Squirl's offgrid system

[Squirl]

I keep promising a post on my offgrid experiments. I thought I would start with my wind speed meter.

First I started with a $10 bike speedometer that you can buy at Target.



Then I assembled the parts. Coat hanger, plastic eggs, wooden dowel, epoxy, computer fan.



Then I used a pair of needle nose pliers to cut the coat hanger in four even pieces.



Then I heated up one wire and pushed it through the edge of the cup of the egg to form one cup.



I did this three more times.  I glued the wires in place and the cups were finished

[Squirl]

Next I broke the fan blads off the motor.







I then removed the internal magnet with an exacto knife.





I then glued the motor back together.  Be sure to only get glue on the outside of the bearing for the motor.  The free spinning bearing is the most important part and the whole reason the motor is even used.  Although I assume you might be able to skip the magnet removal and maybe have a small DC current?

[glenn kangiser]

Cool stuff...

[Squirl]

I then cut the end off a wooden dowel.



I then marked the towel at 120 degree angles using a compass print out.




I then epoxied the dowel to the motor.



Last I drilled the whole at the 120 degree markings and epoxied the cups in place.



The motor fit perfectly into a scrap piece of 1/2 copper pipe I had so I epoxied it in place.  You could also use PVC.  I then attached the magnet that came with the speedometer to one of the wires the same as you would a spoke.  And used the rest of the mounting hardware that came with the speedometer.
So costs for this project are:
$11 Speedo at Target
$3 Dowel from Lowes
$0 Pants Hanger from Dry Cleaner
$1 Super Glue from dollar store
$1 epoxy from HF
$1 plastic eggs from dollar store
$0 computer fan motor
$17 total

Tools used:
Drill and bits
Needle nose pliers
Stove
Hand Saw
Square
Knife

[Squirl]

Some notes on this setup.  It works great.  It is a fantastic project for school kids because it has quick results.  In 2 hours and $17 you see results on the computer screen.  These are powerful little computers for so little money.  You could mess with the programming and a car or bike in zero wind conditions to match the MPH the meter reads with the actual MPH of the wind.  Not necessary for most purposes.  The purpose is to show relative changes.  

So you can use a pvc pipe and rope tower design to raise the wind speed meter to different heights to show relative power gain in tower sizing.

So if at 30 feet the meter reads 10 mph and at 60 feet it reads 15 mph.  Regardless of the actual wind speed you know it is going 50% faster.  So you can see how much it would cost to go 30 ft higher and if it would be cost effective to have 50% more energy.  
You can also use this between different sites.

Or another feature on the meter is to log distance traveled.  The meter tends to shut off when not in use, but this doesn't matter when using the device in a certain time period.  Lets say location A and location B both log in at 10mph average speed.  What you can do is check how far the distance traveled is in an hour.  If location A is 10 miles and location B is only 5 because it keeps shutting off you know A is better even though they may read the same average speed.  

Also you can test blade designs in different wind conditions.  If your turbine is producing 100 watts with one set of blades when the meter is reading 10 mph.  You can compare wattage output when the meter reads 10 mph again.