I love the delight you clearly find in making these projects.

What I would give to spend time with my grandpa like this again. You evoke memories, sir!

This is the kind of thing I want to get working with, as I am in a 2nd floor bedsit!! How did I miss this the first time around!! I shall be spending the weekend on binge watching, as many of your uploads as possible Robert!! Thank you so much for the inspiration! Andrea, Jasper and George the Pigeon. XxX.

The fun you have figuring it all out is inspiring!

Some great suggestions! I can see the "wind wall" being a great thing for collecting energy on the cheap! Thanks for another interesting video.

I have built wind turbines for over 50 years. The bottom line is, vertical access wind turbines are fun to watch and I have several, but a horizontal axis wind turbine makes better use of swept area. I dislike a lot of machinery whirring about at breakneck heights, so all my wind turbines are low to the ground and have big paddles, which hang out into the wind. They are all the drag machines, but I have never had one, fly apart. I cannot say the same for my horizontal axis wintd turbines. I conform to the theory that many small units produce the same power as one giant one and I have several small savonius units happily spinning in almost any wind here on my little place in North Texas. If a blow comes along, I don't worry about a thing. My savonius windmills are all made with ball bearing axles and are fabricated from welded steel.

Inspiring and thought provoking. Thank you. I must have a rummage in my shed.

It appeared to me as tho the squirrel cage with the curved blades spun easier and faster than any of the other fans that you experimented with, also if you had a number of theses on a rooftop they would also spin no matter what direction your wind flow came from.

Gday mate, a heater fan from a car with some weight would spin for a while,they look like the squirrel cage, by the way you are the King of you tube.All the best from Australia and please stay safe.The world needs you...

I need to start building some of these experiments. Thanks for sharing the fun and potential.

After spending the better part of a day standing in front of my giant shop fan playing with various types of fan blades including several vacuum cleaner turbines I've made an observation. The vacuum cleaner turbines are designed to flow air in the opposite direction than you and I are moving the air. If they were shaped so that the air could exit through holes that were wider than the holes in which the air enters (the opposite of what you have now) I believe they would become much more efficient.

Mr. Murry-Smith really neat idea, honestly the flat wall turbine... neat ,clean,Suttle as to not stickout easement. Thank yous for sharing. Well done on experiment and tutorials on the findings. Appreciate your time and effort

Wonderful the delight you have and share with everyone....such a great lift when learning something new and maybe complicated. Brilliant idea - as a Wind Wall. Working in Diamond or Star or both shapes in sequence, they would keep each other rotating almost permanently. Especially towards the Corners of Buildings where Vortecies are normally generating high levels of energy... Capturing these energy spirals and then passing them back to any passing Winds on low energy areas of Flat walls would I believe help to regulate Airflow overal as well as wicking heat away when needed, to be used by heat capturing Technology. 🙋‍♀️🌈🌞

the round element squirrel cage was a pleasent suprize, as was the flat cone one. i bet nesting concentric flat cones wood work even better. it is a pleasure to watch your vids, you often come up with quite interesting & amazing stuff.

The power output of that tiny motor is surprising. I like that last one with the cone. It brings to mind the works of Viktor Schauberger. I imagine his study of fluid dynamics can also be applied to air flow. I think I will experiment on a way to capture the spill-over of your vertical blower and see if there is enough increase in efficiency to make a difference.

Nice job Robert. When you put the cage with round bars on the generator, it came to mind that instead of round the bars should be squashed and made like an aeroplane wing with an adjustable angle of attack. If you try this, I am sure you will have a very robust and efficient wind generator. Then I though you can chenel the exhaust of that fan and it to run a Tesla turbine. The Tesla turbine should have turbo fan on it a aircraft type turbo housing. I think you just solved the jet fuel issue. Bravo!. This can be started electrically but once over 5klm per hour the telsa turbine will be screaming and you would have trouble moderating the engine for taxiing etc. Love it.

What I like about the last design is that you could still put PV cells on top of it. Two different sources of electric energy in one small apparatus.

I was just about to make the suggestion of the vacuum fan when you came out with it. Unfortunately the wind would have to be pretty constant in speed for this to be worthwhile, but good ideas can usually be improved (by someone with more brains than me) however thanks for an intriguing thought.

I used to work at Moog and we did CPAP motors there. They were BLDC motors with the black impeller like you were using. If you hit them with compressed air, they would make up to 60v of 3 phase power in back emf. I had always thought arranging them as planets in a planetary orientation as a wind turbine.

Thank you for sharing. Very enlightening

Dear Rob; Your last design with the cone at the centre looked good to me: I thought, we could invert the cone sides making it more pointed! Then adding a funnel to the centre to increase the catchment of air, would improve the pressure 10 fold at least. Next: we could use any spilt over air that could not flow into the funnel, to act like a vacuum as it passes the exhausted air. This in turn, would help draw away the spent air. All good stuff for our practical people. thanks from Chris.

Thanks for sharing your skills 👍😁

There is a company that did a Edit: quad sectioned 360-degree funnel system to gather low-speed air at ground level 4 kph and with an aero-spike facing down and the tube with a venturi shape to increase airspeed they then had 90-degree turn to send the air through "normal" wind generator blade set but with your last set up it could just go straight down losing no energy to the turn. Interesting and thought-provoking as always Robert thank you.

Fascinating! Thanks for making us think.

I think, that the flat wind generator, could be great to be used with a ceiling fan in building walls. great video!!!

Got to love Viktor Schauberger’s work but then again he’s work is free energy

you can use a wind directed funnel like some horn speakers and have a low sound and bird friendly wind turbine.... looks good, thanks for sharing

Present for class! 😊👍 So my creative mind is saying .. why not make a large venturi vortex cone (funnel) to be at right angles to the center .. to collect the wind .. and then put it on a wind swivel directed pole up in the air. I nominate you for the best teacher of the year award!!! 🏆

At first I didn't care as much for your favorite choice, the last one, but then after given it some thought, it being such a low profile piece would be great in some applications verses bulky designs. Great work. I love this subject matter you're currently on.

Thanks for stimulating our imaginations Robert. This gave me an idea - if you mounted this on top of a vertical10 feet long stove pipe, maybe the air pressure differential caused by the stack effect might create a draft to turn the impeller.

Hi, have you ever run a proper impeller inside this? Wondering if you could have two of these units, with one powering an impeller inside the other.??

Looks like the squirrel cage gave you better output and still turned for quite a while after the air stopped. Great video

A cone concentrator (not sure if it is a right word to use) could take this design to the next level I think. It can be easily attached to the base around the flywheel so without adding any weight to the moving part more air will be forced in the turbine.

Always a pleasure Robert

how much does the displaced wind reduce in speed with the “flat discs” format? would it be possible to manipulate the output such that it turns the squirrel cage?

Gets more and more ingenious .....

Robert I had drinks on the patio of restaurant once on a harbor. On the rail was a peculiar nautical wind toy, the kind that usually drive some mechanical wooden animation. This one was round on a bearing and flat disk with 4 masts. The masts had little sails held out by little strings that allowed them to gybe as they were constantly coming about. The speeds this little toy got to caused a whirring of sail noise. It has always stuck with me how efficiently this toy harnessed the wind

Someone must have sent you the master copy of rex research for christmas! lol Love your content always!

That worked extremely well for just some would slapped together as you say 💭 it is proof of concept and if you made it better and on it's side then it would be omni directional as far as wind, cool 🏂 video

Nice idea

this is fun, more!

This reminds me: when i was a kid there was a sat morning tv show called watch mr wizard. This guy should start this again.

What if you added a low angle cone on the outside of the flat wind generator that would redirect the air towards the center? I'd assume you would get even higher output, however having a wall of them could be problematic due to the exiting air interfering with the others, but that is just a guess.

For you squirrel cage one, I wonder what you'd get if you had alternating brass and aluminum rods, then connected them up like your wave generator.

Brilliant suggestion!!

Thanks for the Spark . Mr Smith, where can I get some water based graphene paint? I want to paint my steel wall and hook up one of my 20v 9amp panels on it and see what happens.

If you blow through a funnel directed at the disk, will it increase the airflow like water flow being concentrated this way increases the water flow rate? Previous wind generators you made could benefit from this.

I would really like to see what engines you find interesting. I am fascinated by stirling engines and others that can passively harvest an energy source. Like the drinking bird. I love watching your videos! Great work

Your the best

A very thought provoking video, and I do love your brisk and informative presentation style - how are you not on a TV show alongside James May?

Is anyone familiar with the differential between a standard impeller from an air vacuum as demonstrated herein and the mechanism behind the Rainbow water vacuum?

An old electric organ has them in also. Yes I'm like you and took my organ to bits to see how it worked or should I say how it never worked again so I had nothing to play on! I was young and was great at taking things to bits but not putting them back together again. It's a shame because that organ would of been worth a fortune now!

I'd like to present an idea for a constant wind source.... you always get me thinking.... It would require a busy highway.... How about running over a garden hose with one way valves at each end to charge a storage tank ... once the tank is charged then it could be released to turn a series of wind generators... It would also be interesting to see how much pressure you could actually build using this method of recapturing energy....

An interesting topic, just a thought it might improve the efficiency of the cone if it were to have a spiral texture thus imparting energy to the centre as well as the blades

I'm curious to see what a cone with helical striations and adding a collector horn would do.

The impeller looks identical to those you find in pool pumps, which already have the cone.

Would that specific motor you are using, have enough power to charge a battery charger? Obviously I'm thinking of an off grid situation where you just want some extra lights in Winter..

The cone in the center of the one with the impeller reminds me of the air inlet for a ramjet

Very interesting what you're building out of scraps pretty much ! in third world countries they should really pay attention closely to your channel :) I mean not only but these kind of things you come up with are really impressive and it could really help some people out there, also, interestingly enough I was thinking of something similar yesterday !

I think that the black squirrel cage fan is more practical since it is omnidirectional and, therefore, could be mounted on the roof of the building and it would work regardless of the wind direction.

Can use heating air to spin

Could you use something like THAT in the Darwin model?

You should do this with an old hdd. The frictional losses are way way way less comparably. Actually can you do this with a hdd and still charge a battery granted it's a brushless motor? Or would it need to be rectified?

I think your tesla turbine type would work even more effecient if the wind came from behind and routed in the outside fins and escaped from front . Opposite to your entrance . This would take advantage of low pressure turning into higher pressure . Sort of venturi effect !

I would to suggest that you try to test the squirrel cage fan with a cone, with wind parallel to the axis of rotation. I think that would open the door to a whole series of videos for you

so with a wall full of this guys do you think you could power up a whole house? what could be achived with that kind of power?

9:32 Thin blades about 600mm long, lots like grass with piezoelectric devices at the bottom for wind vibration.

I like that tube design to. That could act as a sprocket gear maybe to.

That last little black rotor disc is taken from a vacuum cleaner motor. I like those motors brcues they are universal motors. Very flexible for making things like a band sander. Edit 10:03, Oh............

Rob the cone is the same with the air intake of the compressor of a jet engine (with the spiral painted on it)

Re the impeller, adding the cone to direct the air was obviously necessary, but I think to properly adapt the impeller to work in reverse as is being done. It would increase its efficiency if a funnel was attached to the central hole, so widening the area that can catch the air, and perhaps increase any central Pintal force that may be in play.

But how it acts after rain and frost? How long will the mechanic last?

THANKSGIVING

Have you ever thought of adding a air horn trumpet style cone to concentrate the air to the center which would increase the wind velocity at the inverted cone at center of your impeller style flywheel. The final design would look like the old Ford Model T “A-O0GA Horn. That would take pressure off the flat surface of the flywheel and increase the air pressure at the center. That design might increase the Venturi effect at the discharge section of the design. Another thought I had was to deflect the exhaust gases toward the leeward side of the configuration to increase the Venturi further. Just a thought, if this has already been addressed, please forgive my ignorance, it is just that I have neither read it in the comment nor hear heard nor seen it in your videos. I find your videos fascinating and inspiring. Thank you.

Try the experiment of the last device with the squirrel cage. Put a flat piece of plastic on one end or the cage and apply air flow to the other end of the cage, not to the blade edge

Finally something to do with those scrap CD rom drives I didn’t have the heart to throw out

Awesome

Damm thats crazy that it spins having the tubes instead of blades etc

Very interesting. Solar panels are flat, but I wonder how a wall of flat wind generators might compare with a similar size solar panel?

In places with no wind but lots of heat you could have a long black tube with radiator fins on the inside hot air rises and passes through a generator at the top and one as it gets sucked in the bottom.

could take the flat wind generator and combine it with a sort of flattened squirrel cage design so the generator can function from multiple angles perhaps or you could make the flat wind generator not flat at all, elongating its design to allow alot of space for the air intake and outputs so it can theoretically catch more air and accelerate faster.

The last design looks a bit like a brake disc - fly wheel and impeller in one from worn out brake discs? Another excellent video.

The last example seems to be more of a concentrated wind pressure device which needs a way to funnel the air in as the intake at the centre is small and the output ports are larger. I don't think it would work well on a solid wall because on a wind generator the power output is proportional to the volumetric throughput and a solid wall would block the air flow. so you could consider a matrix of these on a wire fence, I think that would work much better.

It seems to me that a lot of wind would slip off away from the central circular inlet, especially due to the spinning air exiting the other ring area, causing a low pressure area around the rim. I believe a funnel on top of the inlet would funnel more air into the fan. It would increase the pressure at the inlet and therefore a higher pressure differential between the air inlet and air outlet, thereby increasing velocity and therefore power output. Simply cut off a car oil filler funnel and glue on.

I think that several of meter high mounted on the roof would really change the resistance to to renewal Because it is not intrusive

I would sure love to talk to you. I've been working on my project for a whole lot of years, alone. It's not going anywhere fast with just me. I wish so much that I had someone like you working with me to bring my SolarBreeze to life...... when I began all of this, my knowledge of electricity consisted of, Don't pay the bill, they turn it off, don't poke things into the outlet holes and keep away from all liquid stuff while standing in it.

I'd like to build a boat propelled by a Savonius rotor sail through a shaft and gear arrangement to a propeller. You could sail it in any direction regardless of the direction of the wind.

You might look up the Ljungstrom turbine, which is a highly successful steam powered engine.

What if u had a wall in between the cone and air coming out the side that let air out of the turbine but left the cone area open for air to get in on the last turbine. On a large scale it might reduce friction but stopping the air from hitting the sides. Maybe not but just a thought. Very cool designs

The squirrel cage takes advantage of the magnus effect i guess ?

I would be interested to see how good that last one would be with a cone that tapers out to at least the diameter of the CD. The cone doesn’t even have to spin but could be held half a millimeter from the impeller by a bracket.

Hi Rob; This is John Brubaker from Ft Myers I think we spoke on the phone once. I was just looking at some old videos and remembered one about Ion power. There is a company named Ion Power Group (ionpowergroup.com). They use graphene to collect ions from the atomospere and use them to generate power. I thought you might be interested in adding this to your list of ideas you might be interested in.

I've always fancied making something like this from one of those garden wind fans... The ones that look like the four corners of a square turned in. I think one of those will drive flat as you describe.

Be carefull with the weight of the propellor, this spindles use air-bearings wich are suited for the weight of an cd. But really like the idea.

Actually if you have the wind pressing equally across an entire wall, the pressure will be equal on all portions, therefore defeating any and all potential for high speed wind flowing through all of your centrifugal impellers so that you could not obtain any real speed, and what little rotation you got would be negligible and essentially incidental to changes in the angular cross flow of the wind as it slipped up and around the flat face of the wall the unit(s) were mounted onto.

Discretion Guaranteed If The Neighbours Moaned About Your Wind Turbine Well This Is A Toilet Fan Outlet , Suck IT Up Great Video Earthling Bless Up

Imagine a bank of these vertically along the outer walls of your house under the guttering then all being inverted to your home electrical system. I understand you won't get enough to run your home but you will get enough to power your refrigerator which runs 24/7. Add this to other brilliant examples you demonstrate and your power bill will be substantially less. That last fan is from a vacuum cleaner isn't it? Thanks for the video mate, I appreciate your time as always 🤔 Edit** was the title meant to emulate your business initials or just a coincidence,?

You realise Flat Wind Generator also makes up the acronym of FWG right? lol

I like the idea of combining a bunch of little wind generators, but how do you combine multiple generators? I assume diodes. Maybe a worthy topic to go on about?

9:30 "...these would actually fit on the side of a flat building.. " Well, sure, but wind does not blow agaimst a windward flat side of a building in the way your hair drier blows down the center of the your impeller. Blunt windward surfaces generally only experience a small fraction of the wind velocity of the free stream, and it is not perpendicular to the surface, but pretty much parallel.