MidNite Wind Turbine

[keyturbocars]

I went on YouTube to watch one of the video related to the Classic, and I stumbled across this video of MidnNite's wind turbine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QDIiBW1T70

I'm assuming if you guys posted a video, then this is not a secret project.  Is this only going to be for the military, or will it be sold to the general public?  Any more details you can share?

Edward

[Robin]

The turbine you saw is actually a Pine Ridge Products machine. MidNite did the mechanical design for this Army project under the guidance of Logan Bryce at Pine Ridge Products in Belt Montana. The turbine is designed for quick deployment in a combat environment. The blades fold up. No tools are required to get the turbine up in the air from the folded up position on a vehicle. The requirement was 4 minutes max to deploy. It must fold up to 1/8 the deployed size and must weigh no more than 45 pounds. The turbine must put out 50-100 watts in a 12MPH wind. It must use MPPT for charging. We will be a bit over on the weight, but everything else meets the spec. There was no turbine in existence that met these requirements. Logan had designed a similar turbine a few years back, but had not brought it to market. The turbine you saw in the video is the original SLA (rapid prototype plastic) sample. We actually got about 500 watts out of it before melting some of the plastic prototype parts. SLA plastic is intended for show and tell, not to be functional and structural. We had lots of fun with this until we broke it. The Army loved it. The MPPT controller and Clipper are all designed on paper and the circuit boards are totally designed. All we need now is for the Army to secure funding. The turbine and controller require lots of cast and injection molded parts. We prefer to have the Army fund the tooling as agreed upon. The turbine and controller will certainly become a commercial product. The Army encourages this as part of the SBA contract that it was awarded under. We are also working on another little piece of electronics to go with the turbine. Instead of charging batteries, it makes your utility meter spin backwards!

[keyturbocars]

Looks and sounds interesting.  Stereolithography parts are definitely not very strong.  When I worked at HP, they used to build prototype printers made out of a lot of stereolith parts and the parts definitely seemed very fragile.

Did you record the "wind speed" (fan speed) at which 500W was reached?

Edward

[boB]

Did you record the "wind speed" (fan speed) at which 500W was reached?

Edward

Dang !!  I KNOW we forgot to test something  !!

No, we didn't but we could certainly run that big fan again and find out.
boB

[keyturbocars]

Dang !!  I KNOW we forgot to test something  !!

No, we didn't but we could certainly run that big fan again and find out.
boB

Or better yet, use it like the military plans to use it.  Attach it to a vehicle, and then take it up to 100mph on I-5 and see what she produces! 

Seriously though, I wouldn't go to any extra work to fire it back up.  I was just curious.  I'm sure you guys will get the full specs on it when it gets closer to production.

Edward

[niel]

"Attach it to a vehicle, and then take it up to 100mph on I-5 and see what she produces!  Wink"

i could see the cop's expression now. 

[keyturbocars]

"Attach it to a vehicle, and then take it up to 100mph on I-5 and see what she produces!  Wink"

i could see the cop's expression now. 

"It was all in the interest of science, Officer!"