On Wednesday evening I took Doris B up to Green Ridge and assembled it. The wind speed was roughly 5 - 7 m/s. Whilst held aloft, the rotor was 2.5m above the ground, it turned smoothly and quietly, which was pleasing, an earlier version had struggled to turn at 10 m/s, so progress is being made. The next step is understand the relationship between the rotor and the generator, The speed of this type or rotor is proportional to the wind speed and it is important that the rotor turns fast enough for the generator to produce a useful output. On returning home I ordered some bridge rectifiers and an Arduino Nano. The first use of these will be to obtain a power curve for the generator.
My favourite place for messing with this stuff is on the beach at Aldrington, when the wind is from the SW there is little turbulence. Most of the other people are beach fishermen and we occasionally swap observations on the state of the sea. There was a curious incident at Green Ridge, a dog walker scooped up his spaniel, carried it over to my rucksack and let the dog have a good sniff, then walked off carrying the dog, I said "good evening" politely.
