Parasitic Wind Turbine

Step 5 All that's left

Is to place the motor mount onto the stand and place it on top of the compressor. adjust for best RPM and you are good to go. You might note that contrary to expectations, ie, that you could just set it on top in line with the fan, the best RPM comes from an offset 45 degree placement.

Addendum, I constructed a diode bridge with diodes salvaged with from a CFL and replaced one of the LED loads and recorded an open circuit voltage of 10 volts. Now here's a question for smarter people. Could I put the two phases in series for an OCV of 20 and charge a 12 volt battery?

Comments

[nav_lexy]

What about adding two more at 1/3 of the angle? Like a PEACE sign

[dangerous dan]

All I can say comes from the fertile-mind of Robert Heinlein:
TANSTAAFL

[whitten_jaw]

To answer your question about phases. Two voltages are only 'summing' if their phases are the same. 180 degrees out of phase would be subtractive, so you would get less power out. 90 Degrees out of phase would give you no effect. You may be better to generate two DC outputs and put those in series (provided that the source resistance is high enough). The other alternative is to look up inductors and capacitors and their corresponding phaser math to offset your motor phases enough to make them additive. I hope that gets you started--doing the vector math isn't hard when you have the circuit in front of you... if my memory serves me right, capacitors are:

Z = -[j]/ [(omega)*(Capacitance) or Z = 1/[(omega)*(Cap)] < -90 degrees
and an inductor is

Z = [j]*(omega)*(inductance) or Z = (omega)*(Ind) < +90 degrees

[hargee]

I'm sure the extra load on the AC is negligible since, with the turbine on top, in open air, it is not a closed system. Unlike the turbo which has a restricting conduit that does not give the exhaust an alternative path to spooling the turbine.

[rpvanpatt]

 What about creating a normal wind turbine out of this design instead?  Would it be able to charge a decent size battery?  How much energy output is created with this plan?

[necromncr]

Wait. Isn't the fan pushing the air doing some work? And if you put a fan in the path of the air being pushed, don't you increase the load the pushing fan has to do? In that case, you actually make energy from increase of power consumption of the fan which means larger bill. I might be talking jiberish, my tea didn't kick in yet, please be nice.

[wanzewurld]

I've been exploring along the same lines with the exception of using one of those ventilating roof turbines. I suspect the efficiency is better as it took quite a bit of finger force to stop it! I'm wondering along the same lines as you though: Does it use more power by restricting air flow and/or reducing cooling efficiency of the air conditioner?

[bwcbwc]

Think of a turbo-charger on a car. Yes it pushes back on the engine, but it gives more than it takes because w/o the turbo-charger ALL of the energy in the exhaust is wasted.

[shortw]

That statement is false.
The exhaust is turning the turbo charger.
The turbo charger pushing more air into the intake and cylinders of engines.
But also , because more air is put in the engine more gasoline is required to make the engines or gasoline / air-mixture to fire. The extra gasoline will give it more power, not the exhaust.

[doryrhp]

Turbo-chargers do not improve the efficiency of an engine, in fact they generally lower the overall efficiency of an engine (more gallons of fuel per horsepower). Turbos only improve the volumetric efficiency of an engine, allowing the engine to burn more fuel-air mixture (since the mixture is pre-compressed) than a naturally aspirated engine. The turbo essentially allows a small displacement engine to produce power similar to a larger displacement engine (which is why they are so popular, large engine power, with a small engine weight and size). The set-up in this Instructable is most likely forcing the motor running the fan to draw more power than what the turban and alternator are producing. One method to improve the efficiency would be to make sure the fan is compressing only cool, fresh air, then forcing the air past the hot compressor motor and condenser before exhausting it through the turbine. With this method the AC unit and turbine would essentially be acting as a jet engine! Of course for the AC-jet engine to work you would most likely need some serious aerodynamic ducting and compressor/condenser streamlining to reduce frictional losses in the unit. You might also need to start out with a larger AC unit since running the compressor and condenser in a hot environment would likely reduce the amount of cooling power available to your house!

[_soapy_]

That's exactly right. See Treb's accurate explanation in the thread. I'll paraphrase it: You don't get anything free, because by putting something in the way of the airflow, the fan has to work harder to do the same cooling it was doing before you put the new fan on top and reduced the airflow.

[martyjr9]

i think the power loss is negligible as the air is already out of the unit. Now if there was ductwork forcing the air into the fan blades now you are talking less cooling effect on the condenser.