Here is an invitation from Adriann Kragten to test his design ideas and develop a pumping wind turbine project. Please note that Adriaan has never built an axial flux generator, so these instructions are not like my Recipes which are based on decades of experience, but the document is very rigorous and mathematical, and covers every theoretical detail. Adriaan has a designed many successful wind turbines based on induction motors as can be seen on his site. This is a great opportunity to work with an expert.
Adriann writes:
“Up to now, 17 public KD reports about different aspects of small windmills can be copied for free from my page on the website of Bidnetwork: http://www.bidnetwork.org/en/member/adriaankragten. The most recent report is KD 531: “Ideas about a 16-pole, 3-phase axial flux permanent magnet generator for the VIRYA-3D2 windmill using 16 neodymium magnets size 50 * 15 * 15 mm”.
In KD 531, a new idea is described how water can be pumped by a windmill. The windmill has a multi pole direct drive axial flux PM-generator and a fast running steel rotor with only two blades. The pump has a standard 3-phase asynchronous motor. For the VIRYA-3D2, the windmill has a 16-pole generator and the pump has a 0.75 kW motor. The same idea is described in report KD 529 for the bigger VIRYA-3.9 windmill which has a 22-pole generator and is meant for a pump with a 1.1 kW pump motor.
Although the multi pole generator is specially designed for connection to the 3-phase motor of a centrifugal pump, it can also be used for battery charging if it is provided with a low voltage winding and if the 3-phase current is rectified.
Public report KD 490: “Water pumping with a windmill” has been modified such that this new idea is now incorporated in chapter 5.
At this moment I have no intention to build and test a windmill with a multi-pole axial flux generator but I will support someone who is willing to test this new idea of water pumping.
Adriaan Kragten
Paul Gipe has published more good stuff on his web site recently about the ‘stuff that doesn’t work’ in the small wind industry today. It’s a breath of fresh air to read his analysis of the rip-offs and scams that bedevil the marketplace. It’s always hard to know whether to laugh or cry but it’s at least a good thing that somebody is documenting all this. The only question is whether the purchasing public will ever learn. It seems that people would much rather believe in a wonderful new vertical axis invention that produces twice as much power under a bush than believe the expert opinion of people who have been in the industry for decades.
