Build diary

[esawyja]

Looks good! And the hole looks like its centred. Was the other one off centre or was that an optical illusion? Do you plan to make a jig to check the balance of the rotors?

No the other one was ok, must have been the angle of the dangle that I used when I took the photo... I dont know if I'm going to make the jig... I think I will fit all together this weekend and see how it goes

[ibo solucoes]

Hi all,

New member here... apologies for intruding on this topic but i could not find out how to start a new one. I live on Ibo island in Mozambique where we have started a little school. I live off grid there using currently one 80w solar panel and a generator to keep my batteries charged. i do not use much energy (laptop engel fridge, lights) but want some more renewable energy installed to eliminate the genny. i will purchase 2 extra solar pannels, more batteries and hope to get a windturbine flying. I can buy a new air-breeze (new air-X model) for 7000R (nelson adams in brackenfell cape town sells them) , it is rated max power 200w and is auto regulated (just hook up to the battery and forget i was told). Any of you have experience with these?

Did any of you complete a home build model (piggot design) including regulator and what was the total price of this?

Kind Regards,

Jorick Vandaele
Ibo Solucoes

[esawyja]

Hi Ibo,
Spend so far, I'm still busy so no final price yet
~R3000-00 magnets
~R700-00 Wire for coils
~R500-00 Resin etc
~R141-00 per steel disk so R282-00 for the 2 disks
~R200-00 Steel
~R200-00 Wood

Thats all I can think of now, will update as I go along

[esawyja]

Day 9 - Finally got some time to assemble the altenator
Back rotor and 12mm studs

From the side

and from the front

[esawyja]

Day 9 - continue
Stator and back rotor assembled

Stator and back rotor from the side, not much of a gap between the two

Front rotor with jacking screws, ready to go onto the studs, this is the dangerous part

[esawyja]

Day 9 - continue
Phew-- front rotor is on and I still have all my fingers

Its amazing how much force there is between the 2 rotors, the front rotor crashed down on the jacking screws with a bang...

After adjusting the rotor spacing (I had to add another nut to each of the studs), I have about 4 mm between the front rotor and stator and 4mm between the stator and back rotor, I think what I'll do, is to replace one of the nuts on each of the studs with a washer or two. I dont know is the airgap is toooo big, but it seems to be fine, making between 2,5 and 3,5V at ~60 rpm, one rev per second or as close as I can get it

MAKING WOOOOOPPPPEEEEE!!!!

Thats all for now, next step is to disassemble it again, do some spraying etc , reassemble and try and get the airgap as small as possible..

[windgat]

Looks good!
I would like to know, when you lift the rotor with the jacking screws, how many turns do you make on each screw? I use 3 bolts (you have 4) and I found that at first half a turn was the max I could do without the rotor tilting.

Did you the AC voltage check each phase coming off each phase?

[esawyja]

I would like to know, when you lift the rotor with the jacking screws, how many turns do you make on each screw? I use 3 bolts (you have 4) and I found that at first half a turn was the max I could do without the rotor tilting.

mmh not sure what you mean, I do all 4 screws, 2 or 3 turns on the bolts at a time, then, when I can get 2 pieces of wood between the rotor and stator, I lever the rotor off as far as I can and then lift it off the studs

Did you the AC voltage check each phase coming off each phase?

Sort off, connected the red lead on the meter to one coil tail, choose another tail and connected the black lead to that tail, did some spinning, checked the voltage, then connect the black lead to another tail, etc.. Problem is, I do not know which tail goes to which winding, what I did is, I connected all end tails of windings on the left side with red wire and the right hand side with black wire, so I have 5 x red and 5 x black, but I do not know which is which. All the start tails of all the windings are connected in a ring, but there is no outside connection.

[windgat]

That is what I meant, thanks. When I tried 2 or three turns I found the rotor would tilt, and jam. Maybe that's because of using three jacking bolts instead of four.

About testing the coils: that's ok, you have one 'common' connection and 5 independent connections. To test all the phases are good you would connect one voltmeter lead (in AC volt mode) to the common connection, and the other lead to each of the 5 independent ones in turn. You should get the same voltage from each at the same RPM.