Oscar Garcia and Ali El Zaher Buendia's 3D-Printable Vertical Wind Turbine Generates Up to 100W
Using a patent-pending blade design and optional multi-stage configuration, this multi-generator turbine looks to outperform its cost.
Makers Oscar Garcia and Ali El Zaher Buendia are working on a 3D-printable upright wind turbine design, which they say can generate up to 100W: the Bi-Generator Vertical Wind Turbine.
"We are presenting a new wind turbine device," the pair explain, "that is easy to 3D print, it can be made handcraft[ed]. The main advantages are the turbine design, the simplicity of the device assembly, the multi-generator, and the price of production, that is really low. It is just required to have a 3D printer or a minimum knowledge [of] DIY for building this green energy generator apparatus project."
The turbine's design, which the pair say has Patents pending, uses a vertical orientation and a blade shape that is claimed to boost both torque and rotational speed over rival models. When configured with two motors per turbine, the design is claimed to offer up to 100W of generated power — though this depends heavily on wind speed, of course.
The design is also built to be expandable, the team says: a two-stage model, design files for which have not yet been released, uses a top stage to increase the performance of a secondary bottom stage for greater energy harvesting — and a three-stage variant is in the works.
"[The turbine is] composed [of] very few parts and it is very simple to fit and assemble it," its creators claim. "It can be disassembled and packed together to occupy less space and with its light weight it can be transported with more units for any outdoors activity as camping, sail[ing], etc., as well as it could be placed [on] the top of a house, building, or terrace or [made into] an array to cover all your domestic energy needs [by] placing an amount of units to work together as a grid."
Printable STL files for a single-stage version of the turbine have been published to Instructables along with details on the required electrical and mechanical components and its assembly; Garcia and Buendia are also preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, which will include pre-printed single- and multi-stage turbines.