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1. Intro to all Wing’d Mills
Suppose you want to pump water or air far from the
grid. To use steady but light winds needs a ton of multiblade
windpump and a crane to put it 30 feet up. Consider instead our
uniblade Wing’d pump of much lower weight. You solo can install
it to pump much more in soft winds at half the cost.
Our
wingblade oscillates about a low pivot, to sweep a large and high
sector of wind without the cost and danger of the fanmill’s tall
tower. Its low bearings are much easier and safer to lubricate. A 2 knot gust starts our flutter
with the tailheavy wing flipping from highest to lowest
. But here the 15 knots of wind is damping the flip in
half, safely limiting the wing's lift. Higher winds damp
the flip, and so any oscillation to zero. Thus the wing is feathered
and safe in this 40 knot storm. But to avoid too much drag and
rpm, a fanmill needs extra mechanisms to yaw and brake it sideways to
a gale. A Wing’d Mill can be stopped at anytime by just pulling the wire to
the red lever to null the wing flip. Then this frame swings down to
lock the pendulum for climbing to inspect and grease its
bearings. Any overswing of the pendulum also tensions the wire to
reduce the wing flip, and so the next swing,
Should the pump valves fail, and our wing try
to swing even farther, the yellow latch catches and holds it
safe. This signals for miles to fix the pump. Instead a rotor
just keeps on cranking a broken pump, fooling the farmer and wearing
away. When a hurricane with its flying debris is forecast, remove some
counterweight, disconnect the winch and lever, and overswing the
pendulum to remove the wing easily by hand from ground level. The bare
latched pendulum then serves as a gin pole, for raising and lowering
our low well tower with only a hand cablepuller.
A rotor has a fixed crank and pump
stroke: too long for too big a peak torque to start against in light
winds; but once started by a strong enough wind, too short to
capture the most of its power. Annually a fanmill can only
usefully pump just 1/10 of the ideal windmill work on a cubic and
uniform rotary load. The oscillating uniblade is a much better match
of the ever-varying wind to single-acting pumps against fixed
pressure. The pump stroke of our winch with its spiral
coils, varies strongly with almost the cube of the swing, not
loading a starting swing in only 2 knots, but still absorbing all the
wind-power swept in a big swing in a good wind. Wing’d stands for Wind
Wing Winding.
Comparing pumped Watts versus windspeed, the
Wing’d Mills pump twice as much in light winds as the Aermotor multiblade
to reduce the size and big extra cost of a sealed reservoir for potable
water. Pumping air to high pressure usefully stores 75% of the energy much
more cheaply, but increases the peak torque block to a fanmill starting. A
scrap motorcycle engine can smoothly compress to 130 psi, when its
chain is pulled by our winch, its clutch converted to a
ratchet. and its piston extended to push and pull the unsealed rods of
opposed pistons in staged, intercooled cylinders. An alternator can be
directly mounted on the crankshaft open end, to charge batteries
doubling as counterweight. See the headlamp glow with each 12v
charging pulse.
For more voltage and side power, mount a ring
gear on the winch shaft and its ratchet starterpinion on the
alternator, again sensing rpm with a pickup coil to turn the field
on. This add-on can be homemade for a fifth of the cost of a separate
windcharger or solar panel. Solar-electric pumping is far too
expensive at $70/pumped watt for more than nominal duty. Whilst the
Wing’d Mills pump enough to be used for trickle or furrow irrigation of a
small farm.
Nothing solar: panels, submersible
motors or rotary pumps can be made by artisans. But the Wing’d Mill is
simple and cheap to produce. The wing's wood frame is a strong 40
pound truss of light and durable western red cedar. The woven
polyethyelene fabric is wrapped around it, stapled at the trailing
edge, and heat shrunk. With a coat of aluminum paint rolled
on, this very cheap cover will last about 5 years in the sun.
The pendulum axle is a low cost threaded pipe with
used truck bearings. The counterweight can be concrete, or a
steel box filled with sand. The tailvanes which yaw the wing and
pendulum into the wind are whole sheets of plywood or metal roofing.
All our pumps combine the piston’s valve and seal to avoid it yawing
with the wind
Let's look in detail at the different pumps and
bases for ponds and wells, that give the uniblade pendulum more
versatility than the multiblade rotor.
2. FLO' PUMP (FP) base
On a small lake the FLOating' PUMP can be easily
towed to the shore needing the water, and anchored to yaw with the
wind. If there is enough wind to ripple the water, the FP
pumps, as its submerged cylinder never loses prime. Whereas a fanmill
fixed on the shore needs more wind and much more pipe to irrigate the
fields around the lake, and its suction pump can lose prime anytime
the wind lulls. Nor may floating it eliminate the yaw bearing
still needed for its safe furling in storms.
If our wing swings too
far, its tip rod picks up water from the pond, reducing the
wing tailheaviness and so its future flips and swings. In this test the
water pumped is just dropped back to the ocean. In freshwater
service, the whole base would float around the blue PVC pipe
above its 3 anchor ropes and its submerged output pipe to
shore. Inside the lower half of the PVC, the drag of the heavy
piston falling through the water sucks air into the top of this
cylinder through the small white snifter valve. On the upstroke the
piston pushes water and this air through the red flap valve in the
divider. The upper PVC is sealed into an annular chamber to collect
the air which cushions the output of the water through the big lower
sideport. When the water level drops the pink float,its valve
outlets the excess air is outlet through the garden hose, here as
submerged bubbles. This air, up to 1/3 of the total intake, helps to
aerate and destratify the pond to improve its water quality. Cattle gain
weight faster drinking water lifted from fenced aerated ponds, rather
than drinking down at stagnant ponds they can cave-in, foul and infect
their hooves in.
For injection in deep fish ponds, air from
the winch compressor can be stored inside steel pressure cylinders doubling
as the FP's pontoons. Otherwise, the floatation can be styrofoam
for moving the FP between small ponds; or just raw logs for a bigger lake
with a steady wind direction. For its cost, the FLO'ating Pump of
water out and air in is the simplest most powerful pond windmill ever. The
design could be inverted so a fiberglas blade sweeps back and forth to use
a river or tidal current to pump or compress.
3. Flutterwell (FW) and
PipePump for Drilled WELLS
For potable water and in arid zones, the same
WM wing and pendulum can be used to pump groundwater in light winds more
economically than the multiblade. The Flutterwell mounts directly on
the steel well casing with a hinged joint for very easy raising and lowering. A
surface slab with guys can be added to reinforce the casing and the joint.
The coiling of the pump belt permits very long
strokes through the yaw taper roller bearing, overcoming any stretch
of the pumpwire and reducing the diameter and cost of the droppipe. Whereas
a stroke cranked by a rotor, must be much smaller to pass through its
yaw hole, and not to descend faster than it can fall. Then
transmitting it down the well needs rigid pumprods and droppipe. For
maintenance, many hands are needed to lift and hold each very heavy
series, whilst carefully unscrewing each emerging length of rod and
pipe.
The hydraulic return of our Pipepumps is fast
enough for the FW’s large strokes or for treadling by one adult or two
children. Just pull our continuous pump wire up past its normal
stroke, to release the water column and retrieve all the seals and
valves. You could then handpull the empty polyetheylene droppipe and
its cylinder out to clean the inlet filter, but the hydraulic return
has backwashed it every stroke. After changing worn seals, just
lower the pipe plunger down the well to resume pumping instantly.
The pump wire can pull sideways from the windmill
on high exposed ground to a lower well near buildings or trees. Or
bouyant, low stretch rope can run to an outside well from a treadle
inside a cabin, through the delivery pipe, which would be buried
below freezing level. The pulley in the T comes out for removing the
plunger at the wellhead, and the cabin pulley cage is also force fit
in the elbow. The Pipepump rests below its normal stroke on a clean
wear-free static seal that can retain the water column for weeks between
pumpings.
Here the FW pumps the clean potable ground water
20' high (before draining it back to this low yield test well). The
vinylsheathed stainless pumpwire slides through a standard bearing seal at
the wellhead. This small compliant seal leaks less with less friction
and expense than the multiblade’s stuffing box and polished rigid
pumprod. Outputing to snifter and check valves and then a tubeless
surge tank at the wellhead, the Pipepump automatically ADDS one third air
to its stroke, outputing some air at the water pressure it
stabilizes, here 40 psi.
In summary the Pipepump is the easiest deepwell
pump ever to install and maintain, especially with the Flutterwell.
The Winged Mill water pumps also snift air for cushioning and
output, charge up to 36v, and compress air to 130 psi;
all in lighter winds at less cost than wind rotors
For more information please contact ....
Dr. Simon Farthing, Wing'd Pump Associates 975 Tuam Rd.N.
Saanich, B.C. V8L 5P2 Canada tel: (250) 655-3872 fax: (250) 655-3045
simon@econologica.com ut038@yahoo.com www.econologica.com
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