Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Cool idea:

http://www.jetsongreen.com/2007/10/wind ... .html#more

What a fabulous bit of lateral thinking...... I'd like to jam this up the opponents of renewable energies can't be efficient.....

That's really interesting. Georgia, where I live, is designated a low-wind area. Wind turbines simply don't pay off here. But a simple structure like that could be very useful.

Very interesting and very simple Dave...see there was one septic in the comments part

Love it!

like most good idea's it's very simple. cheap to, which would help make it's relatively low power output viable

Did the video work for everyone else?... Doesn't seem to like me...

worked for me

That is wonderful out-of-the-box thinking!

If more power were needed, I wonder if it would be best to make it larger or have an array of many. I'm guessing it would be cheaper to mass produce "modules" of the same size -- though I think you'd need a rectifier for each module -- unless you had some way of making sure all the belts were phased together.

I think it would be nigh impossible to ensure that the bands were in phase because of the differences in air movement from obstructions and temperature gradients. It also seems to me that the larger the band becomes, the more 2nd order effects like weight become 1st order effects.

I also wonder about magnet placement. Placing it in the middle would have a greater motion between the coils, but might be too heavy.

Seems like an array of the things would be the way to go, rectifying into phase.

I thought about the magnet in the middle too. But it might damp the flutter-- it would certainly change the resonant frequency of the belt.

There's a post in that article talking about the difference between resonance and flutter. The resonant frequency shouldn't matter, although it would certainly be altered.

I bet using piezoelectric effects or a thin film belt material could make it so that the buttons and coils could be removed and just use the belt and the side parts instead.

That might very well work. The stretching of the band back and forth would seem to pull on either point of attachment. I don't remember enough about the materials to know which method would produce more power.