Goals:
– improvement of rotation easiness of the dynamo by oiling with WD-40
– improvement of the dynamo sensitivity to winds by widening of the blades’ effective area
– checking of the dynamo voltages and currents
– activation of logging mechanism to be able to analyse the dynamo behavior knowing wind speed and direction at relevant moments
Report:
– the dynamo mechanism was oiled with WD-40. This improved rotation easiness, but not too much
– blades were expanded by gluing (epoxy glue) of additional 20×13 plastic plates as is shown below. Together with the oiling this gave some rotations during more ore less strong wind-blow. This still be rotating not too impressively fast and needs pretty strong wind to do so, thus the work on making it rotating easier should be continued, I suppose.
– Wires were attached to the dynamo and connected to our RPi-based anemometer’s A2D. This will allow to test the supplied voltages.
– By logging of the measured voltages at the work-station side (the side which accepts the anemometer reports) it will be possible to judge how long the dynamo was rotating, how strong was the wind then and what were the voltages provided.
– According to the logs, the device was turning and gave some power. Below are two graphs. Blue – wind speed in m/sec and the red – generated volts average value for several measurements within a second.
– Unfortunately the mechanical construction didn’t suffer those strong winds that blew this time. Probably the vibrations and the water penetrated down the plastic part of vice’s fastening mechanism served a bad service this time. Thus the construction is not existing anymore 🙂 The proof may be seem below. All those remaining were found few meters aside of our building and not straight down our window, as this might be expected in non-windy weather. This fact is an evidence of that strong wind blow which taken this pretty heavy device off our window-sill and dropped it in about 20 meters from it. It’s needed to say our apartment is at 15-en floor and that specific window with devices on it turns to the side of ravine (as may be seen from earlier pictures)
