Wind Turbine Specs and Constraints

3 weeks ago

These are the top five specifications for my project:

The wind turbine should look minimalist in nature with no strong presence of color to keep the color scheme as simple as possible to achieve that goal. As my components will be mostly 3D printed, this can be accomplished by using the same color for all the prints or to implement a simple but minimalistic color scheme.
The components should be designed to be easily printable to make it have higher chances of printing successfully and to be able to test parts better and more efficiently.
The wind turbine should be small enough to have parts be able to be printed on common 3D printer beds including my own Creality Ender 5 print bed which is around 8.6″ x 8.6″.
The wind turbine should be able to be assembled easily and disassembled in a similar manner to help improve the iteration process and reuse components for more builds.
The wind turbine should be able to power at least an LED when exposed to semi strong winds to prove that it can generate any sort of electricity. It will be very simple in nature to help keep the project within a good scale.

These are the top five constraints for my project:

Knowledge: This is a big constraint for the project as I am not the greatest when it comes to any projects that include any sort of electrical work but it should not be the biggest problem as it should have very simple electrical work. But, I will still need to make sure that I can wire this properly even if it is extremely simple.
Time: Time is always a big constraint with projects as there needs to be allotted time for learning how to create and finish the project and actually accomplishing these tasks. This will also include the light weighting of components in design to help decrease print times.
Beauty of the Design: This can be very challenging to accomplish because making things look good and work is way harder than just getting things to operate. As I have been trained throughout my college career to value purpose over beauty, this can be a challenge.
Size: As I am trying to limit the size of my project, it will be a challenge to try and see if it can accomplish everything I want it to. This means that I will have to maximize the space used.
Fan Blades: This is a large constraint as I have still yet to decide on methods to create some fan blades for my vertical wind turbine. I have watched some videos and there has been a lot of PVC pipes that have been cut in half to accomplish this task but I may try to 3D print my own to test how that will come out in print.

Photo Credits:
1. https://windcycle.energy/what-is-a-vawt/

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=t4NYJjSLnbQ&ab_channel=CreativeThink

3. https://newphysicist.com/diy-vertical-axis-wind-turbine/