Electricity

Just thought I'd start a thread for this. I think we've kind of decided on some sort of Savonius-related design. I would like to try building something with a shroud and maybe flat blades instead of cutting up a barrel.

There's a plethora of videos about this stuff on You Tube some of it might be a little iffy, but lots of ideas anyway. Good luck

Just came across this on youtube, I'll have to check out the rest of what he has on there.

http://www.youtube.com/user/imikewillrockyou#p/

I was looking at the clip he has of the vertical wind turbine he had on his roof (that he kept saying how surprised he was about how well it worked ) but I couldn't quite follow how he had put it together. It looked like slanted slats?

that was a neat little trick with the emergency lighting didn't know you could use paper for a wick . I wonder if you did that in a clear jar how much light it would throw? looks like quite a bit!

It was a neat trick, could be a fair bit, but I suppose it might get smoky too. I wonder what the best sort of oil would be?

I think part of the trick with the wind turbine is that the blades are shaped like airplane wings to give it some extra 'lift' in the direction of rotation (why is this red squiggly insisting I spell it aeroplane? are we in England?). Not sure either about why so many little ones instead of fewer bigger ones. I suppose it might be something to try to just cut slots down the side of a barrel and bend out bits (I'm not explaining this well, am I?) to maybe get the same effect.

you explained it very well I wonder if it's more efficient having a lot of little vanes instead of just two big ones. Part of the problem is always the loss of efficiency when the wind has to deal with the "wrong side" of the barrel as it turns..

As far as the light is concerned, it reminded me of an article I saw somewhere about the lights that women used to use to see when making lace...it's a wonder any of them managed to get past 40 without being stone cold blind!