DIY Fiberglass Blades
First I would like to say that this is my first wind turbine blade that I had designed and completely built with the help of my good friend Tom Tom is the owner of Renagade Composites.A professional shop that produces parts for aircraft. So only with his help I was able to do this project. Thanks Tom
http://www.renagadecomposites.com
My first thought on building a blade for my wind generator was I wanted to keep the design simple, so I wanted a cup style of blade. Now I had seen somewhere on the net that people were using PVC pipe to make blades with. I thought this was a good idea except that PVC is very heavy and brittle when it is cold so I want to make it out of a different material that would not be affected by the cold like PVC. So after shooting the bull with Tom one day he suggested to make it from Carbon Fiber and Fiber Glass so this is what we came up with.
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First we started with a 9 inch steel pipe
we used pinstripe tape to use as guide lines
there are some steps missing here but basically we laid up
fiberglass over the pipe and then used aircraft grade foam sheet
then vacuum bagged it.
this is what it looked like after we pulled it from the pipe
then it was cut out and we inserted a piece of steel and used carbon fiber around the steel
Hear you see Tom laying fiber glass over the carbon fiber
then it is time to vacuum bag the blade
After a few hours we removed it from the bag and
this is what it looks like after we removed it from the 9 inch pipe
then we removed the excess with a saw and sanded the edges smooth
and added another layer of glass
sorry i don't have photos of that step
Here is the final step. we balanced the blade and then it is ready to fly.
And here it is up on the tower
the generator is an Ametek 50
this set of blades worked well with the Ametek 50
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zzz9395 | 26 Apr : 17:39
I like it ....
What are you driving with it???
replicatorman at yahoo dot ca
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