Turn a ceiling fan into a wind turbine generator?!

Hey, have you ever wondered if a

ceiling

fan can be

turn

ed into winter wine? I have one left over, so let's figure out there are a couple of reasons why I think it's interesting to use a

ceiling

fan because it has a large low rpm stator. gears or belts has a strong shaft and strong ball bearings no brushes better wings can pass tests easily and can often be found free in the trash well, the first thing to do is open it and remove all the things that we don't need it, start with three wires, you probably won't need any of them, these three go through the motor slot to the control box on the other side, oh that's tough, the control box is useless for this project so take it all out first .

I had three cables on one side now we have four different ones on the other side. Look how well it spins. It seems like a solid foundation for a

wind

turbine

, but the main reason this project is a bad idea is that. It is an induction motor, it will not generate electricity when you

turn

it, therefore we have to add magnets. Yes, I thought it would be easy, so next you need to open the motor core. Here you see how I opened mine. Yours may be different. Opening the motor was quite difficult, but we found this handy trick: attach one side to a wooden board with a hole and then you can easily remove the other part without causing damage.

All right, Stan, it's open. This half contains the rotating part of the induction motor. We don't need this part because we are going to place magnets there instead and here is our first view of the stator and its coils. It's quite impressive and complicated. This is the stationary part of the motor, it contains two coils and has a really strange shape. Iron stator as a motor, it can work at 3 speeds and in two directions, that's why it is so complicated. We are going to simplify it by using only the large coils. Now how does this work?

I will ignore the internal coils when running an electric motor. Current runs through the copper wire. The two iron parts inside a coil become a magnetic north or south pole depending on the direction of the current. The direction of the coil wire is alternating and the electric current also alternates resulting in an alternating pattern of poles we are converting this induction motor into a

generator

therefore we need as many magnets as coils at first we use cheap magnets only to see if this strange stator would work. We have four cables, both for the internal coils. We do not use, make sure these ends do not touch as it will be like having a strong magnetic break on your

generator

.

The two wires coming from the large coils will deliver AC alternating current. Turning the generator slowly is already enough to lie a little. LED, but be careful because turning it any faster will turn off the LEDs. Now that we know that this strange stator can produce electricity, we should make a better router because these loose magnets are weak and the air gap is huge and how to improve the stator. The internal coils can be a magnetic drive. I'm not sure, but I love removing the unnecessary and we sold thicker copper wire to the ends of the coil better than the flimsy original wire.

This is the improved generator. It now contains strong magnets and the air gap is reduced, but actually there are still many ways to improve this, as I will explain at the end of this video, the generator spins well, not too much magnetic Coggan and look what happens when you make a shortcut As soon as two wires touch the rotor it stops spinning, that's a good sign, current is flowing. Lenz's law at work. The conversion from induction motor to generator has been successful. It may not be the best generator ever, but with a little twist, this lab conditioned starts to shine.

When you put the two shells together again, you get the generator. body more strength it's time to put some wings on it. I have some old r/c helicopter blades that can function as a real weatherproof airfoil with the helicopter blades attached, it really starts to look like a

wind

turbine

, although this experiment is far from it. finished because don't expect to charge your phone with this electricity, using this electricity directly from the source will kill your phone, a phone needs a constant 5 volts DC, while this generator produces an unstable AC current, the complete opposite of what you want now , as we can?

Convert this useless and almost random electricity into the useful direct current of 5, 12 or 24 volts DC. First we need to know what we have, we know we have an AC current. Measuring AC at no load gives up to about fifty volts, which is very useful with a load. connected, the voltage will be lower. The first thing you need to do is connect a full bridge rectifier containing four diodes that transform AC to post DC. By attaching a small LED panel to it and turning a rotor very slowly, you can see the pulsating DC current spinning. The faster rod will produce two high voltages and turn off the LEDs, so don't do that, placing a capacitor on the DC output of the rectifier is like placing a large room for the electrons to accumulate, which will result in a more constant flow towards the LEDs.

See, it's more stable, but the voltage level is still full scale between the DC output of the rectifier and the LEDs. We put in a DC to DC converter that takes any voltage up to about 30 volts and brings it to the level you have. selected here, we will set it to output almost 3 volts, the DC output is now stable and quite safe to use. This DC to DC converter gives you a couple of options to set the output voltage to limit the output current and I think it's a way to set a minimum voltage input, whatever the USB needs to stabilize 5 volts DC, that and the other levels can be configured with a small screwdriver, although the electrical system works, we're not done yet, there are a lot of things I don't like about the build so far. hole in the center of the soft iron which reduces the magnetic force the air gap is still too large the copper magnetic wire is very thin giving a lot of resistance the magnetic wire is welded so that it does not touch the sides of the iron core losing the magnetic contact the magnets are stuck to the wood instead of iron all these problems reduce the potential output of this generator the question is what can we fix and is it worth doing and if you have anything useful to add write it in the comments below here It is where the unwanted hole in the ironies is probably only there to give access to the machine that wants the internal coils.

We can fill the holes with rolled soft iron and by doing so we will get a stronger magnetic force to work on a copper magnet. wire this is soft laminated Aaron a good source for it our old transformers like this we glued the R on the stator it's messy but now the iron can't move towards the magnets this thin wire and how it's not in contact with all sides of the core iron, watch this space, it would be best to rewire the stator with thicker wire, but that is expensive and labor intensive. I'm not going to do that, so after adding the extra iron, we put it back together this time. in a more compact way this bolt locks the shaft and this tube protects the cable the extra soft iron improves the magnetic force and power output by turning the generator a little slowly with just one finger turn on all the LEDs now for the next part I can use some help, some good suggestions in the comments please, this is my first time working with electronics.

I know how to upgrade the generator, but not the electronics, so I guess my collection of parts is not efficient or safe when the generator spins too fast, but here it is. What I got, the AC from the generator goes to the full grain rectifier at the DC output of the rectifier is a capacitor that can handle up to 50 volts if the bulb goes above 50, there is a problem with the capacitor, the current goes to through a linear voltage regulator that does not allow more than 24 volts to pass, which is close to the maximum that the DC to DC converter can handle this input when the voltage is greater than 24, the linear voltage regulator will waste energy on heat and when the input It's too much of everything is turned off just for safety, then a simple DC to DC converter that displays the input voltage and can efficiently convert any voltage between 6 and 24 volts into a safe constant voltage of 5 volts DC.

Now we use a generator too quickly on purpose to show how. the linear voltage regulator will turn off by itself, it is not broken, it just needs to cool down next and at the end and use the output of the dc to dc converter easy to use with power meter with a small LED light, you can see what the output is like 5 volts constant if there is enough input power time to reach a conclusion. Of course, I wanted to finish this video outside next to a finished wind turbine, but I decided not to continue with this generator because the power output is very disappointing and I understand why.

Basically I created a very poor quality generator, so yes, a wind turbine fan. Roof can be converted into a wind turbine, but I don't recommend it even if you do a better job than me because there are better alternatives. The best alternative number one is to simply use a brushless motor that contains magnets here are some examples one of a quadcopter one of an electric bicycle and one of a hoverboard best alternative number two is to build a generator from scratch this is more fun and requires a lot work but the result may be better than building on a poor quality ceiling fan.

I look forward to reading your comments and I hope some of you can make a better version of the ceiling fan generator after learning from my first one, okay, I have a good time doing something, see you.