My new plans for making a 2 metre diameter wind turbine using the more durable ferrite magnets are now available in hard copy form by post from me. It’s the same as the ebook version but printed in 2 columns in a 52 page book.
The Hungarian Translation is now available on Scribd as a pdf file.
For other translations and ebooks see this link.
Thursday, 31 July 2014 at 10:00 – Sunday, 3 August 2014 at 18:00
Bicester, United Kingdom with V3 Power
“In this 4-day course we collectively build a 1.8m rotor diameter 300W wind turbine from scratch, in a community workshop..
Participants will:
– Develop practical skills such as welding, woodwork, electronics and working with resin.
– Develop knowledge of the theoretical aspects of wind energy, aerodynamics and alternator theory.
– Experience working in a team.
– Have fun!
On the Sunday afternoon, we will aim to practice setting up the completed wind turbine temporarily at a local site”
My Wind Turbine Recipe Book comes in two editions: Metric and “English Units” (also known as “Inches” or “North American” edition). I had to publish the English units edition because the 46x30x10mm magnets, and the metric wire sizes that I normally use are not available in the USA. In America generally you will find that Inches prevail, and also the rather limited range of AWG wire sizes. The English Units edition is based on 2″ x 1″ x 1/2″ neo magnets.
The English units edition is not a simple conversion of the sizes into inches and AWG etc. It is a subtly different set of designs that works with these subtly different magnet and wire sizes. My advice is not to mix the two books although the result will kind of work if you do. Choose one system and follow the recipe for that.
Up to now the English Units edition has only been available in hard copy direct from me and from other outlets in America. Now for the first time I have published it (in fully updated form for 2014) as an ebook (epub and mobi files etc) via Smashwords. In due course it will appear at all ebook stores, Amazon Kindle, Apple, Kobo, scribd, etc… For now you can buy it directly from Smashwords, here.
The $9.99 cost is a little higher than the cost of the 2010 kindle metric edition, but for North American readers I would say it is well worth the difference. Similarly the 2013 metric edition is a better idea than the older 2010 Kindle one, although this 2013 is only available in pdf for now.
| Book title | Hard copy | ebook |
| Wind Turbine Recipe Metric | 2013 | 2013 pdf |
| Wind Turbine Recipe Inches | 2012 | 2014 all |
| 2F construction manual | 2014 all | |
| Windpower Workshop | 2011 | |
| Scrapyard Windpower Realities (classic) | 1992 all |
New performance data
is available from field tests in Holland showing the 1.8 metre diameter turbine producing close to the predicted energy at a 4.8 m/s average windspeed. This turbine is grid-tied using a Mastervolt inverter protected by LDR circuits.
Measured energy production versus the tabulated predictions in my book.
A similar test 
had already been done on the 2.4 metre diameter turbine on the same site, although windspeeds were a bit lower.
“I love Windpower” is a charity based in Holland with operations in Mali, Tanzania, Malawi, Brazil and Mexico.
They “Educate people in developing countries in small-scale wind energy and in running a business to manufacture, install, sell and maintain small wind turbines.”
During the last weeks I have designed a new water pumping windmill, the VIRYA-3S.
This 
windmill makes use of a direct drive 34-pole PM-generator and is primary meant to be coupled to the 3-phase asynchronous motor of a small centrifugal pump. However, the windmill can also be used for battery charging if the generator is provided with a low voltage winding rectified in star. The 34-pole generator is described in my free public report KD 560. A provisional folder of the VIRYA-3S windmill is also made. Both documents can be copied from my page on the website of Bidnetwork: http://www.bidnetwork.org/en/member/adriaankragten . An overview of four different ways how water can be pumped by a windmill is given in my free public report KD 490. The option with an electrical transmission is described in chapter 5. A prototype of the VIRYA-3S will be built by an Indian company.
Adriaan Kragten”
Over the last couple of years I have been building some ferrite magnet alternators. This is partly due to the sharp increase in neo magnet pricing a few years back and also the problems I have seen with neo magnets corroding. Ferrite magnets absolutely cannot corrode and the old ferrite alternator machines that I built 10-15 years back have not had problems with their magnet rotors.
I have focused on 2 metre and 3 metre blade diameters for the ferrite projects that I have done recently, and I call them 2F and 3F for short. I have good performance data from a 2F machine here on Scoraig, and it’s efficiency has been great whilst it has also completed 18 months of service without any teething troubles at all.
It has taken me a while to finalise my documentation of the 2F design but I have now uploaded an ebook to Smashwords, and hope that in time they will distribute it to Amazon etc. Meantime you can buy it in any digital format you like directly from Smashwords.
I plan to also print some paper copies and offer them for sale in due course.
I apologise for not giving this information away for free. Enterprising readers will presumably find a way to steal it anyway. But bear in mind if/when you do this that I have put untold hours of loving work into preparing this document. Hours that I could have spent doing something rather better paid. I have received abusive messages saying I should not be charging money for this, but given that the price of the book is less than almost any item in the list of materials you will need to build it, I feel that my pricing is not unreasonable.
Have fun! Hugh
Here is a paper 
describing how they measured the power curve of one of my early-design turbines in Nicaragua. They clarify the impact of various parameters such as generator heating, battery voltage, controller settings, furling system and anemometer
position.
The above chart is an example of the sort of data you can sometimes see and the paper explains how to clean it up.
Dear Hugh,
About a year ago we have had contact about the inverter choice for the 4200 project. The Ginlong inverter is doing a great job so far. The turbine has produced over 1000kwh after about 4 months on a 5m/s site. The looks of the turbine seem in great balance with in the landscape. In the attachment you can find some photos. We are editing a movie about the construction process.
