Ok, it has been a while since I worked on the wind turbine because the workshop has been fragin cold!!!! I am going to need to insulate and heat the garage for sure, otherwise I won’t be able to use the shop for a couple months out of the year. Anyway, now that I am finished with the welding of the frame and tail it is time to cast the stator and rotors to make the alternator. I have spent the last weekend or two building molds, jigs, etc for building the alternator and ordering the materials I will need for these steps.
I build the coiled winder below so I can make 9 consistent looking copper coils. I used this same coil winder design at the sustainable living festival workshop and it worked great.
I also build the birch plywood mold for casting the stator in. It was a bit of work but turned out good I think. It is sanded and coated with a few coats of boiled linseed oil.
I also build a little template for laying out the copper coils just like they recommend in the Homebrew Wind Power book. This just helps to get the winding laid out evenly. You actually glue and solder all the coils together on this template and then move them over as one unit to the stator mold above for casting.
I also ordered all the materials I will need to cast the resin parts. I ordered plenty of vinyl ester resin and a filler called ATH, which is supposed to disparate heat in the stator and lower the cost since the resin is relatively expensive. I also ordered some 1/4 inch fiberglass strand filler, which should strengthen the stator. You can see pictures of all these below. Oh yeah, I also ordered mold release wax for rubbing on the mold and some fiberglass mat for reinforcing the stator.
I will probably do the rotor castings at the same time as the stator, but I need to figure out how I want to do them. I am not going to build the wood molds that they do in the book. I am going to either band the rotors with stainless steel or just use tape to damn up the edge of the rotors for casting like you see below. Oh yeah, I made a couple wooden islands pieces that sit in the middle of the rotors like you see below. You add a bead of caulk under the island and press it in place. This will make since when I actually do the casting.
Anyway, enough for today.