Windmill With Tail by cratch

Last crawled date: 2 years, 11 months ago

I designed this windmill on Tinkercad because I wanted to print the biggest windmill I could on an Ender 3.
You will need:
5 x Blades
1 x Rotor Hub
1 x Rotor Flange
1 x Tail
1 x Pivot Hub
1 x Base (optional depending on how you are mounting the windill outside. The base screws to the top of a wooden post)
2 x Rotor Cones (optional...covers the bearings to keep out the weather)
M8 bolts, nuts, washers and threaded rod.
For the tail you will need 8mm diameter rod, either wood, aluminium, steel etc.
4 x skateboard bearings type 608zz for the rotor and pivot.
M4 bolts and nuts for assembly of blades to rotor.
The bearings may need to be pressed in using a vice although I have left a margin of 0.2mm to allow for a press fit without splitting the plastic.
The screwthreads may be tight for M8 bolts so you may need to ease the hole by drilling out to 7mm. The bolt should then cut its own threads. Alternatively you could tap the holes to M8. SEE UPDATE BELOW...
UPDATE: I have now sorted out the correct M8 screw thread to the Wind Turbine Base. Please use V2 (version 2) of this part.
The thread should be a firm fit.
I also passed an 8mm drill down the tail hole and Pivot Hub hole to make sure the tail rod pushed in easily. Superglue or similar to all push in joints.
I assembled the windmill using epoxy resin on all push in joints and threads to prevent the thing coming apart. Nyloc nuts can also be used.
When assembling the tail it is important to get the tail rod the right length so that the assembly balances around the Pivot Hub bearings. As a guide my tail rod is 24cm long and made of aluminium. Best to start off too long and reduce the length until the assembly is balanced.
The cone for the top of the Pivot hub was too tight so I increased the size to 101% on Cura before printing.
All parts print without rafts, flat on the bed and without supports. Although you may want to use supports where the bottom bearings fit on the Pivot Hub, Rotor Hub and Cones.