Author Archives: hugh

About hugh

I live off-grid in NW Scotland and have spent my life playing with wind turbines. I also love small hydros. Hands on renewable energy is my thing and I like to learn and to share my experiences.

Jeff Croy’s 3 metre turbine

Posted on 30/03/2013 by hugh

Jeff followed my kindle edition but used north american magnets and wire sizes based on the info in my updates.  The tower is a bit short(!) but ingenious.

Posted in construction, People | Leave a comment

The truth about Vertical Axis turbines

Posted on 12/02/2013 by hugh

Paul Gipe has put together an interesting compendium of articles about VAWTs “For whatever reason, many VAWT designers are prone to more hyperbole than most other wind turbine designers. Some claim their turbines will produce at less cost and with … Continue reading →

Posted in People, products/technical | 77 Comments

Another video of last year’s workshop on Scoraig!

Posted on 22/01/2013 by hugh

This video has just been published on Youtube.  This time it was by Kern Jamieson, the artist who did the zebra tail vane.  Thanks, Kern!

Posted in construction, courses, Scoraig, Video links | 2 Comments

Scoraig Wind Turbine Building Workshop April 2013

Posted on 20/01/2013 by hugh

I am holding a workshop from 20th to 27th April here on Scoraig.  All welcome.  No special skills required.  Accommodation is provided. Saturday 20th is a traveling day and we will meet participants off the Westerbus that leaves Inverness at … Continue reading →

Posted in construction, courses, Scoraig | 4 Comments

4200 turbine design details from COMET-ME

Posted on 09/01/2013 by hugh

Noam writes: “We are building new sets of the 4200 turbines. As you know we modified a bit the design of the frame, to suit our needs and expertise. Since we are making quite a few of them and we … Continue reading →

Posted in CometME, construction | 1 Comment

Nice power curve for 4.2 metre turbine

Posted on 09/01/2013 by hugh

I just got this data from COMET-ME It shows the power output and the rpm speed of a 4200 turbine based on my recipe, except that Noam at COMET-ME uses 20 magnets instead of 16 in the alternator (photos here). … Continue reading →

Posted in CometME, power curve data | 2 Comments

Public domain charge controller design

Posted on 09/01/2013 by hugh

Here is a link (updated February with English description) to an electronic circuit project load controller for battery voltage regulation.  It’s by Antonio Cecere, who translated my windmill plans into Italian, and the controller project is also in Italian although … Continue reading →

Posted in construction, People | 5 Comments

Video of Scoraig Workshop 2012

Posted on 30/12/2012 by hugh

Jonathan Schreiber sent me this video he made about when he came to my workshop last year.  Somehow he also manages to be in the video too 🙂 Jonathan also has a blog here. I will be teaching at more … Continue reading →

Posted in construction, courses, ferrite magnets, People, Video links | 6 Comments

3-phase stator visualisation

Posted on 24/12/2012 by hugh

Thanks to Jesse Salisbury for this nice graphic visualisation of the relative movement of magnets and coils in an axial flux 3-phase design using 12 magnets on each rotor and 9 coils between them.  This is the basic layout for … Continue reading →

Posted in construction | 61 Comments

Power curve measurements on Scoraig

Posted on 23/12/2012 by hugh

Together with Jon Sumanik-Leary (E-Futures PhD Student at University of Sheffield) we’ve been measuring the power/windspeed performance of some of the turbines on Scoraig.  The results aren’t always what I expect but they are interesting.  There’s an article about it … Continue reading →

Posted in People, products/technical, Scoraig | 2 Comments