Recent content by MikeShelton

We ended up changing the hand wound coils for toy motors from Radio Shack. It turned out OK. Here is the resulting project Good luck to anyone doing their science fair project. My advice: try science buddies website for a more simple project instead of trying to make your own vertical...

Yes, the radio shack red LEDs we are using require about 1.5 v to light. This is easy with the toy motor, but we can't get anywhere near that with the magnets and wire. It looks like the Radio Shack magnets are much too weak for this use. Thanks, Mike and Son

RTW69, Thanks for the advice. That makes sense. That is a better explanation than I found in the mulimeter's instructions. We are considering scrapping the coil and magnet part of this project and setting up a pulley to a little Radio Shack DC motor. I'll post pictures when we finish...

The analog meter also gives very low or zero readings.

Here is a voltmeter reading. I'm not an expert at reading these, but I think this means -0.047 volts DC. The readings jump around a lot while you spin the turbine, but this is a typical reading. I've bought an analog meter, but I haven't tried it yet.

Here is a shot showing the gap between the coil and the magnet. Looks like it is about 1 millimeter, like the directions recommend.

Here are the coils, the small ones were 190 turns of 30 gauge (AWG) magnet wire: The large one is 300 turns of 27 gauge. This is what I have now.

Here is the turbine: We used CDs instead of cardboard for the stator and rotor.

Homework Statement My son and I have built a wind turbine following the plans on: Build your own Wind Turbine Designed by Dave Mussell http://www.re-energy.ca/docs/wind-turbine-cp.pdf" . These plans were inspired by the Picoturbine: link to manufacturer and link to PDF. We used 30 AWG...