Wind Lantern LEDs Powered by a Vertical Axis Wind

http://www.instructables.com/id/Wind-Lantern-LEDs-powered-by-a-vertical-axis-wind/

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Wind Lantern: LEDs powered by a vertical axis wind turbineby dustynrobots on March 19, 2011

Table of Contents

Wind Lantern: LEDs powered by a vertical axis wind turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Intro: Wind Lantern: LEDs powered by a vertical axis wind turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 1: Shopping List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 2: Prepare aluminum rod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Step 3: Start assembling base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Step 4: Part assembly in base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Step 5: Finish base assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Step 6: Solder wires and mount motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Step 7: Continue adding parts up the rod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Step 8: Now, the electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Step 9: Put it to work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Step 10: When I win the laser cutter... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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Author:dustynrobots dustynrobotsI'm an enginerd, author, and teacher.

Intro: Wind Lantern: LEDs powered by a vertical axis wind turbineIn this project, well build a small, vertical-axis wind turbine, or VAWT for short. These are not as efficient as their horizontal-axis cousins, but they are better suited tourban environments where wind can come from all different directions.

Normally, when you give electricity to a motor, it spins. The same is true in reverse: If you give a motor a spin, it acts as a generator and creates electricity. The windlantern will use energy from the wind to turn a motor and the resulting energy to light up some light emitting diodes (LEDs) within the base. The wind lantern will use thiselectricity to create a flickering, glowing indicator of the wind.

LEDs, like any other diodes, allow current to flow through them in only one direction. Bipolar stepper motors have two wire coils. The challenge here is to design a circuitthat directs energy generated in each coil through an LED in the correct direction, no matter which way the wind lantern spins. Because even the best intentioned designis no match for NYC wind -it has a mind of its own. To do this, well build a rectifier circuit for a bipolar stepper motor.

This project was recently featured in an episode of Make: Live - thanks Matt and Becky!

Step 1: Shopping ListHere are all the parts you'll need, down to the last washer.

Electronics Stepper motor (SparkFun ROB-09238) Male header pins (SparkFun PRT-00116) Breadboard (like All Electronics PB-400) Jumper wires (like SparkFun PRT-00124) or hook-up wire to make your own Eight diodes (SparkFun COM-08589) One or more LEDs (yellow SparkFun COM-09594 used here, but choose any color) One or more 1,000 ?F capacitors (SparkFun COM-08982)Hardware 1/4 in acrylic plastic sheet about 15 30 in or equivalent (size based on Ponoko P3 template) for gears, disks, and sail holder pieces. You can download the FREEtemplate here on Thingiverse , or go ahead and buy them from my Ponoko showroom .


10 in wide aluminum flashing (usually sold in rolls; you need about 2 ft length for this project) 5mm bore shaft collar with set screw (McMaster 57485K65) 7 1/2 in bore shaft collars with set screws (McMaster 6166K25) 18 in length of 1/2 in outer diameter aluminum tube (McMaster 1658T45 is 8 ft long but a good value if you have the means to cut it down to 18 inany hacksaw willwork (like McMaster 4077A1)) Two flanged sleeve bearings for 1/2 in shaft diameter (McMaster 2938T12) Thrust bearing cage assembly for 1/2 in shaft diameter (McMaster 5909K31) with two matching washers (McMaster 5909K44) Three female threaded standoffs, 4 in length, 1/4 in -20 screw size (McMaster 92230A350) Six socket head cap screws, 1/4 in -20 thread, 3/4 in length (McMaster 92196A540) Six lock washers for 1/4 in screw size (McMaster 92146A029) Six flat washers for 1/4 in screw size (McMaster 92141A029) Four M3 screws 40mm long (McMaster 91292A024) Four M3 lock washers (McMaster 92148A150) Four M3 washers (McMaster 91116A120) Set of inch and metric hex keys (like McMaster 7324A18) Deburring tool (like McMaster 4289A35) and/or rounded file

Step 2: Prepare aluminum rodPut on your safety glasses and cut an 18 in length of the aluminum rod with a hacksaw. Use a deburring tool or file on the inside and outside of the end of the rod tosmooth it and avoid cutting yourself.

Make sure your aluminum rod fits through the flanged sleeve bearings, thrust bearing and washers, and the shaft collars. Look at the tolerances of all the parts onMcMaster: The aluminum rod has a .025 in outer diameter tolerance, which means it can range from 0.475 to 0.525 in. The shaft collars dont give a tolerance for their inner diameters. The flanged sleeve bearings say +.001 to +.002 in for the inner diameter. This means they will be between 0.501 to 0.502 in. The thrust bearing says 1/2 in +0.002 to +0.007, which means the inner diameter can range from 0.502 to 0.507 in. The thrust washers dont give any tolerance for the inner diameter.

This means that the outer diameter of the aluminum rod needs to be smaller than the smallest possible part it needs to fit into, which is the 0.501 in sleeve bearing. Asyou can see here, we have a good possibility for overlap in an inconvenient direction.

If your aluminum rod is too big for the sleeve bearing, put on your safety glasses, dust mask, and gloves (aluminum dust is not good for you). Grab the aluminum rod withthe sandpaper and rotate it while youre squeezing until you see aluminum dust coming off. Continue this until the rod fits through all the components. If youre luckyenough to have access to a lathe, it could be a time-saver if you have a lot of aluminum to shave off. A bench grinder will work faster than sanding by hand, but it will beharder to maintain the round shape of the rod.


Step 3: Start assembling baseAssemble the base (refer to the full picture in step 2 as you go through the steps). Start with the two disks, the hex standoffs, and the 1/4-20 screws, lock washers, andwashers. Install the standoffs by sandwiching the acrylic disk, a washer, and a lock washer on each end with a 1/4-20 screw.


Step 4: Part assembly in baseInstall one of the flanged sleeve bearings in the center hole of the base disk. The base is the one without the four holes to mount the motor.

Rest a thrust washer, thrust bearing, and then the other thrust washer on top of the flange.

Slide the aluminum rod in from the top. Before it hits the sleeve bearing on the bottom, it should slide through the other sleeve bearing, a 1/2 in shaft collar, a laser-cutgear, two more 1/2 in shaft collars, and finally the thrust washer, bearing, washer stack.

Pull up slightly on the aluminum rod so its not hitting your work surface. Use your Allen key set to tighten the set screw in the lowest shaft collar. At this point, the shaftcollar is resting on the thrust bearing and attached to the aluminum rod, so you should be able to spin the rod.

Lift the next shaft collar from the bottom up with the gear to about the halfway point inside the base. Tighten the set screw. This shaft collar will be attached to the gearwith epoxy putty later, but DO NOT do this yet.


Image Notes1. flanged sleeve bearing2. thrust washer3. thrust bearing4. thrust washer5. shaft collar6. set screw

Step 5: Finish base assemblySecure the top sleeve bearing with the top shaft collar.


Image Notes1. top sleeve bearing2. shaft collar

Step 6: Solder wires and mount motorBefore you continue up the rod, this is a good time to mount your motor. First, cut the wires to about 8 in long and solder a set of four male headers to the wires. Red andgreen should be next to each other on one side, and blue and yellow on the other.

Remove the screws that hold the motor together. Use the longer M3 screws from the shopping list to mount the motor from the back, on the underside of the top disk.Sandwich an M3 washer and lock washer with each screw.

Slide the other gear onto the motor shaft and use the 5mm shaft collar to secure it temporarily. Adjust the height of both shaft collars until the gears are at the sameheight and mesh well. Now you can break out the epoxy putty and secure the gears to their respective shaft collars.


Step 7: Continue adding parts up the rodContinue up the aluminum rod. Slide on a 1/2 in shaft collar, one of the plastic sail holders, and then another 1/2 in shaft collar. Pull the lower shaft collar up so its notresting on the top of the base and secure it to the rod with its set screw. Then pinch the plastic sail holder with the shaft collar on top of it, and secure the assembly with aset screw. When you rotate the whole assembly by the shaft, it should rotate smoothly, and the sail holders should rotate with the shaft.

Cut out three sails for your wind turbine to catch the wind. Theres no right answer here, and you have a few different slots in the sail holders, so just use scissors to cutthe aluminum flashing in a length you think will work. Then cut 1/2 in tabs into each corner to slide into the slots. Bend over the tabs to secure the sails.

Do the same shaft collar, sail holder, shaft collar assembly on the top of the sail to finish this section of the build. It should spin with very little friction when you turn it byhand with the aluminum rod.

Step 8: Now, the electronicsWe need to create a circuit like the one shown here. Use the eight diodes and jumper wires to create this circuit on your breadboard as shown. It will tell any electricitygenerated in each coil of the motor to go to the same place: the power column on the bottom of the breadboard. Make sure all your diodes are facing the right direction,and dont forget to jump the ground columns across the board. Here's a schematic too if that's easier.Notice the LED in the center and the two capacitors at the sides of the board. Plug the long leg of your LED into the power column and the short one into ground. Beforeyou add the capacitors, give the wind lantern a spin and watch the LED flicker!

Try adding at least one capacitor as shown. The negative marked side should go to ground, the other to power. The capacitor will store energy while the wind lantern iscreating it, and release it when it is not. The resulting effect here is a smoother flicker on the LED. Try adding more LEDs and more capacitors until you get a smoothglow when you spin the aluminum rod. You can also place diffuser paper over the side of the lantern to create a pleasing glow.


Step 9: Put it to workNow take it outside! See if it works with real wind. We had success on a street corner in Manhattan and on the roof of Eyebeam Art + Technology Centers two-storybuilding as you can see in this video - thanks to awesome intern Sam Galison for helping with the project!

Step 10: When I win the laser cutter...I first got addicted to using the laser cutter at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center when I was a resident there last spring. I was able to use if for lots of the projects in thebook I wrote called Making Things Move: DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists . When I win this one, I will be able to continue working on projects at theedge of art and technology and using them to teach others about making both for "real" projects and for art and fun.I'm now part of a new lab at NYU-Poly where I work as a research assistant while pursuing my PhD in Mechanical Engineering, and we don't yet have our own fabricationtools. I'm working on some fun projects, like creating a low-cost robotic hand to test space suit gloves, and having a laser cutter will help take me through severaliterations of a design with less cost and time than would be possible any other way. We're also getting a DARwIn-OP humanoid robot in the lab, which is all openhardware, and I'll be modifying it and outfitting it with sensors to measure energy consumption (and of course post about the progress!). Having a laser cutter will alsohelp immensely here.

On top of that, I've introduced my fiance to laser cutting and now we have a lot of projects for our wedding that need one! From laser cut fabric flowers to engraved favorsfor our guests, we have less than two months to pull everything together. And we'll continue making and spreading the DIY bug long after that - we already have a list ofprojects for our new apartment!


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Comments36 comments Add Comment

JoshuaZimmerman says: Feb 3, 2015. 3:27 PM REPLYGoodness I love this instructable. I'd love to build a more simple version of this, but that seems a tad impossible.

SatCenterEngDes says: Oct 10, 2012. 11:05 AM REPLYwhere did you get your gears from?

dustynrobots says: Oct 15, 2012. 8:03 AM REPLYI made them! They are part of the laser cut file included here. You can use an online service like Ponoko.com or approach your local hackerspace forsome help.

joehudy says: May 2, 2011. 4:07 PM REPLYy hasint sombody used a car alternater for the generator woldint that be mor efacint

Nobin says: Apr 7, 2011. 3:53 PM REPLYThis is a wonderful idea Mrs dustynrobots.Thanks for sharing .

Que Ideia maravilhosa, obrigado por compartilhar

bomb says: Apr 7, 2011. 1:51 PM REPLYgreat idea but in order for the masses to understand this you need to put it in super lamen terms.


haroldj1 says: Mar 28, 2011. 9:20 PM REPLYI have used dc motors and they will give more power for the size com pared to steppers. You just have to be sure that you get a permanent magnet dcmotor. you can find these all over ebay or even from some kids toys.

dustynrobots says: Mar 31, 2011. 2:31 PM REPLYGreat - any projects you can link us to?

haroldj1 says: Mar 31, 2011. 9:13 PM REPLYI forgot to say that a great resource for this size PM motors is any copier repair place. They take in trades and often will let you strip old machinesthey have on hand. Copy machines are full of pm motors. Just dont take any that have a circuit board attached to them, they are 3-phase brushlessmotors and no good for this application. Bring your voltmeter with and if in doubt, you should be able to read a voltage by spining a PM motor even byhand. Happy hunting.

haroldj1 says: Mar 31, 2011. 9:08 PM REPLYCheck out www.otherpower.com . They have tried most ways to generate homebrew electricity. Hours of good reading and learning from othersmistakes so you dont have to repeat them.Unfortunately, I am good at doing projects but stink at recording the progress and instructing others.

westfw says: Mar 24, 2011. 6:06 PM REPLYIt would be an interesting experiment to put different kinds of motors in this to compare performance. Stepper motors don't seem like they'd be the mostefficient, but who knows.

I've wanted to do something like this using a salvaged disk drive (CD or HDD), using the spindle motor as the generating device. Half the mountingdifficulties should already be taken care of...

dustynrobots says: Mar 25, 2011. 6:34 AM REPLYThat's a good idea. I've done a few wind projects in the past and steppers seem to work well because they have very little resistance when you try to turnthem but give a decent amount of power out. If you tried to do that with a DC motor that was easy to spin you would get almost nothing, and a DC gearhead motor that could potentially give you more power is hard to turn because of the gear ratio. BUT if you can prove me wrong and find better motors touse for this, I would love to hear about it!

ddrocketman says: Mar 28, 2011. 6:35 PM REPLYI'm doing a similar project myself and the choice of motor definitely seems like the most difficult part. Through my tests I've found some dc motorsand stepper motors that work decently, and some that produce hardly any voltage at a wind turbine normal rpm. I'm interested to know what type ofvoltage and power you are generating with this stepper motor?

dustynrobots says: Mar 31, 2011. 2:31 PM REPLYI can't say I know, sorry. But for the LEDs to light that means I'm pulling at least 3 volts and maybe 30mA from the wind, probably more (definitelywhen it's going faster). I haven't burnt out any LEDs yet so that's probably a good ballpark to get an upper bound. I will try to get a current/voltagesensing thing together to measure this. I tried to avoid paralysis by analysis when choosing a motor and just decided to get started!

jolshefsky says: Mar 30, 2011. 8:26 AM REPLYI suspect that a DC brush motor (e.g. the hobby motor from a toy car) would be more efficient (the ratio of (mechanical) power in to (electrical) powerout) than a stepper motor at each motor's peak efficiency. However, a brush motor barely generates any electricity at low speeds, so you'd need togear it up a lot. A stepper motor is probably more efficient at very low speeds, so it's easy to either do a 1:1 gearing as you've shown, or to just driveit directly from the VAWT shaft.

I'll have to consider this for future projects I bought a bunch of beefy steppers off eBay for just this purpose, and I have a bunch more from deadprinters and such.

dustynrobots says: Mar 31, 2011. 2:29 PM REPLYExactly what I'm thinking - although I haven't tried it with DC motors really. Let us know how you get on with your steppers!

Felix on Wheels says: Mar 28, 2011. 2:26 AM REPLYBeautiful Machine!I've been experimenting with these after finding a free download of a VAWT with 2 or 3 vanes on:http://www.clockworkrobot.com/downloads/index.htmIt's a PDF though of course through a Screencapture program, you can make "JPG's" and thus re-size and re-shape as you want.You can also "Reverse the process" by building a card container and rotating the vanes inside it to produce "A Wind"...Just a pity you can't "Make a Wind" to power the VAWT which produces the electricity to power the "Wind Blower"!

MaXoR says: Mar 27, 2011. 9:51 PM REPLYI simply love how rugged this thing is. Well it's just really huge for what it's function is, and scale. I really love this design, it's not going for full efficiency, butit's still using alternative energy to produce light, which we all use everyday anyways.


Xonk61 says: Mar 27, 2011. 1:32 PM REPLYA number of stepper motors I've salvaged out of old scanners, printers, hard drives, floppy drives, CD drives, and tiny ones in cameras, (they're used insome for the focus and zoom) will drive a LED directly, Since a spun shaft on a stepper motor will output AC on at least 4 of the combinations of wirescoming out of the motor, the LEDs can be mounted directly, and since the "D" in LED stands for diode, it will rectify the AC to a half-wave anyway. I don't seethe need for additional diodes to make this a very simple wind turbine. I like the design! Thanks for the ideas...

boocat says: Mar 27, 2011. 7:45 PM REPLYLike your comment!

Vinsu says: Mar 27, 2011. 2:14 PM REPLYWould one stepper motor salvaged from CD drive be capable of charging simple garden light replacing the solar panel? Got six garden lights with someold panels right here and plenty of CD drives...

rtufty says: Mar 27, 2011. 12:43 PM REPLYHow about making the rectifier out of diodes??? Get to see'em changing as the motor turns, and faster at higher windspeeds.

BtheBike says: Mar 27, 2011. 8:03 AM REPLYvery sell-able clean piece . a mini vawt with same function can be made for cheaper or free ,but of course less marketable than this . Sweet . I always like themix of clear and chrome .

Eye Poker says: Mar 19, 2011. 9:18 PM REPLYThe only way to make this more awesome is to have different color lights light up as the wind speed gets higher.

dustynrobots says: Mar 20, 2011. 5:51 AM REPLYOhh good call - lemme think if I could do that without a microcontroller. Maybe just putting different colors in with different resistors would do the trick?Green LEDs need less voltage than most others, so maybe as the wind picked up you would get green first then other colors would come in? Hmmm

Dr.Bill says: Mar 21, 2011. 1:07 PM REPLYFind out what your maximum voltage output is and put in a battery to charge.The battery will store the charge and Tame the ' Wild Voltage ' and allow the LED to be used at its operating value. Combine that with an LEDController and.......

Dr.Bill says: Mar 21, 2011. 12:58 PM REPLYI like the use of two wheatstone bridges as it allows for a more detailed teaching tool for other than single phase electric generation.

What kind of voltage is it generating?

What did the motor come out of?

If you had a center support and stringers (purlins) on the wings they would hold a better air foil.Nice Job!

jj.inc says: Mar 21, 2011. 5:33 AM REPLYThis is really cool, the only thing I have to say is that maybe a DC motor would work better than a stepper motor because of the removal of the need for 8diodes, you would only need one or two. But they are hard to find that are as easy to mount as this and look as good.Also, maybe you can upgrade it to charge a battery like those solar lights you put in your yard.

Really awesome job though.

Kiteman says: Mar 19, 2011. 2:37 PM REPLY"...as you can see in the video"

Er... what video?

p3ngwin says: Mar 19, 2011. 4:38 PM REPLYi was wondering that too, until i realised that the pic above with him holding the device in the air from the rooftop....that the first frame. the video isloading...slowly.

:)

dustynrobots says: Mar 19, 2011. 6:31 PM REPLYGood catch! I thought I could upload videos but maybe not? Either way I put a link to the video on flickr now. Thanks for the heads up.


Kiteman says: Mar 20, 2011. 3:31 AM REPLYYou can embed videos from most video-hosting sites.

If you use YouTube, you have to use the "old" code, but if you tried to embed from Flickr and it didn't work, could you post bug report for theadmins to see?

p3ngwin says: Mar 19, 2011. 7:07 PM REPLYawesome, thanks for updating !

scraptopower says: Mar 20, 2011. 3:12 AM REPLYGreat build!

AndyGadget says: Mar 19, 2011. 3:21 PM REPLY

A very well-engineered build.Have you measured what sort of off-load voltage you're getting from this in a good wind? As is, the capacitors will smooth the voltage but not regulate it inany way. The forward voltage drops of the LEDs will determine the terminal voltage and the brightness will vary with wind speed.It would be interesting to include rechargeable batteries (3 in series if you're getting over 4.5V or 2 if it's less) to store excess energy in windy conditions. You'd need to have a resistor in series with the LEDs for this. You'd have the advantage of constant brightness and some continuity when the wind drops.

dustynrobots says: Mar 19, 2011. 6:34 PM REPLYThanks! And good points - no I didn't meter it actually, just tested with a few things, and found that at realistic wind speeds and this size of turbine therewasn't a ton of current flowing, so decided to go with LEDs.

Wind Lantern LEDs Powered by a Vertical Axis Wind

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