Public Courses Autumn 2015

Over the past month we have had a good time running two really great public courses, one in London and one in Nottingham. Both courses were full and a pleasure to teach on!

London (3rd & 4th October) 1.8m 12V build

This was our second time running a course at The Hawkwood Plant Nursery (Organic Lea) in Chingford, North London. Carving blades and winding coils in the warmth of the greenhouse, surrounded by a plethora of veggie plants was a real treat and contrasted well with the cooler metal workshop opening out onto the garden which was perfect for welding practice and mixing up the smelly resin to cast the rotor and stator for the alternator.

The turbine was destined for Craig’s boat and so required a 12V output. After some investigation of multiple rectifiers we decided for simplicity to use 2 wires in each coil winding, with 63 turns in each coil. This required particular precision when winding the coils to keep them as small as possible for the casting.

Other participants included Jay, who’d previously built a wind turbine with Wind Aid in Peru and Chris who’d heard about us through Reclaim the Power. Mathilde, Kieran and Dan saw DIY renewables as part of permaculture principles and along with Zerahiah had dreams of erecting turbines in their gardens to meet their household’s electricity requirements.

We’re hoping to run another course here in April 2016 so watch this space..

Nottingham (10-11th October). 1.8m build

This was the first time we’ve done a workshop at V3 headquarters, thanks to Taz who kindly let us use the space for the weekend. Stefan came all the way from Glasgow to participate in the course and take away the turbine for use on his land. We had some quality welders and woodworkers, some of which were Nottingham Hackspace members… Tom even made a video of the casting for Darren who might also be interested in a turbine for his boat near Nottingham. Emily also joined us from Indigo Brave who currently have a 3m V3 turbine which is looking for a new home soon..