Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
For testing purposes could I take a plug apart and use what is in that?
I have loads of AC - DC plug transformers that I use for many things for example my modem or for my laptop. I know the voltage will be lower coming from my stepper but should it still transform it down to DC? Maybe not as efficient.
I am currently printing a smaller version of a wind turbine for testing but cannot get my head around this electronic bit of it.
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Ben
You will struggle to generate more than 12V with the steppers. A simple pair of bridge rectifiers (one per cable pair) will suffice to give you a reading on a multimeter.
A bridge rectifier is a simple arrangement of 4 diodes. A diode will let current pass in one direction only.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
I had a bit of time to complete the circuit yesterday since it was my daughters first day of school and I took the day off. It works really well, my only concern is the buck converter I used can only take up to 28V of input, which is almost exactly what I was getting when I spun the motor with a electric drill on high speed. I'm not sure if the wind turbine can come close to spinning the motor this fast, but I ordered some more buck converters today which can input up to 40V, so I might switch out the one I'm using now when the new ones arrive.
If I bypass the batteries and just spin the motor with my fingers the LED's light up very easily for a short time, so it seems the stepper can provide plenty of juice to power 4 LED's without too much effort. Here is an photo of it and me covering up the LDR. If anyone is interested I can put up my updated fritzing diagram for scrutiny since I'm sure I could have improved some things (like using ones resistor for the 4 LED's instead of 4 33ohm resistors).
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Hi Damian
That's brilliant, well done. Not sure you will get the same voltage with propellers and you may need to use a reduction gear to drive the motor.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Thanks for all the help Peter, now the fun part begins trying to 3D print a vertical access wind turbine. I'll probably use one of thingiverse and modify it for the parts I have available. I'll have to create a water proof enclosure for the electronics as well, might 3D print some kind of case for that as well.
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Damian
Pleasure. It's been a few years (40+) since I qualified as an electronics engineer, so I am a tad rusty... (What's and integrated circuit??? 😉 )
Been trying to get back into it recently, but I can't find the time.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Haha, not enough time, story of my life as well 😀 I can't wait until I retire so I can bury myself in my hobbies. Sadly I'm only 39 and have two young kids who won't leave me alone for more then a 10 minute span 😥
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
I have so far made a 50% version of a turbine and all looks pretty good. I wanted to check it would print before going full scale as it is still fairly large.
I will then look at the bit I am dreading... The electrical bits. 😕
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Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Looking good Ben!
What material are you using for the turbine? I still haven't decided what I should be printing it in since it's going outdoors. I'm leaning towards PLA at this point, with maybe some paint and sealant on it after to protect it.
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
I went for ABS as its good with the UV rays. Hopefully that will also stop it becoming brittle over time.
I had a reel of crap colour I wanted to use up. It printed well and easily. Spins really well. The blades are fully adjustable. They are 3 parts (only fitted one part) and that is only half the available space for the blades so you can really customise it and tune it. Comes with everything for a nema 17 motor which was capable of producing 12-13V dc on this setup with the gearbox (not yet printed)
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Looking good Ben, maybe you can be the inventor of the Worlds first wind powered 3D Printer? 😆
Hook up several of these and have your own wind farm!
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
I would love to break headlines with "Prusa Research creates another world first. The worlds first Hybrid 3D Printer"
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Ben, that turbine is your design? I didn't noticed a link, that's why I'm asking. If it is, will you make it public? I'd like to do some experiments with my spare steppers too and I'm too lazy do design my own one. 😉 Thank you in advance. 🙂
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Hi David. No not mine, just not yet finished printing 😉 For all details see here, very in depth testing and got to be the best turbine design I could find without going to uni and learning aerodynamics and all that stuff which these guys bring. Download has tons of drawings too. They have done an awesome job.
Re: Generating electricity with a Prusa Stepper motor?
Little update, I designed my own VAWT from scratch for fun. Here is the first quick prototype.
After that one, I made a bigger one with thicker wings. It was printed in 6 parts and feels pretty heavy, and I had no idea if it would work at all. I glued it together yesterday and took it outside, and it barely spun at all. I thought it was a failure, so I left it outside over night. Today I walked by the window and noticed it spinning like a beast. I went outside and it wasn't even that windy so I'm not sure why it was working so much better today, probably wind direction or something. I watched it for over an hour as I washed the dishes and cleaned and it did not stop spinning, I can only imagine if I put it in a better spot like on top of the shed it would generate a lot of juice. Here's a photo of part of the print and a video of it spinning. Next step is to add gears to it and connect it to the stepper. I'm sort of hacking this thing together as I go, but I plan to properly sand the windmill, fill in any gaps the glue left, and paint it later. For the next few days the MK2 is tied up printing a T-rex 😀
