :-)
You could use those generators to power small watt garden pumps, for light irrigation. Also, what is the wind speed at 3-4 m off the ground (like on your roof)?
Someone used to say, useless results are still results and results are what we are looking for.
Technically, it's "negative" results. A useless result would be something like an experiment done so badly you can't tell whether the result is negative or positive.
A failed experiment was still successful
One key to gaining any decent amount of wind power at low elevations... is the use of an Air-Funnel, that directs and concentrates the wind. One of the more recent innovative designs, is a vertical stack of large rounded funnel shapes, spaced about a few inches apart from each other. The air can enter from any direction (360 degrees) and the air gets driven into the large center hole diameter... which makes a decently powerful air-column... that I believe is driven upwards, due to the funnels being inverted. At the top of the device, in the center of the air column, is a Bladed Generator. Supposedly, even in very low wind conditions, it performs well.
Long before that design, there were similar funnel concepts (not sure if they were ever built), where the collector funnel was a massive horn shape.. and it lead into a sealed chamber where.. I believe it was a blower fan style of blades, was installed. The main issue with this design, was how massive the horn shape was, and... that it only captured wind from a single wind direction.
Long before seeing the brand new funnel concept... I thought about a vertical design... where you basically have many long vertical horn-like entry points (with fins that guide the wind inwards), that guide the wind into the center... from almost any direction. Similar squirrel-cage center blade system... with the generator being mounted below the cages floor. The problem with this design, would be the way in which you have to get the air Out of the center. Possibly by directing the air upwards, by altering the blower system, with a spiral blade design, and Sealing the center... preventing any air from passing into the center. In this way... you would basically have a vertical "water-wheel" like system... but with spiral collector troughs (wings). Eventually, the air would come out of the top... using a "wind shielded" exit port (as you dont want wind blowing into the exit ports). Now... is my idea better than the modern version? I have no idea. But seeing those long Spiral wind decorations... spin like Crazy... its very possible, that it could be an excellent design... when placed into a spiral wind-directed enclosure.
I do not know for sure, but I think your idea is total nonsense because you cannot push wind through a narrowing funnel. There is back pressure that just pushes the wind around the perimeter of the funnel opening and the wind that does go through the funnel is slowed down by the back pressure.
If you want wind to pass through and cool a house, you open the windows wider on the leeward side and open the windows only slightly on the windward side. The lower pressure on the exterior leeward side of the house sucks air out the wide open windows, drawing air into the house through the windward side windows.
There may be a slight increase of psi in the narrowing section of a funnel, increasing the speed of air movement, but there is less air by area and volume passing through the funnel than if you simply face as much blade surface as possible to the largest expanse of wind.
Many start-up companies tried to develop wind turbines with large cones in front of them. It never works because the wind sees that as basically just a wall and largely goes around it. Wind, like electricity, prefers the path of least resistance, especially at low wind speeds. The faster the wind is moving to start with, the more such a funnel works as the wind is less able to move in another direction to go around it, but also the less necessary it is since the wind is already then moving fast enough and larger blades are generally cheaper than a huge funnel.
@@omnizen I didnt mean an actual Funnel. Large fins, to guide the air. At most, some rounded edges.
In theory, a vertical-axis wind turbine can produce power in low-speed wind. You may also need to lengthen the propeller blades to increase torque. But it may take up too much space in your garden. I wish you could put the wind turbine on the roof. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
You might as well get a pedal power pack, put in der your desk and pedal while making the TH-cam post. This was very informative, thanks.
Quick calculations give me ~ 12W at most (aerodynamically speaking) for a 1m diameter turbine at 3.5m/s
Dynamic pressure is 0.5*1.25*3.5^2 = 7.5 Pa
Area swept by the blade is π/4m² ~ 0.75m²
Betz limit says at most you get out 59.3% of the momentum of the air as power, so the total power is 0.59*7.5*0.75*3.5 = 12W
So even in the best case it's going to be quite useless. Power goes up with the cube of the velocity so find a place with high wind speed close to the ground
Great reply, by @edoardogamba6141. Question answered with a “back of the envelope” calculation.
hmmm interesting.... how much would you need for like 400W ? or more?
@@pepegac9999 the same 1m diameter turbine needs approx 11m/s for 400W, or you need a 5.7m diameter rotor at 3.5m/s.
In the end due to the atmospheric boundary layer and to the fact that to get more area you need to place the hub up high the amount of power that you can generate grows exponentially with the stem height.
You get more wind speed according to an empirical power law depending on how far you are from the ground, and power scales by the cube of that speed.
Then the higher you go the more area you can cover, so power scales with the square of your height (assuming a constant stem/diameter ratio).
Wind turbines are not really my thing tho, I did two exams on the subject but I'm focusing on a different part of aerodynamics so there may be mistakes in my comments
Practical Cp value for small wind turbines is a WAY below Betz limit (and is a as well changing depend of wind speed!). I found some quite reliable data "as sample" - but for tiny turbines like this it never will be better than around Cp=0.3 at range of 8-10 m/s. Probably even lower. When we count additional problem with a non-laminar flow it goes crazy low. Wasting time on anything smaller than around 3m diameter is a total waste of time and money. Especially if "customer" is not living on the ocean coast.
@@bialy100k but even with theoretical Cp value, 12W is useless
for those of us in the outskirts of town, more choices & opportunities to build bigger & higher will make a difference. Where I live, plentiful solar in the day, and after 3 pm , plenty of wind until late in the evening. I have permanent solar. Now I will finish & complement with wind.
The German word for full bridge rectifier cracked me up 🤣
Yeah, that is what I was thinking. “Oh, you mean a rectifier” 😂
that's because in english it's a poly-phase rectification circuit, more precisely a Three Phase Full Wave Rectifier
Especially when presented in the style of ElectroBOOM. Very funny reference. :)
You are a gun man with the electronics.
IMHO the best element of extracting energy from the wind is to ensure that the tip speed to wind speed ratio (TWR) is kept close to the ideal of 7 to 1. A fair target would be 6 to 1.
So use an anemometer to measure instantaneous wind speed. A rev counter to measure instantaneous RPM. That gives instantaneous TWR.
Then use the electronics to feed back into the generator coils to regulate how much power you take out (power out being the drag) to modulate the TWR to stay around the set point (TWR=6).
The advantage of that process is that you will ensure the turbine is always operating in a state of maximum efficiency wrt extracting energy from the wind rather than hunkering down around stall speed. In practice it will allow the turbine to spin up to higher revs before energy is extracted (drag is applied) meaning you will better catch the peaks of wind velocity.
That's my penny's worth! Good luck!
I was so ready for the FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Even more fuller bridge rec...
I‘d love if you made a diy low wind speed controller! I‘ve also got a vevor turbine (the slightly bigger one with 5 blades) and am facing the same problem. It‘ll probably be easier to rebuild a wind controller than to rewind the generator for most people (and it would be more interesting). Great video!
Looking at the segment around 12:14 I can without a doubt say that the rotor does not look balanced at all and it's clearly mounted out of alignment. It looks like a really badly designed generator. This misalignment also looks like this causes the wobble we see when the generator is spinning. This will surely hinder the power production as it gets stuck in oscillations which cost a huge amount of energy and lower the efficiency by a lot.
I've been bin watching all your videos for the past two monts or so, they're great. It's the first time I'm commenting though. Even if my YT channel is about woodworking, I'm making a lot of electronics and even used some of your ali express tips. I also put a wind generator at my cottage 23 meter up the ground, yes it's well over all the trees top. It was a waste of money and even cost me a bundle in the end. My generator is 12V DC not tri phase like the ones you described. Even if it's that high on the shore of a 40Km long lake it was useless. I was needing a lot of wind to make a bit of power and during a wind storm the controller stopped working and my 250Ah battery actually exploded, yes half of the top was gone and the remaining filling caps were also gone. So this cost me a new 250Ah battery. The wind generator is still there, but not hooked up at anything, it's too much work to get this down just to throw it away. At least the tower gave me a place to put my solar panels, this is working way better, if you wish to see this set up this is a link for it. th-cam.com/video/Ntf-9GW0Nw8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/E1SwtB2UPmA/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for this - you make it easy to understand the drawbacks of solar plus the impracticality and uselessness of wind power generation.
That’s not what this video says at all.
@@brucecox8693 you should watch it again as many times as needed, then. He literally states that solar has a severe shortcoming (when the sun is down) and wind doesn't generate a viable amount of power (and that's when the wind is actually blowing).
It might help power a house when its windy, BUT we dont always get wind.
Interesting video 2x👍
Thanks :-)
I"ve been looking for such a video for a long time and finally found this, which is a good one. Good job on showing how this works in such a deep and nice way I would like to see some more tests from you :)
I think making a custom MPPT charge controller would be a nice project.
Thanks for the feedback :-)
Base on VESC.
@@blackeyes18ro What is that?
Throw it in the bushes.
You saved me some money. I was thinking about buying one of those to supplement my solar array. I'll just stick with solar and buy more batteries. Thanks for the informative video. I love your content.
Wind power increases with cube of wind speed, so if a wind turbine is 400W at 10m/s, then it'll do approx 40W at 5m/s.
You have to live in a really windy place (often have 8-10m/s or more) for these to make any sense at all.
And in a windy place you always risk extreme winds which will rip the thing apart. A huge problem for wind speed measurement / small scale wind power on mountain peaks.
Thanks for the feedback :-)
the best budget trick ive seen done for a DIY version involved using a ceiling fan as the base.
Wind generators always seemed like the most high maintance power production with the least amount of production. Great for very specific locations. but otherwise seems overrated. cause in most cases it seems to be better to just increase the size of solar power. if you want an off grid source
For private homes, yes.
and your solution to a system where there is no sun for solar?
@@patrickcoyne1292 if there is no sun then hydro is better. and im saying this in a country where we only get a lot of sun 5 months of the year, and the rest of it is very dark(i live in a place that has less than 6 hours of somewhat brightness, not sun, at the worst)
your scenario is so farfetched, its closer to insane. wind power is more of a hassel than solar power at places with little sun, cause they would also be cold places. and thats an absolute headache with moving parts. one day wrong and your fan blades are slightly crooked and bent cause of ice
we even got a valley where they put mirrors on top of a mountain, to shine down in a city, and thats still a better option, with solar than wind.
@@GoalOrientedLifting so you solution to no sun is to hope you have running water nearby?
@@patrickcoyne1292 the farthest north greenhouse uses solar and heat storage, from the sun, to get heat and power for the plants. not wind. that itself should explain how bad wind is as an option
essentially what you do is size up the solar storage capacity to take in more solar and store more solar power, during the darkest times, wether its heat or straight up wattage. wind is a bad option, in every way possible. unless youre in the medieval times, and wind is all you got
EDIT: as a technician in production machinery. every moving part is an increase in error and breakdowns. solar has no moving parts. wind has essentially 3(blades, rod and stator/rotor). if you break it down to what can go wrong
Yeah would love to see more. LIke is it an issue of torque, cause the blades are too short? How else do you optimise for low wind speed?
You should have chosen a "vertical axis wind turbines" generator. They work in much lower wind speed and they make less noise.
Brilliant work, dude! Really well done!!! 😃
But you know, I also have solar panels here at home, but without battery. And it's in the maximum of the equipment's capacities... But I still think about buying or even building one of those!
Perhaps I could get a small battery and use it to power some reflectors... I don't know, but something! 😬
Oh, and here the wind is pretty strong! Sometimes a bit too much, at the point of damaging the roof. 😬
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
0:55 Sunk cost fallacy?
Would it be better to rewind the generator coils or use gears to mechanically increase the speed of the generator? Would love to see a DIY solution you come up with.
This was depressing, but unlike you, I live in Hurricane Ally. Which means, probably could get the full benefits of these turbines, since it's usually pretty windy consistently, and I live in a two story house, so can get to 30ft easily as well. YAY BIG HOUSES.
Go for it. But make sure that nothing can fly away......
mounting turbines on top of houses is definitely beneficial, but the house itself is also an object in the way of wind, so it's likely not super ideal. Especially if you mount it at the face of a wall, where you're going to get lots of redirected upflow.
Just remember you need to be higher than 3m of any surface around 30m radium. Better make that 5m for even less turbulence.
@@harisalatas9062 I have a 2 story house, and an acre to play with. BUT THANK YOU, that's good info. Luckily my house is decently sized at 4700sqft or 1432m^2. Did away with many of the pesky trees as well.
I am always reminded of Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge when they made wind generators. One team made an omnidirectional one and I've always wondered why you don't see those more often. The generators you see in fields and whatnot are always the giant fan kind.
I started with Wind but went with Solar
Haha I can certainly understand that :-)
Gibt ja auch solche die wie eine aufrecht stehende Turbine arbeiten. Sehr informativer Beitrag. Hier an der Küste auf unserem Dach käm wohl mehr zusammen 😊
I would love to make a wind generator with hoverboard motors (they make about 20 - 30V at low wind because of the amount of poles). I have a bunch of them laying around collecting dust.
Oh boy. I actually think I have one lying around as well. Maybe I will try that in part 2 ;-)
@@greatscottlab Would be very useful project, because you can get secondhand hoverboards for about 20 - 40 euro. That includes 2 300watt motors an ESC and 18650 LI ION battery pack!
@@greatscottlab I tested them recently. They do provide a lot of voltage, but the "performance" is rather poor.
I still have an original one and a modified one lying around. If you need it, I can send it to you. =)
@@energieundhobby did you use a MPPT charge controller? what is poor? 10W 100W.... ? Thanks
@@jackrenders8937 The hoverboard motor was intended for a small 250W water turbine. Unfortunately, it didn't perform nearly as well as the "internet" predicted. You can easily get voltage to over 100V, depending on how the coils are wired, but the internal resistance of the motors is quite high.
In addition, the housing of my engine was made of plastic.... I measured the generator at several load points, but realistically no more than 100W is possible permanently.
Thank You. In the USA, Missouri Wind & Solar has been selling wind generators for a long time. They even manufacture/assemble some themselves. I don't recall anyone testing these as you have. If cost wasn't the major deciding factor ( I live completely off grid in a cabin where the wind blows at night), are any of the available wind generators worth installing in combination with my day time off grid solar? If so, which one(s)?
0:33 - _"One time it blew so hard, it ripped apart my garden shed. "_
Or typically a wooden structure located in Europe, with the equivalent strength of an American house...
Garden sheds in Europe fall far short of building codes for residential frame-built homes in the US.
@@teebob21 You're probably right.
It's just funny to joke about American houses, in order to get an annoyed American response.
I estimate that about 98% of all houses in the country I live, are build using brick and concrete. However, my family in Sweden live all in wooden houses. Those houses are in my experience, equally sturdy and comfortable to live in as brick ones.
It's on camera however that wooden houses look flimsy, compared to brick or concrete buildings...
From what I have read & heard if you use a vertical access Wind turbine it can work with the lower wind speeds found near ground level & I wonder if you could compare that in a future video.
I think you just simply bought terrible wind generators and converters. Such generators, roughly the same sizes, are very effectively used on sailboats to charge batteries since decades. There are even some very quiet ones too.
There are much higher wind speeds at sea so that's not comparable. Windmills for home are just not feasible because of the physics. It's output power increases with the diameter squared times windspeed cubed. Just put a few massive ones at sea and you can power entire cities with it
@@pietheijn-vo1gtnah, he's right. Of course more speed is more better but even at low wind speeds in port those charge the house batteries just fine. They are however 10-20x more expensive.
Can you name a good model to get?
@@JanPeterDeVries I call BS. How big of a windmill can you fit on a sail ship??? Where would you even mount it. Just seems like such a stupid idea compared to solar panels. My grandparents have a 1kW PV array on the roof of their boat which means in the summer they don't even have to dock to charge the batteries. Good luck doing that with a windmill, it will never work
@@pietheijn-vo1gt You're very quick to judge. Of course adding solar panels is a good idea but the sun is not always shining sufficiently, not to mention the fact that most older solar panels lose most of their output when even a small part of them is in shadow. And good luck charging your batteries at night.
i wonder if use more than one wind generator and put in series.. does it more better that way?
I've successfully used small wind generators in two situations. One was on my yacht where there was plenty of unobstructed wind - charged the batteries reliably for years, supplemented with solar power on still days. The other was in Antarctica with the same 'Ampair' brand (top of the range then) but larger size. This is the windiest place on earth at sea level (Mawson's Huts in Commonwealth Bay). With cold, dense, katabatic winds it generated large amounts of power. It was on a hinged 4m pole for easy maintenance. In both cases the noise was considerable and intrusive. They work, but only with strong winds - you simply haven't got enough wind for a small turbine.
Did You try the vertical wind generator, which is supposed to be more effective for low wind? (I'm a bit sceptic about it effectiveness)
Bin there done it. The Grid is very handy with power on demand. Charging up a bank of used cranking amp batteries with an invertor was the most convenient setup.
In 1980 we hooked up an anemometer to a PET computer and prospected for wind power. The Seattle area has very poor wind for power, with mostly too fast or too slow wind.
i would recommend using a motorcycle stator since GY6 ones can be bought for fairly cheaply & produce 12v's at low speeds
Would using both turbines in parallel get the current high enough to produce a significant output power?
I am wondering, if a hub dynamo from a bicycle would provide the 3 / 6 Watt they should with lower speed?
Would charging supercaps that then charge the battery work better as caps are quicker charging?
I was thinking of using a couple of 16v one in series connected to my solar (19v) because they charge faster than LiPo batteries.
But not got that out of the shed yet...
Great video as always 👍🏻 I want to see your DIY version where you optimize it for your wind speed. Please check different types, axis orientations and design all possible parameters like size, gear ratio, windings and so on so that you have maximum power output.
At the start of your video, you have an interesting display on your home assitant app for the power generation. Can you tell me what "card" that display is using please?
Please keep at it, it's pretty interesting and could be very useful once the kinks are flattened out.
Have you ever tried building your own wind-generator, using a car alternator? It already has the electronics to charge car batteries, so that's a plus. I don't know what RPM speed it needs to work properly, or if it would even work at all, but I was considering building one when I can get my hands on all the components I need. And yes, it would have to work on relatively low wind speeds too for me.
If you can't go much higher, how much bigger can you make the rotors? Turbines about a vertical shaft?
Pipe sizes are usually nominal bore, which is why it measured bigger. Tube is OD, pipe is NB.
Definitely do a DIY low speed generator! That would be an awesome video! I've wanted to build one myself for a while! But as a regular electrician, I don't have the same level knowledge as you. Would love to learn though!!! You know what would also be a great video! Tell us how you learned how to do all this stuff! I'm curious what you do for work! It seems like it would be very interesting! P.S, another great video would be making a "online" type Uninterruptible Power Supply! I'd love to know the pro's and con's of the different types of batteries that could be used!
Would the result be the same for vertical wind generators?
Would be cool if you make a review of your welding machine, I have been looking for one of that brand for months ago and yet I have some questions if it would be a good investiment
You might say that are a lot of reviews out there, but I care only for honest reviews, and I know that I can expect honesty and reality from this channel
Back to the video, thank you I was looking foward to learn more of generators and MPPT
HAHA that electroBOOM troll was amusing, Awesome videos mate - Keep up the good work!
u already have solar use it for trickle charging at night?
So the outputted voltage is lower than the minimum voltage to charge the battery right? Why not use 7.4v batteries in parallel in the input and use a step up circuit when used to output?
This should save a lot of time rebinding the motor or trying a new turbine.
I've seen some people use Hoverboard Motors as DIY wind turbines or even build their own Axial Flux generators from scratch. Definitely ways of extracting power from lower wind speeds like this 😊
you see many things. that does not imply they are working.
I Love your videos. Would be interesting to see if a gearbox would make a difference to speed up the generator from the wind without overheating.
Would there be a way to rig this into an efficient flywheel then get more constant generation from that?
Thanks for testing that. You saved my lots of work and money.