windmill

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hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project
at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

 

[James Arthur]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project
at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

Lots of projects, theory, and examples here:
http://www.otherpower.com/

HTH,
James Arthur

 

[mpm]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project
at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

Looks like you've received some good links and suggestions.
I'll email you a really cool photo of a friend of mine atop a
commerical wind generator.
Quite impressive as to scale.

-mpm

 

[Rich Grise]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project at my
high school can some one help me on the construction & the working of the
windmill ..

Why haven't you asked your teacher or your fellow students?

Or studied your textbook?

Or tried the other side of google?

Heck, I could do it for you, if you pay me what you're paying the
school that's not teaching you anything.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Charles]

Before you build it, do some basic math to predict how much power it
might produce, and how much it will cost to make.

That's hardly basic math.

 

[K Ludger]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project
at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

What year are you in at school? This will help people here to give you
suggestions, the help for a junior school project will be a lot different to
a senior school project.

 

[K Ludger]

What year are you in at school? This will help people here to give you
suggestions, the help for a junior school project will be a lot different
to a senior school project.

Sorry - missed the "high school"

What about visting an automotive dismantler and seeing if you can convice
the owner to donate an old thermatic fan to your project.It's wont be super
efficient but it will likely be a good start for a school project. Think
about how you would mount it so it follows the wind direction and how you
might get the electricity down from the motor (now a generator) without the
wires twisting up as the head part rotates. I'm not sure if the motors are
all suitable. Try shorting the leads together, if it gets harder to spin
(you are short circuiting the "generator" output) then its probably
suitable.

 

[Charles]

Why build something you don't understand?

It is done all of the time, over and over, and occasionally leads to
innovation. Edison understood little and invented a lot.

Engineers tend to have constipated minds.

 

[Charles]

What do you do?

I used to teach engineers and now I taunt them.

 

[MooseFET]

Before you build it, do some basic math to predict how much power it
might produce, and how much it will cost to make.

A quick description of how to do the math:

Assume that the wind means that all the air is moving at the same
speed.

Work out how much air goes through the area of the windmill blades per
second.

Figure the mass of this air.

E = 0.5 * M * V^2

E : energy resulting from stopping that air
M : mass of the hunk of air
V : the speed of the hunk of air

Since we are using numbers for one second energy equals power.

This gives a very optimistic value but since the power from wind goes
as the cube of the speed, you don't need a very good number.

 

[BobG]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project
at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

========================================================
Get a stepper motor out of a printer or buy one from Skycraft or
Jameco.... they have 2 coils that spit out AC when you spin it. Run
that to a lightbulb, or run each coil to a diode and cap to add the
outputs together to get juice to run a small computer, etc

 

[Richard The Dreaded Libertarian]

Engineeers make things work, because we can do the math.

What do you do?

He preaches Warmingism.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[mpm]

DeForest was really something of a slimeball, but it should be pointed out
that a lot of people who used audions early on didn't understand how they
worked -- this led to many patent fights regarding who really invented various
flavors of tubes during the those years, hence which patents were valid, etc.

Plenty of contemporary engineers have probably long since forgotten the finer
points of how transistors work, even though they would certainly have been
exposed to the theory at some point during their formal education. �I've known
guys who had EE degrees but when the "computer programming" route and would
slap down, e.g., a 2N3904 to drive a 5A solenoid...

A good friend of mine graduated with an MSEE and is simply terrified
to replace a wall outlet.
I thought has going to pass out when I decided to troubleshoot his
swimming pool light with the power on!

He too took the software-engineer route.
I guess like everything else, if you don't use it often enough, you
lose a certain competency and comfort level.

-mpm

 

[Charles]

Mediocre at both.

Better than abysmal.

 

[Nemo]

hi friends i'm trying to build a mini windmill for a science project

at my high school can some one help me on the construction & the
working of the windmill ..

There are a number of ways to generate electricity with a windmill, for
example a bicycle dynamo, or you could mount a motor on it and run it
backwards. Can you give us some idea of what resources you have. For
example, can you get your hands on an electric motor? If so, what kind?
Normally you put current into a motor and it turns. But if you turn it,
with your windmill, it generates a bit of current. This is an
interesting example of how many physical processes can be made to go
backwards, which is an important scientific principle. (Like you can
make ice melt... and then re-freeze the water.)

There are windmills where the blades turn like a classic windmill from
Holland, and others where the blades spin horizontally. If all you are
trying to do is demonstrate the principle, make whichever type is
easiest. People who build windmills professionally need to worry about
the "best" design for a given application but you are presumably just
trying to demonstrate the principle..?

I suspect the tricky part of the project will be getting the windmill to
actually turn the electricity-generating thingy. You could perhaps ask
for advice at a local model shop, if you have one.

 

[Charles]

And our survey says "Nothing much here to be learned about windmills, or
anything else."