Building a snap-fit 400W machined-plastic alternator for wind-turbine

kostas-lagogiannis

Kostas Lagogiannis wrote 05/01/2022 at 12:04 • 0 likes • 2 min read • Like

The world has began to move towards home-energy storage solutions that can partly offset your power bills and charge your electric vehicle. Solar panels have been paired with electric-storage solutions. Solar-panels , however, *rely on large-scale silicon production plants* and therefore consumers and the cost of power production is heavily reliant on these production lines and silicon markets.

However small scale wind-power generation can be made home-grown, based on simple designs that can be easily assembled. By utilizing ubiquitous recyclable materials, such as ABS plastic, and machining automation which is now widely available, we have began to explore the idea of building a low-cost alternator.
This alternator should be tuned towards a wind-turbine application.

The main aim is to design a turbine that can be manufactured out of cutting plastic-sheets, easily assembled and low-cost (<250 euros) so anyone can laser or CNC cut their own. The pictures below show 3D renderings of our design idea of a single rotor and dual-stator (3-phase 9-coils each), made out of perspex (acrylic plastic).

Diameter of the design is such so the parts can be cut-out of A3 plastic sheets. This particular size makes the design suitable for constructing with the abundantly available CNC or laser cutters of A3 size.

Our design aim is to achieve simplicity in construction & assembly, beauty and an acceptable efficiency (output/cost) ratio. Further, due to the nature of this open-design project we aspire that this project will generate community driven revisions to improve the initial design. At this stage, we have finished designing a prototype and we are about to build it.

Our efforts align with those who want to empower the world from the bottom-up, join us on:

Plastic Alternator Project Page

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Building a plastic 3-phase alternator for wind-turbine

10/20/2014 at 12:39 • 0 comments

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