Off Grid Seahorse Tank

scubasteve

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Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME WITHOUT EXTENSIVE ELECTRICAL KNOWLEDGE I AM A FULL TIME GENERAL CONTRACTOR WITH A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN HELPING OUT

I was debating a backup power solar system but its not in the budget right now. i am instead going to hook a mix of a small diy wind turbine hooked to a small solar panel i am assembling and be able to run my entire seahorse tank. The array im assembling wont run the tank itself but since it only has a 1w led light system and a t-8 on fuge with a very small fountain pump we calculated the boost from the small wind turbine will be enough to charge the batteries and run the tank.

For anyone that follows along this will be a long venture as i am winding the coils for my pma generator myself and my solar array is a bunch of 5"x5" cells so i have a crap ton of super delicate soldering to do( guarentee burnt finger tips at least once during this.

I wont be going over all the fine details as most is boring math equations but just so you know most of the parts im using are salvaged from old projection tv's sound system amplifiers and a couple printers. Its amazing how much high voltage stuff you can get for free for home projects. Thanks to the tv i have free diodes strong enough for my pma generators bridge rectifier ssembly and those super powerful capacitors will be handy to even out the wave form for those that understand electronics
 
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scubasteve

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Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
Following for sure. I have always been interested in anything off grid. It is just too big of a project for me to do now that my dad passed as you special licensed guys are too expensive lol. I would love to get my tank off grid...why...just because :)

my dream is to have mmy big tank off grid but thats alot of watts.... seahorse tank is easy very low watt/hr ratio wind is just to piggy back the solar that way night winds help. Enamelled wire is cheap from shops that rebuild motors with a little jig and some epoxy you can make a couple coils an hour is just a $&!/ ton of reading and planning to get the magnet to coil ratio right... and i especially hate math so it doesnt help lol.

I just luck out and know someone who installs solar panels and wind turbines for a living so the safety factor is allways a foremost since would be easy to overload if you just guessed and prob would have a fire or a lethal zap. The worst part of solar is the cells are live unless covered with a heavy blanked and discharged.

Small motors can be converted to wind tubines easily but they have their drawbacks like price my total project cost for solar panels and turbine will prob be $200 for the wire magnets and casings but again im hand soldering 55 5"x5" cells to gether in series strings then together in parallel and they are super thin and fragile. still need to think about charge controller batteries and inverter that will be determined by output of the solar and wind combined. Guessing output will prob end up in wasting money so will wait smaller is cheaper and stuff goes on sale alot
 

scubasteve

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Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
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Talk about playing with paper lol..... these ones are twice as strong as any i saw on kijiji
 

100gallon

Active Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2014
Location
Wingham, Ontario
I wish I bought a pure sine wave inverter....modified sine is what I have:(. Pure is better for starting pumps and compressors....Grr.

Sent via Samsung Galaxy S4 on Tapatalk
 

scubasteve

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
Guy I knew did turbines at his farm, he got a hold of battery boy locally who had some rechargeable forklift batteries from some military overstock, I think all he paid was $40 each lol

all the forklift ones im able to get are lead acid and need venting or outside storage (which we all know canada is too cold for) im trying to score some cheap agm batteries to store inside without venting but the high Ahr capacity ones are frickin expensive. Sent an e-mail to another fellow that ownes a golf course so he is prob my best lead so far... but the search continues.

Ill post a pic of my jig and a finished coil once i get a min... i am using 30ft lengths of 24 awg magnet wire (enamelled wire) per coil for this little guy which should give me about 150 wraps but need 9 coils total since im gonna wire the more efficient 3 phase style depending if i add a gearbox or not will determine star or delta configuration style for the coils (most people are prob like whaaaaaaa at this time). The biggest factor for how much power it will produce is getting my coil stator and rotor perfectly flat after the epoxy coats. 3mm is goal with 1mm of epoxy over coils and over magnets and the hopeful alignment to get a 1mm gapy since a 5mm gap with cut the output by almost 60% :(
 

scubasteve

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
Lmfao @jeffopentax i just about died laughing when i saw that pic......

Heres my little due-hickey of a coil jig. Turns out the technics i bought for the boy that he never uses came handy :) heres how the first coil turned out....

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My frankenstein due-hickey coil jig :)

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Waiting for the epoxy to dry (and yes that pizza box worked great for a platform)

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And my complete coil just 8 more to go o_O
 

scubasteve

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
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My layout pattern for the coils and the magnets

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Coils glued together with 5 min epoxy to hold in position through wiring prior to casting

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My wiring schematic showing how coils are all connected in star pattern (red=A, blue=B, green=c

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Attached all the coils together in way shown in schematic (star connection) then burned off wire coating and sanded clean to expose bare copper wire then twist together

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After cleaning and twisting together i added solder to make a secure permanant connection. Multimeter confirmed no broken wires :)

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And last step before casting my stator was to attach my 3 terminals 1 for each start of coil group which will lead to my rectifier circuit converting my ac generator to dc power to charge batteries


Now i need to assemble my magnet rotor then decide whether a vawt or hawt turbine is in order
 

scubasteve

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Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
Nice Steve. Looks like you're moving full steam ahead.

That stuff is all French to me ;) but I still enjoy reading and learning from others.

Great job so far.

Sony Xperia Z3

lmao :D ya it is alot of stuff not many people will understand but can get the flow of it lol im sure the pictures help greatly..... i should also probably mention aside from my electrical buddy helping out (mostly to ensure everything can handle the load safely) ive spent a good 1-3 hours a day for the past 5 months reading about transformers and axial flux generators. As much as i hate reading i love learning. Gotta say i am moving faster on this than originally thought.

I finished my magnet rotor so am just waiting to get some fiberglass epoxy then i can build my moulds and cast my magnet rotor and my stator.

Tomorrow im gonna make a couple mock-up sample blade designs to see which is more effective in low winds so far have 2 styles to try and seems like im going the vawt (vertical axis wind turbine) route since it collects low winds better and is multi-directional....... i also pondered the idea of my overflow pipe feeding a small hydro electric turbine that could run my fuge light and vent fan maybe a reactor pump :) that will be for the future tho
 

yveterinarian

Super Active Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Location
Innerkip, Ontario
You have come a long way so far. I'm enjoying reading each step. Thanks for the pics to detail each thing you are doing. Years ago, Dave and I looked into wind power for our house to get it off the grid or a least partially self sufficient but cost deterred us. Someday I would still like to do it when costs come down a bit. I still have all the literature about it and toured a house that was off the grid. It was so wonderful and quiet. :)
 

scubasteve

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
You have come a long way so far. I'm enjoying reading each step. Thanks for the pics to detail each thing you are doing. Years ago, Dave and I looked into wind power for our house to get it off the grid or a least partially self sufficient but cost deterred us. Someday I would still like to do it when costs come down a bit. I still have all the literature about it and toured a house that was off the grid. It was so wonderful and quiet. :)

You can use almost any dc motor as a generator the lower the operating rpm the better for a turbine and apparently an old washer motor produces about 1kw in 15km/h winds .... this is more of a proof of concept for me. if my output is close to what i calculated or better im going to make one alot bigger but gotta practice small especially since the higher voltage could potentially turn me into a french fry lol
 

scubasteve

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 4, 2014
Location
Cambridge, Ontario
here is the first design style and spins pretty dang good considering wind gusts were only 15km an hour. i cant wait to get my rpm meter to be able to tell what the turbine is putting out then i can figure my gear ratios.

once i get a chance i need to build my bridge rectifier to turn my generators alternating current into dc current then i can mount my magnet rotor onto a shaft and use my drill to get a voltage test which should be around 60-80% less than the final since ill have about 10mm+ gap (dont want to risk chipping a magnet) but the final im hoping to only have 3 mm but will be set in a housing by then
 
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