Monday 16th June 2008
On 16th June 2008, at 18:15pm PKST, Stuart Woodward said:
Generating the electricity is one problem but storing it again is another. You'd have to charge up batteries for night time use or use it to pump water for later discharge though a water wheel. You could also use the electricity to electrolyze the water to get hydrogen and oxygen gas, but that could get dangerous...
On 16th June 2008, at 18:22pm PKST, Sajjad said:
The local-made UPSs I'm using provide a couple of hours of backup at a "relatively" low price. That's because they use very large truck batteries which aren't that expensive.
Whatever the storage mechanism, the main challenge is making sure the current flows smoothly. We've often had to deal with burnt circuits and other reliability issues.
On 7th July 2008, at 16:57pm PKST, M. Akbar Durrani said:
Dear Mr. Sajjad,
You have done a good job. This is a very interesting Blog.
Well, I with a small team of professionals developing a small (cheap) wind turbine (not exactly as shown above) with everything from local market.
We are very confident that we would be successful in the trial run (basic model 400W and advance model 1000) by August/Sept.2008.
Our testing of Blades is complete and the results were excellent.
Thanking you and hope this Blog will soon become the #1 Blog.
On 13th August 2008, at 03:07am PKST, Engr Sannan said:
Assalam-o-Aleikum, I am an Engineer. Nice to know that my brothers are also working on such things. What I would like to know is that are you using car generators/alternator for 1kW or DC Motor..
On 29th August 2008, at 11:32am PKST, Sajjad said:
Best of luck Akbar. Hope you come up with a successful solution.
Sannan, a DC motor would be a good option, though I'm currently looking for a used car generator in good condition. That should be very efficient.
Home built Wind Turbine and Solar Panel
With no end in sight to the severe power shortage across the country, I was thinking about what could be done to make the darker hours easier. With the cost of generators touching the sky (not to mention the maintenance hassles, noise and air pollution and the all-time high fuel costs), other forms of energy look very attractive.
This HOWTO on building your own Wind Turbine was an interesting read and could be useful if you live in a windy area and can get your hands on a few good DC motors (or a full-fledged generator).
It just came to me that we may even be able to use one of those used kabuli car generators for this. They are readily available with most car mechanics and should be a lot cheaper than a commercial generator, though I'm unaware of their actual efficiency.
The same person also constructed a cheap solar panel system though it may be quite difficult to make use of it on a bigger scale.
I wish I had the time to thoroughly study and try out something like this. Maybe an enterprising Pakistani could take this up as a project and open up a lucrative business after ironing out the kinks.
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