WindpowerWriter - makeSEA

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Ideia: Projeto Turbinas
Eólicas
Por Christoph Laimer
O objetivo deste projeto é a impressão em 3D de uma Turbina Eólica
(WT) totalmente funcional em pequena escala, utilizando tecnologias e
materiais de impressão comumente disponíveis. O WT deve ser capaz
de gerar energia elétrica para fornecer um pequeno componente de
consumo.
Podese argumentar, que um painel solar já faz o trabalho muito mais
eficaz. A principal motivação deste projeto não é a resolução real de um
problema de energia para um pequeno dispositivo eletrônico de
consumo, mas a exploração das tecnologias disponíveis e sua
aplicação. O projeto deve ser inspirador e motivador para muitas
pessoas, e até certo ponto deve ser educar como lidar com os recursos
energéticos.
A turbina de vento deve ser um projeto aberto, modular. As
especificações e a visão da própria Turbina podem ser aumentadas ou
alteradas iterativamente.
Especi cação Inicial

Montável na varanda, exposto ao vento e ao clima
Armazena a energia gerada em um Super Capacitor
Objetivo: a velocidade do vento de 5m / s deve ser suficiente para
carregar o capacitor.
As lâminas são semitransparentes com LEDs integrados
Microcontrolador "escreve" padrões com lâminas giratórias (como
"Blinky POV")
Wind powered estação meteorológica? ...
Estes requisitos permitem explorar aerodinâmica, eletricidade,
programação, 3Ddesign, 3Dimpressão, ciência de materiais,
mecânica, física, etc.
Conceito de Implementação
As lâminas, o cubo, a carcaça e a aleta são inteiramente 3D
printable. Múltiplas peças aparafusadas.
Hub e Housing são suficientemente grandes para incorporar
componentes eletrônicos.
Espessura da hélice para LEDs de 3mm. Talvez os fios LED são
imprimíveis com condutor PLA?
Sabendo que um motor brushless é 3Dprintable, também o gerador
para o WT é 3Dprintable uma derivação do motor sem escova
com bobinas modificadas. Pouca quantidade de vento significa
baixa RPM e baixa tensão do gerador: portanto, enrolamentos do
gerador com muitas voltas.
Retificador de diodo simples e um estabilizador de tensão é usado
como controlador de carga.
Arduino localizado em Hub, alimentado por 2 fios (eixo + contato
deslizante)
Componentes preliminares:
Design Inspiração do Antigo Projeto

Este é meu "velho" moinho de vento. Ele é projetado com Blender e
impresso com PLA. Agora é um ano inteiro exposto a altas e baixas
temperaturas, chuva e sol, tempestade, neve e granizo, e ainda está
funcionando. O diâmetro da hélice é de aproximadamente 40 cm, o
diâmetro do eixo da hélice é de 3 mm e tem 2 rolamentos de esferas. O
eixo vertical consiste em um parafuso de 8 mm, e também tem dois
rolamentos de esferas.
Este projeto parece ser muito robusto. Ele só precisa ser "inflado", a fim
de abrigar o gerador, o capacitor, o microcontrolador, e os LEDs.

A carcaça principal precisa ter espaço para um gerador (o mesmo
tamanho do motor brushless 3dimpresso, 55 mm de diâmetro, 55 mm
de comprimento). Além disso, precisa haver espaço para 2 Super
Capacitores (60 mm de altura, 35 mm de diâmetro, 2.7 V, 500 F). O hub
precisa ser grande o suficiente para um Arduino Pro Mini e também um
bom capacitor (torna a vida mais simples para construir um "crappy"
deslizante contato com uma arruela simples). Além disso, há um
pequeno sensor Hall para sincronizar os LEDs intermitentes com a
rotação da hélice. As pás da hélice terão uma cavidade, que permite
inserir alguns LEDs. O projeto do hub tem um parâmetro variável com o
número de pás. 3, 4, de 5 pás funcionam bem. Duas lâminas não são
ideais por causa de forças giroscópicas extremamente desiguais, se a
direção do vento mudar com 3 pás, as forças giroscópicas também
são altas, mas muito mais uniforme.
Toda a construção precisa ser tão bom quanto possível à prova de
água. Potencialmente não é tão apertado enquanto a turbina de vento
está sendo desenvolvida, mas o projeto deve ter sulcos provident, que
poderia ser selado com cola (quando está terminado).
O Gerador
Gostaríamos que o WT está carregando o capacitor a 5 m / s
velocidade do vento:
Velocidade do vento 5 Senhora
18 Km / h

11,25 Mph

Diâmetro da hélice 500 milímetros
Passo da hélice 500 milímetros
Velocidade da hélice 600 RPM
Tensão de carga mínima 7 V
Gerador Kv para carga 86 RPM / V
Medições anteriores de Kv a partir do motor sem escova são muito úteis
para projetar o gerador:

Existem 4 versões diferentes com diferentes materiais, diferentes
estator altura, e número diferente de voltas.
Versão do gerador (motor sem escovas) V0 V1a
Gerador Kv 10'400 1'004
Voltagem à Velocidade nominal do Vento 0,06 0,60
Velocidade do gerador necessária para carregar 72'800 7'028
Velocidade do vento necessária para carregar 2'184 211
Relação de transmissão da engrenagem para carregar 121 12
Nenhuma destas versões é adequada para ser accionada directamente
pela hélice a tensão gerada é demasiado baixa. Esta conclusão não é
realmente surpreendente, como o motor foi otimizado para alta potência
(3050W) e baixa tensão (7V). O resultado é baixa resistência e alta
RPM.
Para alimentar um microcontrolador e alguns LEDs não há muita
energia necessária. 10 LEDs em 10mA e um microcontrolador em 5V
requerem aproximadamente 0.5W. Uma pequena WThélice a baixas
velocidades de vento não fornece muita energia de qualquer maneira.
Assim nós podemos ter recursos para uma fiação do gerador com
relativa resistência elevada isto é bobinas com um diâmetro pequeno
do fio de cobre e muitas voltas.
Potencialmente versão "v1b" (a primeira versão de trabalho do motor
sem escova) pode ser rewired com fio de 0,2 mm em vez de 0,67
milímetros fio. Uma experiência precisa ser feita para saber o número
máximo possível de voltas.
Transmissão
Mesmo que o estator possa ter significativamente mais voltas (maior
tensão induzida / resp. Kv inferior), provavelmente não é suficiente
carregar o capacitor a uma velocidade de vento de 5 m / s.
Provavelmente um teste sem transmissão é útil para ser realizado
inicialmente. No entanto, esta é uma idéia, como implementar uma
transmissão aumentando o RPM:
O eixo da hélice terá 5 mm de diâmetro e 2 rolamentos de esferas eo
gerador é montado coaxial com o eixo da hélice. Isto permite a
condução directa do gerador como uma solução alternativa
(simplesmente usando um eixo mais longo, e deixando de lado um
rolamento de esferas do gerador e outro do eixo da hélice principal).
Recti cador / carregador simples de 3 fases
Circuito de simulação usando 6 diodos e um capacitor para transformar
AC em DC. O regulador de tensão limita o carregamento do grande
capacitor super C1. A tensão CA necessária é de aproximadamente 7V.
A freqüência (RPM) não importa. A resistência das bobinas do gerador
limitará a corrente de carga (não considerada nesta simulação).
impressao 3D

Impressão da hélice e da aleta com PETG transparente, uma camada
de concha, 15% de enchimento. Isto funciona bem. O tamanho dos
objetos está no máximo do volume de compilação para um Ultimaker 2.
Isso é muito grande para o Replicator 2x. Eu não tenho idéia, o quão
grande as lâminas precisam ser, a fim de superar fricção e bloqueio do
ímã do gerador por isso o maior tamanho possível para o primeiro
protótipo está no lado seguro. Ainda pode fazer as coisas menores, ao
otimizar a turbina eólica.
Coisas que tinham de ser resolvidas:

Descobrir, se uma transmissão engrenagem é necessária ou não
(tem uma grande influência sobre a simplicidade do projeto): rewire
um motor sem escova e medir a tensão gerada.
Projetar corretamente a estrutura interna da casa, segurando o
capacitor, o eixo da hélice, o gerador, o eixo de rotação vertical
(direção do vento).
Encontre um bom design para uma concha de habitação provada
de água com a caudabarbatana anexada.
Desenhe a conexão deslizante da caixa ao cubo (+ 5V), faça a
conexão elétrica através do rolamento de esferas e do colar do eixo
da hélice (GND).
Design para armazenar microcontrolador, Hubcapacitor, e sensor
Hall com ímã no lugar.

Implementação: O
WindpowerWriter
Por Christoph Laimer

WindpowerWriter 3D turbina
eólica / gerador de vento
(Ver também, Motor Brushless
(/web/claimer/brushless-motor) )
Gerador
The generator is based on the brushless motor v2 (makeSEA Model
A001.1). The stator of this motor has special heads on its teeth, which
guide the wires and simplify the manual work. Because the turbine
should charge the capacitor already at low wind speeds, and because it
should work with some very simple electronics, it’s required that the
generator produces a relative high voltage at low rotation speeds (low
value of Kv). A common solution are statorcoils with many turns (and
therefore thin wires). In addition to the turns it helps to have stronger
magnets (on rotor). The ambitious goal is a Kv value less than 100
RPM/V.
Rotor
Because I had many spare magnets in various dimensions (experiments
from designing the brushless motor), I reused the 2mm thick magnets.
Actually they are 1.85mm thick, and a stack of 2 magnets (3.70mm) are
only a little bit thicker than the single 3mm magnets (2.76mm). Together
they are also a bit stronger (maybe 1020%). The win isn’t really big, so
the rotor of the brushless motor could also be used, but since the
magnet thickness is a simple parameter in my Fusion 360 design, it was
easy to change it and 3dprint a new rotor.
Stator
The concept of the generator stator is based on the earlier experiments
for the brushless motor. The very first version had a Kv by far too high,
and I needed to increase the number of turns for the coils. The result
then was Kv = 1’000 RPM/V. That’s still 10 times too high compared with
the goal.
However the subsequent design changes of the stator for the brushless
motor allowed to decrease the number of turns (in favor for a larger
crosssection and higher currents) while keeping the Kv almost
unchanged. This means the Kv could be clearly reduced with the large
number of turns and the thinner wire. Hence I reused the unchanged
design of the stator from Model A001.1 as the stator for the generator.
Initially I only wound a single coil, and measured with the drill and the
scope its properties.
Wire Diameter 0.21 mm
Turns per Coil 63
Wire Length per Coil 6’150 mm

Amplitude single Coil
1.325 V
(measured)
Rotation Speed (measured) 1’054 RPM
Kv (calculated) 80.5 RPM / V

These results were very promising, so I continued with the stator winding
(with 64 turns per coil, because 64 is a nicer number than 63). From the
first coil, I could measure the weight of the used copper (knowing also
the weight of the empty stator). It was 2.14 grammes. The complete
generator has 6 coils per phase. For each of the 3 phases the copper
wired needed to be wound on a temporary spool. Hence 6 times 2.14g =
6.84g copper wire per spool. Wrong! How embarrassing I realized my
calculation mistake in the middle of the winding work at 2:00am. I had to
extend and solder these flimsy wires in the middle of the night. The
finally needed copper per phase weights exactly 10.31g (measured).
Without calculation mistake, the prepared spools would have been well
suitable.

The whole winding was really a lot of work I needed much more than
12 hours (I didn’t really count the hours it was a rainy weekend
anyway).1 The very last coil was especially painful, because it needed to
go beneath the first coil. So I was using a sewing needle, and needed to
pull almost 8 meters of this tangling thin wire 64 times through the gap
between stator core and coil #1. But the result looked very beautiful it
actually had to look beautiful, because the expected performance was
very promising.
1. 64 turns is a lot to count without making a mistake, so I would
recommend finding an efficient way of marking how many turns you
have made. It will be very disappointing when you get to testing the
generator and having it not work because the turns are not balanced.
D. Hartley
The problem with this stator: the thin wires appeared very prone to
break, if the generator was carried around, connected and disconnected
again and again for my tests. So I decided to finally connect flexible and
durable copper wires for the external connection. The starts of the 3
phases A, B, and C are soldered together to a single point, isolated with
heat shrink tube, and fixed with some spare copper wire at the other
coils. Each of the 3 ends is then soldered to an individual flexible cable,
and also isolated with heat shrink tube.2 The wiring scheme is named
“star” (or “Y”) connection. See Wikipedia for more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor#Variations_in_construction
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor#Variations_in_construction)
2. Doing this is recommended but not mandatory, because the generator
will work with and without the previous recommendations, but adding the
flexible wire saved a lot of headaches. D. Hartley

Also the orange stator shield was a bit too small for the larger rotor, and
I wanted to reuse it anyway for the brushless motor. So I decided to 3d
print the shield with a slightly larger outer diameter and with a different,
more technical color. I also had other ball bearings which I wanted to try,
and finally these changes were a good test, if my parametric Fusion 360
design was working.3
3. Make sure the bearings fits seamlessly into stator, and the rod you
(http://www.makesea.com/web/claimer/windpowerwriter?
use fits almost perfectly into the bearings or the generator will not 
perform well or not perform at all. D. Hartley
Here is the final result:
The finished stator has 3 * 6 * 64 = 1’152 turns. With 36 teeth it’s 32
turns per tooth. The generator is ready for extensive measurements and
tough tests.
Measurements
The initial measurement of Kv was done in the same way as before with
drill and scope. The calculated values could be confirmed. The
measured amplitude was 13.7 V and frequency was 101 Hz. Mission
seems accomplished ...
Here are the basic measurements and characteristics of the generator:
Resistance per Phase 19.50 Ohm
Inductance per Phase (may be
650 mH
relevant for the charger)
Kv 77.6 RPM / V
Nominal Speed (5 m/s wind, 500
600 RPM
mm propeller pitch)
Nominal Voltage (at nominal
8.14 V
speed)
Of course the generator works as well with higher RPM (with storm
winds), but so far the generator behavior at low wind speeds is more
important.
The Kv figure doesn’t tell much about the real efficiency as a generator,
when it’s charging a big capacitor (or a battery). Because I didn’t have
an appropriate / measurable load ready for this test, I was using this
generator as a motor. Load means, that there is some power produced
Voltage and Current in the copper wires needs to be different than zero.
Motor and generator are reciprocal anyway. As load I used my well
known propeller with 10 inch diameter and 4.5 inch pitch. It wasn’t
surprising, that the motor doesn’t rotate very fast, if the 6 cell NiMH
battery with 7.2V was used. In fact the motor didn’t even start rotating on
it’s own, but with a gentle kick by hand it worked. The problem with
getting started isn’t the motor, but the combination with the ESC and the
battery. Compared with the regular motor, the system behaves as if the
RC car was driven with only a single and almost empty cell NiMH. So I
have done these tests also with another ESC from a RC car, which runs
at 6S LiPo (roughly 24V). With the higher voltage (and the other ESC)
the motor could start spinning without issues.
Propeller constante: 1.63E09 [N*m/RPM^2] … the number was
calculated from previous measurements with the brushless motor at
much higher RPM. This number is now very useful to calculate the
power at low rotation speeds, because it wasn’t possible to measure the
torque (the resolution of my scale is too bad).
6 cell NiMH 6S LiPO
Battery Voltage 7.40 22.80 V
Speed (no load) 556 1’730 rpm
Battery Current I0 (no load) 0.035 0.02 A
Speed (with Propeller) 545 1’615 rpm

Battery Current (with
0.04 0.055 A
propeller)
Battery Power (with
0.3 1.25 W
propeller)
Shaft Power (with propeller) 0.03 0.72 W
Efficiency (with propeller) 9% 57%
There is a nice online calculator on http://www.bavaria
direct.co.za/constants/ (http://www.bavariadirect.co.za/constants/) which
can compute the efficiency based on a few fundamental motor constants
(Voltage, Current, I0, Kv, Rm).
Efficiency (bavaria calculator) n.a. 56%
Efficiency Maximum at 0.1 A
32% 70%
(bavaria calculator)
The similarity of the calculated efficiency and the measured efficiency
with 6S LiPo is amazing. It means that the ESC doesn't have much
losses (no wonder it’s designed for 100A continuous load). The result
for the lower voltage isn’t reliable: the measurements of the current are
at the limit of the resolution of my instruments, and if the ESC had losses
of only 1W, it would distort the results a lot.
Finally I’ve done a last measurement with 6 red LEDs as a simple load.
A red LED lights up very bright already at 1.8V. With the 3 phase
generator it is possible to make a knightrider flashing light.
See Wikipedia for more info about the 3 phase signal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threephase
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threephase). Our generator produces
such a signal, whereas frequency and amplitude depend on the rotation
speed. In the circuit LED A lights up, if the voltage of Phase 1 (black) is
1.8V higher than the voltage of Phase 2 (red). LED B lights up, if Phase
3 (blue) is higher than Phase 2 (red), etc. That’s a fun circuit the LEDs
light up in sequence, whereas 2 or 3 LED are on at the same time (e.g.
at 180° LEDs D, E, and F are lit and the rest is dark).
The LEDs light up already, if I manually turn the rotor with very little
effort. Anyway I’ve fixed the generator in my drillpress rotating at only
200 RPM and took a photo while moving my camera across the LED
bar. With the camera exposure time, light during a period of several
milliseconds is collected. The blurred image shows, how the individual
LEDs light up in serial sequence due to the 120° shifted phases of the
generator (if they would light up all at the same time, the LEDs would
appear horizontally arranged). Hello Blinky! ...

The LEDs in this circuit theoretically should be protected by a resistor.
They would be damaged at higher voltages. I was luckily able to contain
myself to crank up the RPM of the drill press. Blowing up an LED isn’t
very spectacular it gets hot and the light gets darker until if finally
extinguishes. With some luck there is a little bit of smoke ...
Conclusion
I expect that this generator will perform very well at low RPM. The output
power will be sufficient for a microcontroller and some LEDs at 5 m/s
wind speed. The maximum charging power is unclear. Due to the huge
manual winding effort, I would consider to do less turns and use some
more sophisticated electronics (with integrated stepup converter).
Recti er/Charger v0
Recti er/Charger v0
The thing I’m going to create here is a very simplistic rectifier / charger
with inferior efficiency. The whole Wind Turbine is quite a complex
system. It makes sense to get all the components basically working, and
then improve the weakest element. So I decided to build a 3phase
rectifier with 6 regular diodes.
Circuit Scheme
Actually I could have drawn this simple circuit by hand, but I found a
great online tool https://easyeda.com/ (https://easyeda.com/), which also
has nice simulation features included. The use is very intuitive, and it’s
for free it only costs, if you order a finished PCB.
The generator is modeled with 3 AC voltage sources at 8 V amplitude
and 100 Hz frequency. For the internal resistance of the generator, there
are 3 resistors with 20 Ohm. Large capacitors need to be carefully
charged especially a specific voltage must not be exceeded. For this
reason I’ve added a common 5 V regulator, which requires C1 and C2 at
it’s in and output. The LED indicates, if there is voltage at the output.
I’ve used a bright green lowpower LED with a large resistor (20 kOhm).
Basically it’s not useful to have such a permanent consumerLED in a
low power application, and maybe I’ll remove that LED, when the whole
thing is working. In reality I’ll have a 500 F capacitor to store the energy,
but for the current tests I needed something smaller which quicker
indicates, if it’s working: the “big” charged capacitor in this testcircuit
has a capacity of only 1 mF (500’000 times less).
The circuit has some basic flaws: The voltage regulator can handle input
voltage up to 40 V. With strong winds, the generator can produce much
more, and the regulator will probably blow up. The regulator also doesn’t
have a heatsink for cooling with only a small load, it should survive. If
the big capacitor is completely empty, and there are stronger winds, the
charging current could be very high for a longer time. The relative high
resistance of the generator coils will luckily limit the current (at 0.5A load
the generator heats up with a rate of 30W). More power can’t be
expected with small propeller blades. In this case it’s good to have
inferior efficiency at the generator (which is well cooled), so it won’t burn
anything else.
The simulation shows the voltage at 3 selected points (probes 1..3). First
directly one of the generator wires (blue), then after the rectifier (red),
and finally the output (yellow).

Initially all capacitors are not charged (0V). The output voltage (yellow)
increases up to 5 V, and then it remains stable. While it’s increasing, the 
big capacitor is charged. During that time the voltage at the generator
wires (blue) and the rectified voltage (red) have a small constant offset
from the output voltage. This offset is roughly 1.5V and is caused by the
voltage regulator, which draws as much as possible current from the
generator and the generated voltage is lost inside the generator. As
soon as the big capacitor is fully charged, the load decreases, and the
generator voltage can further increase. It increases depending on the
actual rotation speed, and can be calculated based on Kv.
Soldering the PCB
There is not much magic about soldering this circuit on a PCB. The
images tell how it’s done. The components are all standard, and it would
also work with different diodes or capacitors. The only thing I realized at
the end: the fin of the voltage regulator needs to be isolated from the
pads behind it, because I placed the rectified signal on the backside right
beneath the fin (which is grounded). There would have been enough
space for the rectified signal 2 grid units further right. No tragedy … time
for testing:
Tests
Guess the testing setup!? Yes drill and scope:


For the initial test I didn’t connect the big capacitor. Just the basic
rectifier, with its LED and some smaller caps onboard. Hence the
chargingprocess is very quick. I quickly pushed the drill throttle, but on
the scope it’s still visible, that it needs some time until the drill rotates at
final speed.
The green curve is one wire directly at the generator, the yellow curve is
the output signal. The rectified signal is missing (my scope has only 2
channels). Differently to the simulation, the generator amplitude and
frequency is ramping up until it has full speed. This makes it a bit difficult
to interpret the charging process of the capacitor. Anyway, it’s visible that
the voltage regulator does its job, and limits the output at 5V.
Then I’ve connected a 4F capacitor as a load to be charged. Charging
takes much longer.
The rampup of the drill speed is no longer relevant, however it takes
MUCH more time to observe the charging process. I’ve done two
measurements: first snapshot when the capacitor isn’t charged, and the
second snapshot 2 Minutes later, when the capacitor is full.

The green line shows again the voltage at the generator, but the yellow
curve is now showing the rectified signal. The output stays stable at 5V
anyway and isn’t displayed. The measurements remind on the
simulation result: while the capacitor is being charged, the voltage is not
much above the output signal (which is around 34 volts at that time).
Later when the capacitor is fully charged the rectified voltage increases
up to 12V.
Conclusion
The simple rectifier with 6 diodes and a 5V regulator is good enough for
a first try. If electronics breaks due to overvoltage during a stronger
storm, there is not much time and money lost. Maybe the propeller
blades are even weaker … improvements can be done later.
Recti er/Charger v1
The problem of the simplistic circuit v0: it only works, if the super caps
are almost fully charged. If the super caps are only half loaded, it doesn’t
work. And there is another problem, when there is too much wind.
Step-up Converter and Passive Dump Load

As a solution a stepup converter can be used. There are very cheap
and efficient modules available from Ebay or Aliexpress, which convert
0.9V (or even less) into 5.0V with very good efficiency. It’s basically
designed to make an USBcharger from a single 1.5V AA battery.
(image from ebay)
The modified circuit doesn’t look much different than the prior version,
but it’s much more efficient.
The 3Phase rectifier converts the AC signal into a DC signal. It uses
Schottky diodes, which have a lower voltage drop than regular diodes.
With the DC signal the super caps are charged.
A simple dumpload made of 7 regular diodes limits the loading voltage
to roughly 5V (the voltage drop of a single diode is roughly 0.7V). 6V =>
275mA, 5V => 20mA, 4V => 0.8mA, 3V => 0.05mA.
The PFMModule gets the power from the supercaps and converts the
voltage to 5V. A lowpower LED with a 20kOhm resistor is indicating the
output power (it “eats” only 0.1mA).

I’ve used the SMDversion of the Schottky diodes (SS14), because I had
some spare parts. The SS14 is also available with a regular shape,
easier to solder. I’ve also desoldered the resistor R1 from the PFM
module, because with only 1kOhm the LED on board consumers a
relevant amount of current. I’ve also removed the USBconnector it’s
not needed, and I wanted to have access to the +5V output pad.
This charger works amazingly well. Without connecting the supercaps
the output LED is already lit, when the generator is rotated only ¼ turn
by fast manual move. It’s charging the supercaps below 200RPM, and
the PFM module works already at 0.2V input voltage.
Theoretically a lithium battery could also be used instead of the
supercaps. But the problem with the battery is the working range
between 3.3V and 4.2V. The circuit would need to be changed: the
battery needs to be charged by the PFM module.
Active Dump Load

The problem with the simplistic 7 diodes dumpload: the transition from
noload to dumpload is continuous (exponential). It would be better, if
the dumpcurrent was zero up until 5V (use all the energy to charge the
supercap), and then it should have a steep increase and draw as much
current as needed in order to pull down the voltage to 5V, if the
generator voltage was higher.
The circuit scheme has 3 main blocks:
1. The generatorblock is a placeholder of the actual generator and the
rectifier helping to understand the functionality of the rest of the
circuit. Important detail is the resistor as a placeholder of the
resistance of the generator coils.
2. The block with the 5V limiting dump load contains a green LED (D1),
which is used as a voltage reference. It theoretically could be
replaced with a 2.5V Zener diode (which I didn’t have available at
the moment), but it wouldn’t improve the performance of the circuit
anyway. The trick: when the voltage of the generator is increased
linearly, the voltage at the positive input of the Op Amp also
increases linearly. Differently the voltage at the inverting input of the
Op Amp increases logarithmic, because of the diode. Exactly at the
point where the two input curves intersect, the output of the opamp
goes up from low to high, and the darlingtontransistor (Q2) pulls
down the supplyvoltage. It stays stable at 5V. The darlington
transistor has a TO220 case. With 200mA it burns 1W and gets
slightly warm with more current it needs a heatsink. Theoretically it
could handle a current up to 8A (far more than the generator
creates).
3. The last block is only a display with an LED (D2) that lights up, if the
circuit is dumping superfluous current. The LED and the transistor
(Q2) actually operate as well as a little dumpload with the current
limited by R6.
I’ve implemented the circuit above on a breadboard, and done the
measurements using an adjustable power supply. The graph also
includes measurements of the 7diodes dumpload. The yaxis shows
the total current drawn from the generator.

Below 5V the circuit with the circuit draws roughly a constant current of
0.25mA (2 x 0.05mA by the voltage divider and the voltage reference,
0.15mA by the Op Amp). At 5V there is a steep increase (depending on
the resistance of the cables from my power supply). Below 3.5V the 7
diodes have a better performance: At 2V the Op Amp wastes 100 times
more current than the diodes current, which could be used to charge
the supercap. However the absolute value of the current needs to be
compared with the current needed finally by the microcontroller. An
Arduino Pro Mini with some LEDs connected will need at minimum 5mA,
so it’s not relevant if 0.25mA are lost.
As next the circuit would need to be properly soldered on a PCB, but I’ll
wait until the rest of the wind turbine is finished (the circuit with the
diodes as dump load is good enough for testing).
Testing the Generator and

Charge Controller together
Finally! The generator and the Charger v1 with the passive Dump Load
are connected (not yet the active Dump load). The generator is fixed on
the drillpress (which has luckily a RPMdisplay). The rectified voltage is
measured depending on the generator rotation speed. No capacitor or
any other load is connected.
Up to 500 RPM the voltage increases approx. linearly until 5V. At higher
speeds the voltage is almost flat. That’s the expected effect caused by
the passive dump load (7 diodes). Up until 5V the dumpload is not
dumping much current the voltage can increase corresponding to Kv.
At higher rotation speeds the diodes are “eating” more and more
current. The superfluous energy is then wasted as heat in the diodes
and the generator copper wires. If there was no dumpload attached
with Kv=80 RPM/V the generated voltage at 2’500 RPM would be at 31V.
Interesting to note: at 200 RPM the generated voltage is around 3V.
The next measurement is the current with the rectified signal short
circuited:

The curve is almost perfectly linear. As expected. The resistance of the
generator copper wires is the reason. The induced voltage increases
linearly with the rotation speed (U = RPM/Kv), and since the resistance is
constant, also the current increases linearly (I = U/R). Assuming 31V at
2500RPM with 800mA current, the generator has a power loss of 25W
all heating up the copper wire. Indeed after only 30 seconds on the drill
press, the stator is remarkably warm.
Interesting to note: at 200 RPM the shortcircuit current is over 50mA.
Power/Current Consumption Estimation

How will the system behave with an Arduino attached? Will it be possible
to light 20 LEDs, and still charge the capacitor? Which wind speed is
needed for “breakeven”? How long will it run with fully charged
capacitor and no wint? The answers will potentially influence the
software requirements for the microcontroller.
Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V, 8MHz:
20mA running original
3mA at bootup (resistor of red status LED desoldered)
0.5mA running with simple sleep delay (resistor of red status LED
desoldered)
More hacks (power down sleep, 50uA):
https://andreasrohner.at/posts/Electronics/Howtomodifyan
ArduinoProMinicloneforlowpowerconsumption/
(https://andreasrohner.at/posts/Electronics/Howtomodifyan
ArduinoProMinicloneforlowpowerconsumption/)
⇒ 3mA needed at minimum
LEDs:
Red LED needs 2V, green or blue needs 2.7V
Connect with resistor to 3.3V, not possible to have 2 LEDs in series.
LEDs need to be well selected
I have a greed LED which appears quite bright with only 0.125mA,
however will drive them with 1mA (not all LEDs will be ON at the
same time)
⇒ Max. 21mA with all green LEDs turned on (7 LEDs per propeller
blade, 3 blades)
Hall Switch (3141):
Datasheet: supply voltage 4.5V .. 28V
Datasheet: supply current 4.4mA .. 9mA ⇒ that’s a lot compared with
the rest
⇒ connect to Arduino RAW (5V)
⇒ high power consumption, use additional transistor to turn it on or off
⇒ evaluate magnetic reedswitch?
Test at 5.0V: draws 3.2mA .. 4.3mA
Test at 3.3V: draws 2.8mA .. 3.6mA ⇒ :) that’s my choice (even if it’s
out of specs)
Test at 2.7V: draws 1.8mA .. 2.0mA
Test at 2.6V: Works “analog” no switching trigger point
Test at 2.5V: Works “analog”
Test at 2.4V: Fail
Conclusion
The whole system consumes 3.3mA .. 5.0mA if the LEDs are OFF. At
maximum 26mA if all LEDs are ON. The generator produces 3V and 
50mA at 200 RPM, which corresponds to 1.7m/s (6km/h) wind speed.
Wind as fast as walking speed should be enough to charge the capacitor
and drive the microcontroller together. Or even better: 1 hour of walking
speed wind should theoretically produce enough energy for powering
the microcontroller more than 10 hours. Let’s see …
For demonstration I’ve connected all with an Arduino Pro Mini. In the
video I’m turning the generator with my hand (very slowly). The green
LED on the charge controller lights up, and the red LED on the Arduino
is flashing randomly and bright while it’s booting. Once booting is
finished, my program starts running. The program on the Arduino does a
short doubleflash with the red LED every two seconds. Inbetween the
arduino is sleeping.

Components: Wind
Turbine

Summary
This Wind Turbine is not just a Wind Turbine. Wind is driving a 3d
printed propeller and a 3dprinted generator. The generator charges a
supercapacitor (or a battery), and produces electricity for an Arduino,
which sits in the 3dprinted propeller hub. The Arduino switches on and
off an array of LEDs located in the blades. If the propeller is spinning at
a certain speed, the blinking LEDs will paint an image into the air. It can
display various messages (e.g. windspeed or the time).
Of course this display is difficult to read during the day with glaring sun
light, or if there is no wind. Anyway it’s a demonstration of the future
the Internet of Things is coming: there will be a webserver inside the
propellerhub, the energy stored in the battery will be used for
communication. Users will be able to browse this Wind Turbine with their
Smartphone. They will obtain weather information, and they will be able
to post their tweets onto the propeller, even if there is no wind … ;)
With this project I wanted to create something, which is crafted mainly by
using the new element: 3dprinting filament! Components, which are not
3dprintable should be minimized, and they should be very basic:
copperwire, magnets, screws. Intelligence is inserted into this system by
using an Arduino. All the project details are opensource, published on
makeSEA.com. People with a 3dprinter, a solder iron, and an Arduino in
their workshop should be able to “download” this Wind Turbine, or parts
of it.
I’d like to sensibilize people, that the world of today has a heart, and
humans are responsible for it. A smartphone is not smart the inventor
of this phone is smart! We all are humans, and we should consider our
potential. The Wind Turbine demonstrates the use of ecological energy.
It’s an autonomously working gadget. Eco friendliness, luxury, and fun
are partners. The reason how the Wind Turbine works is not just magic
it’s simple physics and not religion. If somebody walks through this
project, he (or she) will have a different view at the “modern” gadgets. I’d
like to encourage people to not just stack huge and complex building
blocks on top of an unknown base. It could be very dangerous, the
system behaves unpredictably and operates very inefficient. Look
behind the scenes and have fun!
System
The wind turns the propeller and the direct driven generator. The
generator produces 3phase AC voltage. The AC is then rectified, and
limited to 5V. The overvoltage is “burned” (dumpload) in order to
prevent overloading the super capacitors. A stepup converter creates
constant 5V even if capacitors are not yet fully charged. In the propeller
hub there is an Arduino, which controls 7 LEDs in each blade. A Hall
Sensor triggers a signal with each full revolution, and the Arduino uses
this signal in order to turn on or off LEDs, and “paint” a stable pattern
with the LEDs.
Rectifier, ChargeController and StepUpConverter are all on a single
PCB. For simplicity I’ll often name this PCB only ChargeController.
Main Components
These are the main 3dprintable (exterior) components for the Wind
Turbine. They are held together with 17 screws. Most parts can be
printed without support. Support is needed for the tower parts, house
front, hub back. Printing orientation: largest flat surface oriented towards
printbed.
Internal Components
Descriptions about the generator and the charge controller can be found
in the other documents about the development of these internal
components (“Wind Turbine internal Components”). Maybe I’ll merge
these files later ...
If one long shaft is used connecting generator and propeller hub directly,
the back ball bearing in the house and the front ball bearing in the
generator are not needed.
Sliding Tracks:
Sliding tracks minus pole: (ab) using a ball bearing (next to
generator):

Sliding tracks plus pole:
Gluing a 8x16mm washer with epoxy4:
4. The washer needs to be level or flush with the housing so that when
the turbine turns it will not “wiggle” D.Hartley
Connections inside the propeller hub. Pluspole from washer,
minuspole from shaft collar:
LED arrays:

Seven 3mm LEDs with 14mm spacing. Before soldering the LEDs, check
if they actually all work: connect 7 white LEDs in series with 1kOhm at
18V, and they should all evenly bright light up.5
5. If you do not have a good wire stripper to strip thin wires, then I would
recommend using a lighter to light the end of the wire and just pull the
plastic off. It works great, but be careful! To avoid problems, I would
recommend soldering each negative lead of the LED together with 14
mm of spacing for each blade (3 sets of 7 LEDs). Then I would start
from the top of the LEDs and solder the thin wire to the positive lead of
the LED and weave the wire around the rest of the LEDs (shown above).
The wire needs to extend from the last LED at least the length of the
LEDs soldered together, but it can be longer, you just might have to cut it
later. Once all seven of one strand of LEDs are soldered with wires then
shrink tube at least half the length of the wire extending from the last
LED. This will make it easier to manage the wires in the housing. Do this
again for the other two strands of LEDs. Once all of the LEDs are wired
and shrink tubed, then you are good to move on. D. Hartley
Arduino: We are using the 8MhZ, 3.3V version:

Desolder the 1k resistor from the red powerindicator LED. It’s useless:
needs 80% of the energy, in case the Arduino is set to sleep (if there is
no wind).

Using a PCB with 7 x 12 pads. Connecting EACH analog and digital pin
with a resistor (180Ohm with white LEDs).6
When using A6 as input for the HallSwitch, a pullup resistor 4k7 is
needed.7
6. For this step, you will need 22 180 Ohm resistors. You will also need
to connect the PCB to ground terminals on the Arduino using leftover
parts from cutting the resistors. In total, 3 ground terminals will be wired
to the PCB, and 22 Resistors will be connected to terminals TX0, Rx1, 2
13, and A0A7. 20 of these terminals will be wired to LEDs. The ones
that are not wired to LEDs are A6 and A7. A6 is wired to the HallSwitch,
and A7 is not wired to anything. D. Hartley
7. The 4k7 resistor is soldered to VCC and A6. D. Hartley

Arduino Pro Mini has only 20 outputs. With 7 LEDs and 3 propeller
blades, 1 output is missing. I’m “cheating”: leave one of the inner LEDs
unconnected. Use pins 06 for Blade A, pins 713 for Blade B, A0A5 for
Blade C (1 inner LED unconnected), and A6 or A78 for the Hall Switch.
Basically all LEDs could be wired randomly make soldering work
simple. The final connection scheme can easily be adjusted in the
software.9 Instead of the Hall Switch, a ReadSwitch maybe also works.
8. A6 (only) for the Hall Switch.
9. I would not recommend doing it this way as it will take time to go
through each wiring of the LED and line it up with the code. Also using
different colored wires helps a ton. D. Hartley
Magnet and HallSwitch:

The magnet in this image is glued into the front house with hot glue, the
published design has a proper spacing, where a 3 x 10 x 30 mm magnet
can be snapped in. There is also a proper space in the back propeller
hub for the HallSwitch. Carefully test the system before firmly gluing all
components: the HallSwitch works only with one orientation of the
magnetic field (maybe you need to flip the magnet or the switch).
More on the Installation of the Capacitors and How they Work:
A capacitor (or also a battery) can be compared with a reservoir. The
water pressure corresponds to the voltage. Water flow (gallons/sec)
corresponds to the current. A water pump makes the water flowing
through the pipes pressure at the output is higher that at the input.
The windpowerWriter has a big reservoir (supercaps) and a small
reservoir (little capacitor in the hub). The voltage from the generator
(1.pump) depends on the wind speed. The stepupconverter (2.pump)
generates always 5V as long as its input voltage is higher than 1V. In my
demoturbine I've added this switch at the bottom of the house (valve),
which allows to disconnect the supercaps. If the supercaps are
connected (valve open), the generator charges the supercaps AND
supplies the stepupconverter together. If the supercaps are
disconnected (valve closed), the generator only supplies the stepup
converter, and the charging state of the supercaps remains constant.
Usually supercaps are connected (valve open). I.e. the stepup
converter can output 5V even if there is no wind it discharges the
supercaps.
For the lifedemo I've added the switch, because the arduino would
always run, and people couldn't recognize, that the generator is actually
working when there is wind. And if the supercaps are completely empty it
takes a wile, until they are charged at the minimum level required for the
stepupconverter.
You should connect the caps at the input of the stepupconverter (like
illustrated in the googledrawing below). The washer is connected at the
output, and the Arduino would only work in a very small range, if the
caps are fully charged (4.5V to 5.0V). Interrupting the pluswire is OK.
Make sure, the capacitors are in series, and with proper polarity.
Charging 500FCapacitors takes some time. I had the fan blowing at the
turbine for roughly 30 minutes, until the capacitors were charged to
approximately 1V. Below that voltage, the stepupconverter wont work
(and the Arduino isn't powered). The behaviour of charging capacitors is
similar like filling a pool with water: with a constant current, the voltage
increases continuously.
Software
Text (or image) is rendered into a global pixmap with polar
coordinate axis. 7 pixels as radius, and a specified number of pixels
as angle (depends on the rotation speed and power of the micro
controller). One byte is used for the radial dimension (each bit for
one LED 1 bit is unused).
Measure the time per revolution. Depending on the current time, the
current angle of the propeller blade(s) can be calculated.
The bladeangle is used to calculate the pixelindex, and LEDs are
switched on or off depending on the pixmap content.
The global pixmap is changed occasionally with alternating text,
patterns, or actual measurements.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is the preferred position to print the blades?

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Velocidade da hélice 600 RPM

Gerador Kv 10'400 1'004

Voltagem à Velocidade nominal do Vento 0,06 0,60

Velocidade do gerador necessária para carregar 72'800 7'028

Velocidade do vento necessária para carregar 2'184 211

Recti cador / carregador simples de 3 fases

Coisas que tinham de ser resolvidas:

Rotation Speed (measured) 1’054 RPM

Kv (calculated) 80.5 RPM / V

Resistance per Phase 19.50 Ohm

Battery Voltage 7.40 22.80 V

Speed (no load) 556 1’730 rpm

Battery Current I0 (no load) 0.035 0.02 A

Speed (with Propeller) 545 1’615 rpm

Shaft Power (with propeller) 0.03 0.72 W

Efficiency (bavaria calculator) n.a. 56%

Step-up Converter and Passive Dump Load

Active Dump Load

Testing the Generator and

Power/Current Consumption Estimation

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen

WindpowerWriter - makeSEA

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WindpowerWriter - makeSEA

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

 Contate­Nos (/contact­us)  877­411­2220

Especi cação Inicial

Velocidade da hélice 600 RPM

Gerador Kv 10'400 1'004

Voltagem à Velocidade nominal do Vento 0,06 0,60

Velocidade do gerador necessária para carregar 72'800 7'028

Velocidade do vento necessária para carregar 2'184 211

Recti cador / carregador simples de 3 fases

Coisas que tinham de ser resolvidas:

Rotation Speed (measured) 1’054 RPM

Kv (calculated) 80.5 RPM / V

Resistance per Phase 19.50 Ohm

Battery Voltage 7.40 22.80 V

Speed (no load) 556 1’730 rpm

Battery Current I0 (no load) 0.035 0.02 A

Speed (with Propeller) 545 1’615 rpm

Shaft Power (with propeller) 0.03 0.72 W

Efficiency (bavaria calculator) n.a. 56%

Step-up Converter and Passive Dump Load

Active Dump Load

Testing the Generator and

Power/Current Consumption Estimation

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen

 ContateNos (/contactus)  8774112220