I am quite new, lets say green at this whole electrical game. Now that you know that, I have built a mini wind turbine that is powering a salvaged dc motor from a Kodak printer, and a green LED attached to the wires of the motor. The motor will turn on the led with a certain thrust of my fingers or if I roll the motors gear on the floor it will power the led, but wont turn the led on with a normal rotation of wind. I have a positive feeling that one of you could help me and I was wondering if there was anything I could run in between the dc motor and LED to keep a more constant flow of electricity rather than needing a high initial thrust. the led is powered by the other smaller motors I salvaged as well and this dc motor is about twice their size so I know there is more than enough potential to figure this out. Thanks to anyone of assistance. :)
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\$\begingroup\$ When your motor has a high mechanical cogging torque, there is nothing you can do about this electrically. You have to use a gear which overturns this torque with the wind you want to harness. \$\endgroup\$– JankaCommented Mar 18, 2017 at 12:53
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\$\begingroup\$ thank you for the reply I really appreciate it. so in that sense, do you think I should go with a gear mechanism or maybe one of the smaller dc motors, the smallest one I have will power it and it spins easier as well. and if I do go with the gears, how could I set it up? Large gear to the small gear that is attached to the dc motor? \$\endgroup\$– CrackInTheBoxCommented Mar 18, 2017 at 12:59
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\$\begingroup\$ Think about the wind wheel first. The more blades it has, the easier it will move in a faint wind. For your hobbyist purposes, a simple westernmill wheel will give best results. \$\endgroup\$– JankaCommented Mar 18, 2017 at 13:13
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\$\begingroup\$ You need a small gear on the turbine to a large gear on the motor. So many turns of the windmill will turn fewer turns of the motor. Whether the turn rate is enough for your load will depend on the size of the windmill, it's wind catching efficiency, and the speed of the wind of course. \$\endgroup\$– Trevor_GCommented Mar 18, 2017 at 18:09
1 Answer
If you want to know how it should be done.
I have done something similar but with 4 100 Watt solar panels.
I use lead acid batteries. You could use NiCd batteries. I say NiCd because they can handle more abuse than any other battery beside lead acid. And lead acid is too high a voltage for this project.
You need to harvest the energy from the wind turbine. Then use that energy to charge the battery. You would use a boost-buck regulator to charge the battery.
You then connect the LED to the battery through a current regulator.
The image below shows how I did it, bigger scale but the same approach.
Mine has a little extra. I also have a power supply that will power my LEDs when the solar panels and batteries cannot. The OR Diode controller switches automatically depending on if the solar power voltage is higher than the power supply.
The MPPT, Maximum Power Point Tracking Charge Controller charges the batteries from the solar panel as long as the panel has some energy to contribute. The panel voltage ranges for zero to about 80 volts at typically 5 Amp.
Perhaps if you attach a more efficient propeller blade to the motor you will get more out of your wind turbine.
So you just need a boost-buck battery chargfers, a battry, and a current regulator for the battery to power the LED.
