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cubytes
Up and Coming
May 24, 2014
Question

Solar Power Dynamo Generator Idea/Design

Hey Forum,

I am an aspiring inventor of sorts and I would like to share an idea I have been tossing around in my head for quite some time.

Goal: To power an entire house with one relatively small dual sided photovoltaic panel and a 24 volt battery!

Design;

The PV panel would be mounted on a satellite dish. Thus one side would capture direct sunlight and the other side would capture sunlight that bounces off the dish.

The dish structure would be mounted on a pole (obviously).

At the bottom of this pole would be a cylinder shaped 24 Volt battery.

The pole itself would be designed to double as a massive electromagnet. Inside the pole would be a electric motor near the top and a rotor that is vertically oriented and when operational rotates inside the pole.

There would be two sources; the panel and the battery.

One source would energize the electrical motor that turns the rotor inside the pole, while the other source would energize the magnetic field.

Thus when operational producing a substantial amount of electrical energy which I hope would be enough to justify such a solar power generator system in the first place.

Ideally the two sources would be able to switch what they energize on the fly to maximize power output. such as in when it gets cloudy the battery will torque the rotor and the PV cell will switch to power the magnetic field instead and when the clouds pass the sources will switch back to default.

Also the battery would be charged by the grid over night. (obviously)

I am wondering how much power output I could get from such a device....

Also there would need to be an additional device installed inside the home that would convert the DC to AC transforming the current to be used through the house. in addition to just being an inverter/transformer ideally this device would be similar to NEST and should be able sense when the house could (assuming output of the generator is capable enough in the first place) switch from grid to generator during periods of low power usage in the home during the day.

well that's the idea anyways....

    14 replies

    Show previous replies
    DeadlyJoe
    Up and Coming
    June 2, 2014
    "cubytes" wrote:
    you really think the permanent magnet would actually move around inside the hoop when the coil wrapped wires are energized?


    I'm pretty sure that it would. Although I think aluminum would be a poor choice for the tube, because the magnet's momentum through the tube will generate magnetic eddy currents which will slow the magnet down. Those forces are described by Lentz's law. But if you use a non-conductive material for the tube, such as plastic, then that won't be a problem.

    Your loop is just a toroidal solenoid. If you coil wire around a hollow tube and then apply a current through the wire, then the magnetic field inside the tube will travel in one direction parallel to the tube. If there's any ferrous mass inside the tube, then it will be forced down the tube in the direction of the magnetic force.

    essentially what im trying to do is take linear maglev technology and contain it in a loop sealed in a vacuum and exploit some resonant nudge frequency to propel the object to very high velocities with relatively little energy by comparison.


    I don't think that your solenoid will easily levitate the magnet inside the tube. The magnetic field inside the tube runs mostly parallel to the tube. There's no significant force perpendicular to the walls that would keep the magnet from bouncing off them. You would probably have to apply another magnetic field external to the tube to keep the magnet in the center of the channel. Your liquid ferofluid idea might be the solution, but the fluid will be rubbing against itself and the walls of the tube, which will incur a lot of friction. I honestly don't know how ferrofluid would react in such a device.

    But, Maglev trains don't operate on very little energy. In fact, they are energy hogs, by comparison. Generating a large enough magnetic field to levitate several hundred tons is not easy. But, even though generating those magnetic fields is expensive, once a maglev train gets up to speed it doesn't have any track friction. Friction on steel rails wastes a lot of energy. That difference in friction is largely why Maglev trains are generally more efficient than Diesel trains. By the way, modern Diesel trains are actually electric hybrids. They use efficient diesel motors to generate electricity which powers electric motors that drive the wheels.

    im not worried about the mass to energy per say nor am i interested in the kinetic energy im only interested in producing electricity not interested in mechanical energy.


    Yes, you are. But you may not know it. What you are trying to do is all about converting one form of energy into another form of energy. When you use a solar panel to drive a flywheel, you are converting electrical energy into kinetic energy. When you use the flywheel to drive a magnetic field past a coil of wire, you are converting that kinetic energy back into electrical energy.

    That's what it's all about... per se.

    my understanding of generating electricity is that all you have to do is move and/or rotate a magnetic object in an magnetic field and somehow that magically generates electricity. so therefore im trying to design a system that can move a magnet in a magnetic field at extremely high velocities with very little input energy....thinking that would in turn produce a lot of output electrical energy once the system gets going and going and going constantly being nudged towards the speed of light when in operation.


    You can't create energy out of nothing. You can't take more energy out of a system than the system has stored in it. Just like you can't take more jellybeans out of a jar than you put in the jar to begin with. If you charge a battery that has 0 energy in it with 1000 Joules of energy, then you can't take more than 1000 Joules out of it. So, if you put "very little input energy" into the system, then you can only take out very little energy. And, in fact, the transfer of that energy will never be 100% efficient, so you will always be short a jellybean or two when you count them up.
    cubytesAuthor
    Up and Coming
    June 2, 2014
    "DeadlyJoe" wrote:
    "cubytes" wrote:
    you really think the permanent magnet would actually move around inside the hoop when the coil wrapped wires are energized?


    I'm pretty sure that it would. Although I think aluminum would be a poor choice for the tube, because the magnet's momentum through the tube will generate magnetic eddy currents which will slow the magnet down. Those forces are described by Lentz's law. But if you use a non-conductive material for the tube, such as plastic, then that won't be a problem.

    Your loop is just a toroidal solenoid. If you coil wire around a hollow tube and then apply a current through the wire, then the magnetic field inside the tube will travel in one direction parallel to the tube. If there's any ferrous mass inside the tube, then it will be forced down the tube in the direction of the magnetic force.

    essentially what im trying to do is take linear maglev technology and contain it in a loop sealed in a vacuum and exploit some resonant nudge frequency to propel the object to very high velocities with relatively little energy by comparison.


    I don't think that your solenoid will easily levitate the magnet inside the tube. The magnetic field inside the tube runs mostly parallel to the tube. There's no significant force perpendicular to the walls that would keep the magnet from bouncing off them. You would probably have to apply another magnetic field external to the tube to keep the magnet in the center of the channel. Your liquid ferofluid idea might be the solution, but the fluid will be rubbing against itself and the walls of the tube, which will incur a lot of friction. I honestly don't know how ferrofluid would react in such a device.

    But, Maglev trains don't operate on very little energy. In fact, they are energy hogs, by comparison. Generating a large enough magnetic field to levitate several hundred tons is not easy. But, even though generating those magnetic fields is expensive, once a maglev train gets up to speed it doesn't have any track friction. Friction on steel rails wastes a lot of energy. That difference in friction is largely why Maglev trains are generally more efficient than Diesel trains. By the way, modern Diesel trains are actually electric hybrids. They use efficient diesel motors to generate electricity which powers electric motors that drive the wheels.

    im not worried about the mass to energy per say nor am i interested in the kinetic energy im only interested in producing electricity not interested in mechanical energy.


    Yes, you are. But you may not know it. What you are trying to do is all about converting one form of energy into another form of energy. When you use a solar panel to drive a flywheel, you are converting electrical energy into kinetic energy. When you use the flywheel to drive a magnetic field past a coil of wire, you are converting that kinetic energy back into electrical energy.

    That's what it's all about... per se.

    my understanding of generating electricity is that all you have to do is move and/or rotate a magnetic object in an magnetic field and somehow that magically generates electricity. so therefore im trying to design a system that can move a magnet in a magnetic field at extremely high velocities with very little input energy....thinking that would in turn produce a lot of output electrical energy once the system gets going and going and going constantly being nudged towards the speed of light when in operation.


    You can't create energy out of nothing. You can't take more energy out of a system than the system has stored in it. Just like you can't take more jellybeans out of a jar than you put in the jar to begin with. If you charge a battery that has 0 energy in it with 1000 Joules of energy, then you can't take more than 1000 Joules out of it. So, if you put "very little input energy" into the system, then you can only take out very little energy. And, in fact, the transfer of that energy will never be 100% efficient, so you will always be short a jellybean or two when you count them up.


    Interesting....

    Thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff to me! Much Appreciated. I really like the jelly bean analogy makes a lot of sense when you think of it that way. I always thought that electricity was a result of electrons 'stolen' from the air by creating a magnetic tornado of sorts that would "suck up" free electrons from the air itself as it travels through the wire.... I suppose if you wanted to create an F5 electron catching beast of a magnetic tornado you would need more mechanical energy. well at least that my personal impression of electricity.

    Also thinking of it from the perspective of a electrical engineer I imagine its not so much about creating a beast but more about taming and controlling it and sustaining it across long distances....

    but thats just my intuition though! I dont have a good grasp of electromagnetism....

    I'm pretty sure that 2nd device has some interesting function though perhaps not what I intended it to do. I honestly do not know where that specific idea came from. The first one was all me. I was like "hey I want to power a house with just a single solar panel" then a few 'what ifs' later I had the idea of putting a generator inside a pole idea. But the other idea came out of no where though. Probably because VRREad88 rolled his eyes at me and my subconscious ego-brain was like "oh hell nah" blam here's another idea...then I took it and 'what if, what if, what if' it from there.

    So perhaps it would be best to think of it in another way...

    As in the solar panel energizes a mini tesla coil which wirelessly energizes 2 hoops filled with a ferromagnetic fluid oriented in a gyroscopic like fashion sealed in a vacuum on a rig set up not powered by electrical motor but still allows the hoops to swing freely without bumping into each other -- assuming they even move at all.

    I'm not sure what would happen with such a device....
    Anonymous
    March 30, 2021

    It depends on the quality that you want and the sun that the solar panels can absorb. This is too long for a simple answer - also a very heavy question.

    That said, you could probably get enough panels and batteries for this budget to run some small appliances. A couple of kwh certainly

    I would advise you to browse a bit to learn more. To learn more. Also check some tri fuel generator reviews.

     

    A small, effective fridge could hardly run, but for the bad weather days without reservation. Double solar and battery and get a backup and charger for a permanent living off the grid.

    You can scale down to a single panel and two batteries for a 12V system for $600 or less if you're not running appliances. For over a year, I've been living with a $300 system; run my lights, laptops, water pumps, tools and phone lifters...

      PITTCANNA
      Honored Contributor
      March 30, 2021

      Just remember to prevent fumbling.

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