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There's been a lot of discussion within the group about Wind Generators and generating electricity from alternative sources. We'd like to share some of our lessons learned and explore new ideas. Why alternative power? If you've been involved in emergency communications, disaster management, and amateur radio for any period of time, you know that an auxillary power source is paramount for continued operations. Sure, you could go pick up a generator and run from that system in an emergency, but where's the fun in that? What happens when your fuel-source is cut off? Damnit! We're hams! We're supposed to have SOLUTIONS!!!
Why not Wind? In the Grays Harbor area, winds tend to flow regularly and at reasonable speeds to cause a wind-generator to turn. Compared to solar solutions, the output of a wind generator isn't limited to those times when the sun is shining. If you're familiar with the weather in Washington, you have a good idea of the number of sun-producing hours in a day (not much) so we pay a double-penalty for the choice of solar power. In short, wind has the ability to produce 24 hours a day. With solar, we might get 6 usable hours out of the day, at reduced power generation. Solar is also expensive on a per kiloWatt basis. Our repeaters are on hill/mountain tops which regularly loose power when the wind blows - why not use that same wind to generate our power and keep these systems running when we need them most? Here are a few resources we've come to rely upon for our experiments in wind generation - we hope you'll find these as useful as we have! The person most known in wind-generation circles is Hugh Piggott, owner of Scoraig Wind Electric. Mr. Piggott is best known for ground-up development of wind generators, including blades and the generator itself, using relatively easy-to-obtain parts and equipment. Hugh's book, How to build a wind turbine, is available from his website and provides an excellent ground-up plan to costructing your own wind generator. An excellent manual on the subject of building your own Permanent Magnet Generator , is available on-line at no cost.
One of our favorite sites has been OtherPower.com - a great source of alternative-energy resources. You'll be digging through the site for a long time before you run out of interesting materials to read! Some of us have elected to go down the path of Permanent Magnet Alternators - standard automative alternators which have been re-engineered to use permanent magnets and which produce decent DC from the unit. They've proven themselves effective so far, and you may want to consider this "one-stop-shopping" alternative! Batteries... Luckily, I was able to locate a source for batteries which are pulled from serious reserve power stations. I'd give up their name, but I doubt they'd appreciate every experimenter in the area banging on their door to pick up their pulls! James' Wind Generator System James is putting along with about 24v at around 800 AH, but we've got to get his wind generator on-line and start charging. Stay tuned. As we pursue this project, we'll be bringing you pix and stories so stay tuned. If you live in the Grays Harbor area and have an interest in this project, feel free to drop us a line HERE - we're glad to help out. |
