$10 wind turbine prototype

The SolarFlower has pretty much been the flagship bit of tech for what is becoming a larger project.
So far I've documented the non electrical temperature regulation system and the mesh reflector dish, and in the next couple months I'll hopefully be adding an air coolant fridge/freezer, lattice polytunnel, loudspeaker linear alternator, and some kind of way of generating electricity from heat (probably along the lines of a thermoacoustic alternator, or liquid piston steam engine.) All will of course follow the angle of being open source, scrap makeable with basic tools, and be documented and posted to the Solarflower website.

But what I'm working on now is a vertical axis wind turbine.

 Providing the thing doesn't destroy itself in actual wind, this is so far a very cheap, easy, quick, and structurally sound way to make this turbine design. I'm using Ed Lenz's Lenz2 design, which has been tested at about 40% mechanical efficiency.

Materials used:
5 74 x 60 cm aluminium printing plates (£1 each = £5)
~100 pop rivets (~£5)
Bike wheel (free)
6 M3 nuts and bolts (negligible)

Tools used:
Drill
Rivet gun
Craft knife
Straight edge
Printer

Time taken was 2-3 days on my own, but that's prototyping which takes vastly longer than making something known. I'd expect it to come down to easily a day for one person at pottering around speed.

Power output (mechanical):
Still have to see if the thing survives, but according to the calculator for this design:

20 km/h wind = 28 watts
30 = 90 w
40 = 220 w
50 = 420 w
60 = 730 w
70 = 1,155 w

It's now set up at a mate's place out of town and we're waiting for some serious wind to come through to see if any structural improvements are needed. When I'm comfortable in signing off on the design I will tutorialise and post it to the website, and maybe look at doing some workshops on it here.

More updates to come.

Quick teaser for upcoming big news for the project:



View The SolarFlower Trip 2013 in a larger map

The main site ( http://solarflower.org ) is now up and operational, and all the tutorials are in place.
After three years work, this project has now officially launched.

I'm a bad blogger. Six months and no updates...
The blog is, however, the only part of the project I've been seriously neglecting. In fact there's so many developments to report I'm going to have to do it via bullet list:

• Spent a month in Spain with another guy from Open Source Ecology Europe, Chris, on the property in Extremadura setting the place up as a free project and permaculture space. Posted details and updates here: openeland.org
• There you can also find details of our first free skillshare summer camp, starting August 4th.
• Returned to Edinburgh in March to chill out a bit, see the people I love, and recharge after two years solid work on this thing.
• Started conceptualising a handful new bits of tech, including a non-electrical refrigerator/freezer/water generator/dehumidifier, an ultra simple steam engine for electrical production from any heat source (including solar), a magnetohydrodynamic generator, liquid lens, lattice polytunnel, improvements to the temperature regulation system, and if there was more I probably should've written them down.
  Details somewhere, eventually.
• Am heading to Switzerland Tuesday to help out on a 30 square meter open source solar concentrator; the Solarfire.
• Continuing to liaise with the Finnish open source resource management and search engine; Caloom.com.
• And most importantly: started in on finishing the SolarFlower tutorials and website.

The website is now up and reasonably functional: solarflower.org
And the first tutorial, the Box Collector, is finished (!), with the other five pretty close.

All this is still in beta, so if you feel like being handy, have a look and tell all the basic factual and grammatical errors I've made.

Stay tuned.

Daniel.

It occurs to me that I never actually posted here what's going on.

There's this group, called Open Source Ecology Europe, wanting to build various kinds of free technologies in the vein of energy, food, structures, whatnot.

http://oseeurope.org
http://oseeurope.org/forum
https://www.facebook.com/OpenSourceEcologyEurope

And so on.
I've been working with them on a couple of things, looking at setting up an online open source resource management engine, developing some tech, checking some locations, building a bit of infrastructure.
Right now I've got about a three week window free, so I've come back to Spain to do some work setting up the first on the ground project space, in Extremadura.
Basically by the time I leave here I want to leave a six meter geodesic dome, a greenhouse and at least one hexayurt. Also possible a solar oven, composting toilet and some kind of potable water source.
Coz, you know, three weeks is like forever.

And you're more than welcome to come join in.

Blog and general info: http://openeland.org
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/334671186553928/

3D maps of the Open Source Ecology Europe Extremadura location. At some point I'll be doing overlays for these, such as slope angle, insolation, etc.

If you're having problems with the Quicktime VRs below, here's the non fancy versions (click for larger):

 Back in Madrid now after checking out the first potential Open Source Ecology Europe living and project space in Extremadura. Got a bit of data and information about the place which I'll be posting over the next couple of days. Here's the first of it: (These aren't the best quality, but you'll get the idea.)


On the flat area in the bend of the creek. With good soil and access to water, likely the best place to start farming. (You'll need Quicktime, available here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/)
http://www.solarflower.org/stuff/extr_flat_pano1.mov

On the top of the rise. Flat ground, good drainage, good place to build structures. Nice tree. http://www.solarflower.org/stuff/extr_hilltop_pano1.mov

Access road front gate. http://www.solarflower.org/stuff/extr_road_pano1.mov

Looking for a crew of coders wanting to do something of value.
Basically if you're familiar with Couchsurfing.Org's couchsearch engine... that's what we need an open source version of.
We're setting up various networks and infrastructures around Europe and the world, as well as databasing resources, but what's currently missing is a nice simple engine for filtering the data by geography, profile information, keywords etc.
If you know anyone interested in getting involved with something like this, please let them and me know.
This is important.
Thanks!

Second one done.

So here's the first finished tutorial animation.
The other five are rendering, when they're done I'll post them all with step by step text descriptions to the website. Hopefully that'll be finished by the end of the month.

In other news; I've been in Leipzig the last three weeks since leaving Ireland, staying with some friends and checking what's up.
Short version: not much. Bunch of housing projects and various volkskoche (people's kitchens) each night, found a weekly juggling jam, been hearing about a couple food production projects... Not nothing, but was hoping for slightly more.
It is insanely cheap here tho, walked past one of thousands of abandoned buildings the other day, big stone tenement, for auction with a reserve of €9,000. I don't think it sold. If you come here with a business plan the city will give you free office and work space. They're that desperate.

So if you're around, and want somewhere to get something of the ground, you could do worse.

Just a quick update so yall know what's up. I've been in Ireland, wwoofing on a farm in county Cork last couple weeks while the construction tutorials continue to render and I get my breath back from the last two years' work hanging out with some much beloved friends from Edinburgh. On the 13th I'm back over to Germany, either Leipzig or the place I was last year in Saxony Anhalt to spend not more than a little time playing round with a couple ideas I want to test the overall viability of. Namely a very simple dehumidifier (Irish houses are staggeringly badly built) and more importantly a liquid piston magnetohydrodynamic steam generator (I've been practicing saying that) for use with the solarflower. That one's going to be of extreme interest if it works out, but I'm only looking for a proof of concept at this stage.
Then I think I might bounce round Europe for a couple months checking out what's happening and what innovation and generally cool goings on are going on. Maybe pitch in on some projects of others' if I find something interesting.

But the next big step is the tutorials, and they're pretty close to done now, my little netbook is doing a surprisingly admirable job with the rendering. You'll know when they're up; I'll be spamming the internet.

Peace.

Daniel.