Introduction: Dual Stator Smart Drive Wind Turbine (Tutorial)

By Home Made Wind Turbines
About: I'm a student studying engineering at Canterbury University in New Zealand. with a passion for renewable energy, electronics and almost all engineering. I have access to a full workshop both metalwork and wood…
This is a tutorial for my smart drive base wind turbine. this is a complex project and i had already built it before i started this tutorial so it wont go into everything but i will try.

Step 1: Materials and Tools.

Materials:
  • 50mmX75mmX600mm box section steel (for frame)
  • Solid or laminated wood suitable for blades.(will get sizes when we get to that step)
  • Two smart drive washing machine motors, including bearings and two shafts.
  • some plywood or sheet metal for the tail.
  • 50mmX5000mm thick walled pipe (for top of tower)
  • thick walled pipe with a inside diameter of 50mm and 150mm long for pivot.
  • some 20mmX2000mm pipe for tail
  • other assorted pieces of small metal for other parts we will get to.
  • lots of thick gauge insulated wire (for rewiring stators)
  • 50mmX5000mm box section for tower.
  • Heavy gauge insulated two core wire to run the power from your wind turbine to where you want the power.
Tools:
  • Welder
  • hacksaw
  • grinder
  • drill and drill bits
  • bandsaw
  • tablesaw
  • thicknesser ( i used this for machining parts of the blades but this maybe done by hand.)
  • carving tools
  • other assorted hand tools.

Step 2: Frame and Tail

The frame is made out of 75mmX50mm hollow steel, with a angle section welded on one end to act as a rest for the tail and a section of one of the shafts of the smart drive washing machine motor has been welded on a  angle of 30 degrees back and to the side away from the stator to provide the furling for the tail. The bearing mount for the generators is made out of some flat stock  and round stock with a bolt to lock the bearing assembly in. to make this simpler i would do way with the mount that i made and make u-bolts to go over the bearing assembly and lock it down on the frame. the swivel is a piece of the 75mmX50mm box section with a 150mm length of 50mm inside diameter pipe welded on the bottom for the swivel. this is all held on by two u-bolts to allow adjustment for the furling.
The tail is the 200mmX20mm steel pipe welded to a section of pipe with a 30mm inside diameter at a angle of 55 degrees with a gusset for strength, this is the swivel end. The other end has a piece of plywood or sheet metal bolted to it, This needs to be about 700mm square at least.

Step 3: Alternators

The smart drive motors straight out of the washing machine will produce from 0-400v 3-phase AC at only a couple of amps, which is useless for battery charging or anything else. so it needs rewiring for this i found http://www.thebackshed.com/Windmill/FPRewire.asp very useful it tells you all you need to rewire one of these for your needs. I ended up rewiring my with all the poles in parallel on each stator to give the highest current and lowest voltage which was good for a 12v system then i make a electronic control to switch the two alternators from series and parallel to get best efficiency in different wind condition. This isn't needed each alternator could just be wired together.
to mount the two stators on one shaft the shaft had to be modified the spline has been extended to fit new position of the magnetic rotor this was done by a engineer. the bearing holder is set up so the stator can go on both ends so the second stator was just bolted on the other end.

Step 4: Blades

The design for the blades can be found here http://www.otherpower.com/bladecarving.html In this the blades are made out of solid wood to make a stronger blade try laminating multiple pieces of wood together or layer plywood like i did.

Step 5: Tower

The tower i decided to use was fold down for easy maintenance, it consists of 50mm by 5000mm square tubing for the main base that was concreted at the bottom and bolted to the shed at the top. Then a 50mm diameter pipe 4000mm long with a pivot in the middle for lowering and raising.

Step 6: Electronics

The electronics i built all myself, the designs for the charge controller are from http://www.mdpub.com/555Controller/index.html is is a very simple design but works well and by changing the current rating of the relay, can switch huge amounts of current. i also included a logger to record all the data from my wind turbine the design was from http://www.thebackshed.com/Windmill/PicLog.asp this was fun as it included programing and was a test of my skill. the last electronic component of my wind turbine was a gen stepper, i designed and built this myself its function was to switch the two alternators from, in series in low wind so i got a low wind charging speed then when the wind picked up it would switch the two alternators in parallel to give maximum current and charging capabilities. this made this turbine very efficient. The gen stepper had to switch using the rpm of the generator because the voltage was clamped by the batteries and it had to be programmable to make it calibrated to get it to switch at the best time. A instructables for this project can be found here https://www.instructables.com/id/Improve-your-renewable-energy-setup/

Step 7: Finished Wind Turbine

Just before i got the whole system working together we ended up moving house so the whole project has gone into storage for a while, so soon as a get it up in its new place i will get photos and data from the logging up on this page. if you want to have a look at any other wind turbine projects of mine , show me your own or ask me some questions have a look at my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homemade-wind-turbines/225629190800214 .

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