Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxRat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA1DV_0Y8-E
there is a start...I did a very quick search but when I was looking into this I found a company that sells these already done and will install them at your residence...all made with GM alternator...beings an alternator is just that Alternating current...
youtube is full of homebrew kits...
the windill is actually the easy part of the equation...the electric box and batteries is the hard part...
|
Ok, that's just a video (I can find videos of perpetual motion machines too)... nothing stating what it is putting out for power.. and has been stated, given you have a pretty steady supply of wind. That thing is going to have to be spinning pretty good to produce any significant power considering on a car, the pully is less than half the size of the crank pully... heck, on my car it's a good third the size meaning that at a 1000 RPM idle, it's spinning at 3000 RPM... gonna take a pretty good breeze to run that. Not saying that can't happen with wind, but rather, how often? You also have to remember, as you generate power, you also develop a load, ever notice that if you boost somebody with a dead battery, as soon as you complete the connections, your engine loads up? Nothing is entirely free ya know. So as you spin up and try to develop any reasonable amount of power, it loads up and the smaller blades can only do so much.
I know smaller ones are available and do produce power such as
this one at Canadian Tire. But lets look at the numbers. It takes almost 30Mph to develop the full 400w... not something you're going to get every day. A 12Mph average will only produce approx 50 watts or approx 38 kW per month (enough to run a lightbulb, or a few if you have some more efficient ones)... which at my electric rates will save me about $3.80 per month... now at $800 for this thing plus batteries and inverters... it's going to take some time to recover the cost. Even if I built it myself, again, it's going to take several years to recover anything. Take a 70 amp alternator... approx 14v output would create 980 watts at PEAK, 100% efficency... which you're NOT going to get.