The Turbine

                    

So far we have been working exclusively with the a design developed by Hugh Piggott of Scoraig Wind. We build his 'axial flux' turbines.

The rotor consists of 3 aerofoil blades. The blades are hand-carved from straight grained softwood, such as pitch pine.

The alternator is hand-built (as opposed to using a reclaimed alternator) using permanent magnets and hand wound copper coils. The coils are cast in glass reinforced epoxy resin to form a stator. The permanent magnets are set on two discs either side, in front of and behind the stator.

We have so far built turbines based on this design which have rotors diameters of 1.8m, 2.4m, 3m and 3.6m. The alternators that we have built are approximately rated at 100W, 500W and 1kW continuous power output.

The rotor and alternator are attached to a welded steel mounting which sits on top of the tower.

The complete plans for the design are available from Hugh's website - http://www.scoraigwind.co.uk/