Aug 4, 2015 | By Simon
Due to the widespread availability of wind and the increased usage of mobile devices, it’s no surprise that today’s makers have turned to harnessing the wind for charging their gadgets and devices while on-the-go.
Of course, manufactured structures such as windmills or turbines have been used for centuries to harness the power wind, however with today’s technology - particularly 3D printing - makers are able to bring the same technology into a pocket-sized device. Among others who have explored the concept include Thingiverse user ‘TheSoup’, a self-described "electronics amateur" who had been wanting to develop a wind powered USB charger for awhile but was finally motivated to do it after learning about the MakerBot Thingiverse Catch the Wind Challenge.
“I've been wanting to do a project like this for a while now, and I started trying out some things with it, but then I got distracted with work and everything and put it on hold,” he explains. “Then I saw Makerbot's Catch The Wind challenge the other day and decided it was time to go back and actually make something of this.”
At its core, the driving principle behind the device is actually quite simple; the device captures energy from wind movement and uses a small motor to convert it into usable electricity.
“Motors and generators are essentially the same devices,” he explains.
“If you put electricity into a motor it will spin the shaft, if you spin the shaft of the motor yourself it will put out electricity. So this design uses the power of the wind to spin the shaft of a motor, and then I've designed it to allow the electricity to run to a USB port on the side of the box.”
To print his own, ‘TheSoup’ used a MakerBot Replicator 2 3D printer, however the parts are simple enough - and don’t require any supports or rafts - that they should be able to print quite well on most any other 3D printer, too. As for print density, he used a 5% infill for the sake of speed with a .2 layer height, however if he had more time, he would recommend a more dense infill for added durability.
As for the wiring, ‘TheSoup’ admits that this step is rather quite simple; just connect the wires from one end of the motor to one of the inputs of the USB chip. If a light doesn’t come on, then the wires need to be switched. Once completed, the wires can be bundled and closed within the housing.
After experimenting with a variety of turbine designs, it was determined that Savonius cups tend to work best at smaller sizes like this since they tend to require a smaller amount of wind to start spinning, and they'll only spin in one direction.
Sadly, due to an internal charging recognition feature, iPhones are unable to charge on the device however it does charge most other USB devices.
Although ‘TheSoup’ admits that the design is still a work in progress, it’s still an excellent example of how useful 3D printing can be for creating your own custom product design and is a great start to something that will surely come in handy for most.
Next up, he wants to refine the design to fit more kinds of motors and create various sizes of housings with attachment clips for making the most out of wind resistance on moving vehicles, such as a bicycle. Additionally, he wants to use any feedback from the competition to develop a hand cranked and a solar powered version of the same charger.
To download the STL files and read the build instructions in-full, be sure to head over to the project’s Thingiverse page.
Posted in 3D Scanning
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sar dude
Sam Hagwan wrote at 2/6/2017 11:04:33 AM:
How did you make it
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