Wind vane by FULspeed

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Edit 8 March 2017: Added a new curved blade, for a different look!
This is my project for a wind vane
I did not want to make a wind generator, my goal was originally just to replace the little pinwheel that my daughter had on the balcony (it broke after a few weeks, all plastic) with something more robust (and nice);
Here is the result:
The max diameter is 49 cm and the length is 55 cm
All parts are printed (in PLA) and sized to exploit at the maximum the size of my printer bed (200 x 200 mm).
There are no other metallic components than the bolts and the bearings described below
Here the bolts quantity and the dimensions:
All the sizes are in millimeters
The main axle + vertical axle
nr. 2 - 100 x 8 - hexagonal head + 4/5 nuts
Blades
nr. 8 - 30 x 4 - hexagonal head + 8 nuts
Rear cone + main body
nr. 4 - 30 x 3 - round head + 4 nuts
Tail
nr. 2 - 15 x 3 - round head + 2 nuts
nr. 1 - 10 x 3 - round head + 1 nuts
The bearings used are labeled ZZ809 and they come from an old set of inline skate.
There are 4 bearings, 2 for the propeller support and 2 to assure the horizontal rotation.
Dimensions:
External diameter 22 mm
Internal diameter 8 mm
Thickness 7.2 mm
The blade’s length is 236 mm, the longest possible to print, (and quite challenging) at 45 degrees on a 200 X 200 mm printer bed.
For this reason I added also a shorter blade (205 mm), easier to print or if you prefer a littler fan (the max. diameter become 42.5 cm)
The vane has been tested for several months without any problem, even with high winds. Tail may look big, but is the result of several tests, and guarantees a correct directional stability, also in the presence of the unavoidable turmoil existing around a balcony.
Regards and good work!