Debate to action climate change event

Today we took the wind turbine to the debate to action event on climate change at city hall Cardiff. We made an interactive exhibit using the wind turbine generator with a crank handle to power 5 halogen lights a radio, a bubble machine and a motor. A feat that saw us up until 3 the night before soldering away in Suneils garage.

The halogen lights were turned on and off sequentially at different voltages programmed by an Arduino. Essentially a modification of the dump load controller using an Arduino to control the switching voltages instead of the opamps. We've given it the name Adaptive Load/Energy Controller:


Here's a video of the setup in action:

Adaptive load controller from Trystan Lea on Vimeo.

The exibit seemed to be a great sucess both because the technical side came together in time and worked! and because the kids seemed pretty interested in it and got involved and so it was a great day!


Now that we have the adaptive load controller built it can be used for testing the DC current sensing circuit and can be used with the turbine erected.

A start on DC current sensing for the wind turbine

Made a start on measuring the current produced by the wind turbine, read about it on the energy monitor blog here:

http://openenergymonitor.blogspot.com/2009/06/start-on-dc-current-sensing.html

Energy Monitoring

I have been working recently on a project to build an open source/design energy monitor. Have a look at the site:

http://openenergymonitor.org

At the moment it measures AC power however I'm currently working on DC power measurement for use with the wind turbine. I've got myself a big beefy shunt and am now working on the electronics. Il post up the information once I have that done.

Biodiversity Event - Pictures

Here are some pictures of the North Wales turbine up at the event in Bala. The building behind is Cywain the new rural heritage centre.

Biodiversity Event - Bala North Wales

The turbine will be at the Biodiversity Event in Bala North Wales this weekend from Friday the 12th until Sunday the 14th. If your in the area, come along. Have a look here for more information

There will be a detailed up date soon

Just to update on the project.

Since January there has been a lot of progress on the turbine, the wind tunnel test went well, the bristol guys got some good data. The tower has also been built and we had a successful real wind test a few weeks ago. Im going to update the blog soon about it all in detail here's a picture of it though in action in the meantime:

Wind turbine is in Bristol

The wind turbine is in Bristol, where Jo Read and fellow water pump experts will be testing how our wind turbine performs when connected to their water pump system.

There will be a chance to go and see it at some point in the next few weeks in the wind tunnel, get in touch if your interested!