3 Simple Ways to
Share What You Make

With Instructables you can share what you make with the world — and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.

PhotosPhotos

Share one or more photos of a project, recipe, or whatever you've made, quickly and easily.

Step by StepStep-By-Step

Share your step-by-step photos with text instructions of what you made so others can do it too!

VideoVideo

Share your how-to video. You'll need your embed code from a video site such as YouTube.

7 Foot Axial Flux Wind Turbine

Step 9Testing Jig

Testing Jig
«
  • RPM rotor.JPG
  • P1010106.JPG
  • headless jig.JPG
  • drill rotor.JPG
Before programming the controller, it is important to see what kind of power output you can achieve with your generator. This will help you determine what RPM is optimal for you to run at and how that affects the pitch of the blades.

Now, a lot of people have a lathe, a tachometer and a bunch of other fancy tools to test their generators. Well, I am a bit less fortunate and do not have those available to me. So, instead, I made a simple jig to spin up my generator using an electric drill.

I cut a notch in a small piece of wood and shaped it as a trapezoid to avoid all the holes for the bolts. On the other side, I screwed through a hole in the metal into the wood to hold it in place. The other two planned attachment places were too close to the edge to take a screw, so I drilled a couple of small holes and used small zip-ties. Surprisingly, this setup is pretty solid. The piece of wood doesn't act like it's going anywhere and those zip-ties are nice and snug.

Now, with all of these funny angles and stuff, it's hard to find the exact center of the rotor. I did the best I could to eyeball it and I drilled two more long screws partway into the wood on either side of the center. Then use an allen wrench with a T-handle on it that is long enough to touch these two screws. These screws will take the torque from the drill to spin up the generator.
« Previous StepDownload PDFView All StepsNext Step »
1 comment
Nov 29, 2011. 5:40 PMsgray11 says:
ive made a 9 coil 12 magnet stator an axel with the wind at 15 miles what will it produce i thought it was an AC output to a refractor so does it hook into the inverter from there an what kind of inverter do i need my refractor is an 80 amp is that right thing to use


Pro

Get More Out of Instructables

Already have an Account?

close

All Steps Viewing
View all steps of an Instructable on the same page when you're a Pro Member.

Upgrade to Pro today!
20
Followers
3
Author:brokengun