I have recieved many e-mail questions about the pics shown here. This is a friends web site. It's an experiment. A little personal history. I've been involved in electronics since 1958. The way the story goes, I was in the 5th grade when my grandparents gave me an old Crosley radio. I aint been right since. It's been a life long love affair for me. Over the years, I've collected a lot of stuff, literally tons of it! You know that perfect "whatch-ya-ma-call-it" or "thing-a-ma-bob" you'll use for that special project some day. Well, I never throw anything away. I'll be 500 years old when I get all those projects done- but then there will be another 500 years of junk to deal with. As Fred Sanford would say, "In my vast empire". Several years ago I ran across an article on wind power, so I built a simple genny from a tape drive motor. I used the fan assembly from an outside part of a heat pump. It was a 4 blade. The blades were the size and shape of shovels.(I thought I knew what I was doing) It started up easy but it was slow. Not much power. I had acquired a 3500 watt inverter through some junk trading. This unit was a 48 volt; and my little home brew unit just didn't cut it. So, I figured it was time to step up and buy a commercial built unit, since I needed 48 volts and my little homemade "putt putt" wasn't working out. I purchased one of those very small popular units for $500. I really thought this would do the job, WRONG! It required higher wind than my shovel unit to make any power at all; and very high wind to get any useable power out of it. It was also very noisy. I had $500 of disappointment. I decided to revisit the homemade machine. I could tell there was a lot of difference between the props. It hit me that the props are very important. I didn't think about that until I saw how fast the expensive machine was spinning. Thinner blades and longer. So then I was in the search mode for a better blade. I found a 40inch blade that I thought would make a better blade for my wind genny. It was great it had the same shaft diameter as my tape drive motors. Now things were looking up. It worked quite well considering how cheap the whole thing was. I decided to build 3 more. When done, I had 4 twelve volt wind genny's charging my 48 volt battery bank. The $500 factory genny was on a tower 45 ft in the air and my homemade genny's were slightly above the roof of my shop about 17 ft. With a very small amount of wind, the homemade genny's began to spin; while the commercial unit was at dead stop. At 10 mph the home genny's were making 5 amps, the $500 unit would turn a couple spins some of the time. Somone told me about the HOME POWER mag. I love that mag. I learned so much from it. Then Richard at HOME POWER told me about OTHERPOWER.COM. I love that place even more. I have personal contact with a fan manufacture and tried one of his blades out. I was sceptical at first. This blade is made of plastic. However, from what I had learned from the experts the blade profile was very good. I tried a few. To my surprise they worked better than anything I had tried to that point. I did break a few in the beginning. I thought it was just the plastic. Turns out the blades were just to close to the mast. In high winds they were bending back and hitting the mast. With proper spacing(about 6 to 8 inches) they work great. I've tested them to 68 mph in the S-10 PU in the pics. At 30 mph I've seen over 325 watts from these blades, but I think they can do more. My favorite home brew genny now is a modified AC induction motor. They are so easy and cheap. Many small wind genny's rather than one big one. Just like the solar guy's with many low power panels but a whole bunch cheaper. But like the solar guy's would say, "the wind don't blow all the time". All I can say is, "the sun don't shine at night". I'll buy a solar panel as soon as I win the lotto. A spec sheet and price sheet will follow and maybe some rambling about other projects and ideas in the near future.
Description of plastic blades.
Length including 2x2 in. mounting tab 22.75 in. This mounting tab has 3 (1/8in.)holes in a triangle pattern. Length of blade only 21.25 do to curve of blade at root. This blade is designed for 27% of pitch at hub. It then twists to almost flat at the tip. The entire blade has a slight cup from hub to tip. It is 3/8 in. thick at the root and 1/8 in. thick at the tip. Width at root is 5 5/16 in. and 3 1/2 in at the tip. I think the plastic is A.B.S.
Prices for blades and hubs:
PLASTIC BLADES .... $10 ea.
3 or 4 blade metal hub .... $50 ea.
Shaft hub for metal hub .25 to .75 in. dia. ..... $10 ea.
4 blade unpainted and unsealed wood hub(needs weather protection) .... $20 ea.
Metal hub for wood hub 1/2 or 5/8 in. dia. only .... $10 ea.
Shipping Instructions.
I ship COD, plus shipping charges, cashiers check or money order UPS
This is all I'm set up for at this time.
THANKS JK TAS