DIY GRID TIE REVIEW:
Windmills, Battery Welders, Wind Turbine Blades
Rating:
Poor Man Guide to Wind Power and Battery Systems by Richard Lewis - Review
- The welding book
- The homemade amp meter book
- How to make an amp / watt meter (500 amp 6,000 watt @ 12v)
- how to make FREE homemade windmill blades (it only takes about an hour to finish a set of 3)
- Equations and examples of how to use them to figure out power, rpm, tsr, wind speed etc. (units are in miles per hour and feet)
- how to find FREE fork lift batteries and how to make them as good as new
- making a homemade de-sulfator so you can "pulse" any lead acid battery back into new condition
- what kind of generator/motor to look for and how to get the best prices
- how to make a simple "furling" system to protect the windmill in high winds
- how to charge several banks of batteries all at once while pulsing them back to health
- How to make a 1,000 watt wind turbine for less than $150 (including tower)
- How to make a 3,000 watt wind turbine for about $220!
- Includes the DC Motor Analyzer software (absolutely necessary, if you are designing a homemade windmill)
- The e-book now includes a section on building a 3,000 watt wind turbine with 11 foot diameter blades.
Site Overview Summary:
The book shows pictures of 2 forklift batteries that Richard picked up for free. These are each 24 volts, 700 amp hours, or 12 volts at 1400 amp hours if you parallel the two halves. Both batteries together are 12 volts at 2800 amp hours. That is the equivalent to 28 golf cart batteries. That's $2,000 - $3,000 worth of golf cart batteries. About $8,000 in forklift batteries, if they are purchased new. Forklift batteries are rated for 20 years while golf cart batteries are only rated for 5 years. They are both considered "traction" batteries and are deep cycle. In comparison, running your house on a large bank of car batteries would only last about 6 months of heavy cycling.
The windmill blades are free except for the work you put into them. The autor's first set took about 3 hours because he didn't know what he was doing. Now he can carve 3 windmill blades in about an hour.
Richard has gone through about 10 iterations of windmill blade testing and all of them have been quiet, even in high winds. The only difference is that most of those designs weren't as efficient as his latest. These blades start spinning in about 3 mph wind. They start charging a 12 volt battery at about 5 to 12 mph wind (depending on generator used).
You can power a house with one homemade windmill, but it wouldn't be practical. You could power your whole house with one solar panel, if it were really big, but it also wouldn't be practical! People use way more power than they think. The book looks at the power you use and talks about conservation being key.
Another main concern is average wind speed in your area. Then equations in the book allow you to figure out how much power to expect. On the average, most people would need about 2 to 10 small windmills (or 1 to 5 of the 3,000 watt ones) on their property to become energy independent. Remember, it's not how powerful the windmill is that is most important. It is average wind speed. A 10,000 watt windmill with a 20 foot blade will only produce about 250 watts in 8 mph wind. But in 16 mph wind, it would be 8 times that...or 2,000 watts.
Ten smaller blades are better than one big one. First reason is tower strength. A 7 foot windmill blade set will have a horizontal loading of about 86 pounds of force from a 20 mph wind. A 21 foot blade would produce about the same power as 9 smaller windmills (7 foot) but the same wind would push on the tower with 775 pounds of force. Since the generator and tail are bigger, a very strong and expensive tower would be needed. It may take a team just to raise such a tower. Also, the bigger the blade, the slower it spins. This means you will need to gear up the output or use a homemade generator....more complexity. If you use a single big generator and it fails for some reason, you would have no backup. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It is easier to build a windmill that you can install by yourself and build more as needed.
The DC Motor analyzer program was designed for Windows, but it can run with a Windows emulator on Macintosh. The price also includes the DC Motor Analyzer software.
The book takes you quickly and easily through the steps needed to make your own home wind turbine. Richard Lewis starts right off stating of what to be careful. He then gets down to the business of building a wind turbine for very little money.
Lewis clearly and simply guides the reader through the pros and cons behind the decisions they will have to make. He explains how the efficiency of your energy usage and the local mean wind speed affect the size your turbine. The suggested links to calculate your local wind speed in the booklet are US/Canada based. If you are UK based BWEA is a good link to give you an idea of local mean wind speeds.
The book covers the nitty-gritty of making both a 1,000 and a 3,000 watt turbine. The 1,000 watt comes in at just under $150; the 3,000 watt at just over $200.
Clues are given as to where to look for the cheapest, or even free, parts as well as how they will perform in a wind turbine. The thorough investigation into sourcing batteries and maintaining them is excellent. You learn where to find your batteries for nothing, how to de-sulfate and prepare them for their new life. The information here could be applied to many situations.
As an added extra you have the option of purchasing this book as a job lot with his two other books - Poor Man's Guide to Homemade Amp Meters and Poor Man's Guide to Welding with Batteries as well as two nifty little programs to help with the calculations for your turbine - a DC Motor Analyzer and a Shunt Designer.
There is a forum where Richard will readily answer questions about batteries or anything else covered in the books.
To get started Just click the following link for instant access:
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