16 foot VP-1

A sixteen foot variable pitch experimental windmill.

This machine was built from April 2004 to November 2004 with lots of tweaking afterwards.

mandatory disclaimer:

This machine is experimental in nature, and a fairly complex device.

As such I do not recommend that you build it or pronounce it fit for any purpose whatsoever, I can not be held responsible in any way if you follow these instructions and you end up hurting yourself, cause property damage or kill someone. All of the above are very realistic possibilities if you build this machine and it fails for some reason. This is a HEAVY piece of rotating machinery that carries enough punch to launch pieces of it very very long distances.

be warned...

The original goal for this machine was to produce 2.4 KW at about 300 RPM, but in actual use we only got about half that so far. Not bad, but not quite what we intended.

In spite of that I would call this machine a success. The feathering system worked (after some initial troubles), and it has survived at least one pretty bad storm without being shut down.

We learned an awful lot from building this machine, and if I were to make another one like this there would not be that many changes, see the notes with the individual parts where applicable.

Once again:

Building this machine is dangerous, will take you a long time and is expensive. If your goal is to reduce your electricity bill do NOT BUILD THIS MACHINE. It is an experimental pre-prototype of something that one day may be fit for general consumption but right now it definitely isn't. These pages serve as a 'live' documenation feature of this project and as such you are more than welcome to comment.

The actual construction of this prototype was chronicled in my diary on fieldlines http://www.fieldlines.com/user/jacquesm/diary where you can read all about the hits & misses as they happened.

If you are interested in renewable energy I highly recomend that you join fieldlines and become an active contributor / member of that site, I don't know where I would be without having done just that a few months ago. Also on fieldlines you will find designs of windmills that are cheaper and easier to construct than this machine here.