windmill water pump project - Page 2

 


It would be such a disappointment to have a great wind
source and ignore it. But your sources for a wind pump
are, IMO, simply....wrong.

How about considering a different way?

It's called a check-valve turbine, you don't meed to bother
having a big tower, concrete base, etc.

Consider a simple sign in someone's front yard, but not
a rigid one.  Imagine it having a couple of strings, wires,
pieces of chain, whatever attached to its top, so it is
hanging, and the wind can cause it to swing. Okay?

Now, suppose we put a piece of cord between the two
supports, behind the sign. Now it can only swing in one
direction, is held from swinging the other way. Still simple.

Now, let's build a turbine. In our mind.

Put a little piece of conduit in the ground, half inch is fine.
We're just building this in our mind. Make it about two
feet high, and put a bolt at the end, big enough to go through
the hole of a little bicycle wheel.

Now, take a 10 foot length of 1/2" conduit, put right angles
at the last 18", so that now it's seven feet long, and it has
become an elongated "U", with the sides being 18" or so.

Attach that (in your mind) to the bicycle wheel, with the
right angles directed downward. You could even flatten
it at the middle so that you can put a hole in that part,
and let the bolt holding the bicycle wheel go through its
center, just for visual balance.

Now, in your mind, tie a piece of string from Home Depot
at the rim of the bicycle wheel, tie it around the conduit
too if you like, and then extend it to the end of the conduit,
the part turned downwards as the elongated and upside-
down  "U". If you had wanted, you could drill a hole at the
end for the end of the string. Easy enough to change things,
we're just building this at the computer chair anyway.

Now, we need to round up some of the expensive stuff.
After all, someone paid for them. You are just recycling.
Go find some political signs, marketing signs, the kind
made of corrugated plastic, with a couple of wires stuck
in the ground.

Take the wires out, make them a lot shorter, and then
bend the remaining portion partially around a 1/2" pipe
in a vise, so that you have the wire ready to put on the
1/2" conduit, then close the circle. Put the wire in the top
of the sign so that it's still advertising whatever, for the
sake of visual correctness.  Put the signs on the right
side in FRONT of the Home Depot string, and on the
left put them BEHIND the string.

Now, in your mind, blow on it. The right side, with faces
to the wind, has a string keeping it from swinging, and so
it will be pushed, and cause the bicycle wheel to turn with
it. And at the same time, the sign faces on the left, behind
the cord, will swing back because they are light and can do
that easily.

So the wheel turns, with one side being pushed, and the
other side comfortably spilling the air.

And now that we have made it turn, from the comfort of
the computer chair, make another inverted "U" piece,
mount it at right angle to the other, do it the same way
with the hanging signs, Home Depot cord, etc. As you
turn it in your mind, you see that a portion of the inner
sign can be under the bicycle wheel, as long as the cord
can be sufficiently keeping it from spilling air when it
needs to.

It's not very efficient, because there's only one portion
that is really being pushed. But there can be quite a bit
of torque, depending on the size of the faces. It will
never overspeed, it doesn't care where the wind comes
from, it ignores turbulence, it can be near where the kids
play, the raw materials are seriously cheap, and with a
moderate amount of mechanical aptitude on the part of
its builder, it can be delivering some mechanical force
instead of just spinning. But it still makes an interesting
alternative to the typical spinners. And can certainly be
scaled with several levels of exposed surface.

If someone else builds one, even if just in their mind,
and notices a problem or shortcoming, tell me. That's
why we have this forum.

Oh, if you live in the "big city", and put it in your front
yard, it can be "yard art" for zoning issues.

 



Dude.  I'm going to read your post a few more times but I think I get
what you're saying.  Thanks for the help.

We're probably going to do a solar pump if we can find one, but if not
maybe something like you desribe will be a good answer.

The thing about solar is that he really only needs it in the summer, so
that makes some sense

thanks again

-z

 

My comments were deliberately downscaled, for details
use flapturbine as the search term. It could be a direct
mechanical link, easy enough to dismantle.