HA-1 To HA-3
HA-2 Sturmey Archer Dynohub Turbine
The Early Days
HA-1
It all began with a bicycle Dynamo, and a pair of aluminium blades, attached to a brush shaft cobbled together by myself and held aloft by my youngest son Gavin. Later to be named as HA-1 it lit a bulb and the bug had got me. Sorry no pictures were ever taken.
HA-2
It was very soon followed by a Sturmey Archer bicycle Dynohub HA-2 but this time with multiple alloy blades mounted on an old school BMX Chainwheel power disc, with a bicycle frame and forks adopted as a yaw mechanism. When the wind blew we had a light at the back door albeit not a very bright one. A lot was learnt from this one, including how to make rectifiers to convert AC to DC voltage, Different blade configurations were tried, 3 blade, 5 blade, fat ones and skinny ones. varying degrees of twist were experimented with until the optimum was reached. Surprisingly it's still there but the hub has seized up (lack of servicing)
I discovered fairly quickly that alloy blades had a very short lifespan as metal fatigue kicked in fairly quickly. Gyroscopic forces are very destructive and combined with nature give any wind turbine a severe battering.
HA-1
It all began with a bicycle Dynamo, and a pair of aluminium blades, attached to a brush shaft cobbled together by myself and held aloft by my youngest son Gavin. Later to be named as HA-1 it lit a bulb and the bug had got me. Sorry no pictures were ever taken.
HA-2
It was very soon followed by a Sturmey Archer bicycle Dynohub HA-2 but this time with multiple alloy blades mounted on an old school BMX Chainwheel power disc, with a bicycle frame and forks adopted as a yaw mechanism. When the wind blew we had a light at the back door albeit not a very bright one. A lot was learnt from this one, including how to make rectifiers to convert AC to DC voltage, Different blade configurations were tried, 3 blade, 5 blade, fat ones and skinny ones. varying degrees of twist were experimented with until the optimum was reached. Surprisingly it's still there but the hub has seized up (lack of servicing)
I discovered fairly quickly that alloy blades had a very short lifespan as metal fatigue kicked in fairly quickly. Gyroscopic forces are very destructive and combined with nature give any wind turbine a severe battering.
HA-3
On a trip to Armagh I managed to acquire a 24v dynamo off an old Perkins engine that had been used to power a standby generator. The dynamo field windings were reconfigured to 12v for a lower cut in speed and a 6' single wooden blade was carved, in an attempt to gain higher revs and more output. Wooden blades became the norm and everything from then on is based on our own carved wooden blades.
HA-3 must take the prize as the worst turbine we ever made not to mention a lethal weapon. Unfortunately like HA-1 no pictures of HA-3 have been found.
HA-3 must take the prize as the worst turbine we ever made not to mention a lethal weapon. Unfortunately like HA-1 no pictures of HA-3 have been found.