Anybody got a 3 blade windmill prop they'd be willing to sell?

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Im beginning to assemble the parts and pieces (or at least finding out where they are) for a home built windmill generator. After reading a couple of books on making the prop I've come to the conclusion that I should buy a commercially made one, or at least the blades. If I were to try to make them I can easily see myself screwing it up so bad that the generator would be stuck with a really inefficient(sp?) set of blades that would kill my power production and waste all the time and money I would have poured into it.

Im looking for a prop that has 10 or 15 foot blades, its going to be mated to a electric vehicle 80 volt DC perm magnet motor, I would prefer fiberglass but will be happy with what I can get, blades made out of sitka spruce would be really cool too...

If you have a prop/blades, or know somebody who would be willing to sell for a reasonable (read cheap there, Im kinda broke) price could you please email me so we could arrange shipping, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Dave

-- Dave (AK) (daveh@ecosse.net), July 13, 2000

Answers

Dave: I don't know about cheap but you might try Lake Michigan Wind and Sun. Don't know their url offhand but check the classifieds in Homepower.com

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), July 14, 2000.

I have a 200 foot windmeil prop that I would sell you for 200,000,000 dollars. If you like it emeail me.

-- Jack Fredrick Goosj (goosj@hotmail.com), December 01, 2000.

Hi Dave. I suspect you will need to do just a little bit of research to decide just what sort of wind turbine you need, do you want the motor to turn fast or slow? For a fast one I think you need something that looks like an aeroplane propoller, for slow speed you need something like an old wind pump. I made a smallish unit with a slow speed permanent magnet motor driven by a big building type air conditioner fan.

-- John H (john@cnd.co.nz), December 01, 2000.

hey.... dont buy the design of others ok... you can make your own..try it and you`ll enjoy it. good luck!

-- arthuro dechavez (kunduph@yahoo.com), January 18, 2001.

Right Arthuro. I can never find the specified bits when I try to build someone else's design.

-- John Hill (john@cnd.co.nz), January 18, 2001.


I dont know.. I've read the books by Hugh Piggot and Paul Gipe and while the rest of windmill is pretty straightforward (if somewhat large) I dont think I can make efficient blades. I know I can make them, just dont think I can make the aerofoil shapes to the exact specs to have a good blade.
Im shooting for a wind generator that produces 10 KW in a 20 MPH wind, its oversized because Im in a marginal wind area. What I really want to do is consistantly produce 2 KW in my 5 MPH average wind area.

Dave

-- Dave (Ak) (daveh@ecosse.net), January 21, 2001.


From my investigation, it would seem that even if you built an extremely efficient wind turbine (50%) you would require at least a 25ft diameter to achieve 10kW in a 20mph wind. This would rotate relatively slowly at between 150 and 200 RPM (at 20mph wind speed) This would require gearing to match your generator. Some serious thought would also have to be given to how you might govern the output of such a machine. The same 25ft wind turbine would put out approximately 40kW in 30mph wind and 90kW in 40mph wind! I don't think that these are realistic objectives for a first time wind turbine builder. I have found a lot of useful information on aerofoil/propeller design here: http://beadec1.ea.bs.dlr.de/Airfoils/ There are a number of Java applications on this site that will give you an indication on what you might expect from differant propeller design/configuration.

-- James Overington (jameso@zedware.co.nz), June 17, 2001.

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