Can go to this website to see exactly what I am talking about.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wanemom.htm
Just want to build a homemade aerovane, but don't even know where to begin in the building process. Please help!
There are a few ways to accomplish what you are seeking to do.
The easiest, and perhaps most "brute force approach is to use a permanent magnet DC motor as your shaft and support bearing for the main unit.
Depending on what limitations you have on "ready made equipment". You can either count the number of pulses from the armature per revolution, and there you can either use a slow speed tachometer, audio range frequency counter, or use an oscilloscope to translate those revolutions into time based reference, then all you need to do is calibrate it.
Otherwise, you can rely on the fact that those pulses will be of varying intensity, but the voltage produced, when applied across a capacitor and resistor will provide a more stable "output", and show a certain degree of linearity when plotted on a graph. You can then use a voltmeter, or milliampmeter (the most likely to be practical) to calculate the magnatude of the energy produced, and calibrate that to the windspeed.
I cannot offer exact values, as there are some factors such as your needed level of precision, In-efficiencies of the motor vary by design, and in each motor, plus, isn't there a bit of research involved for the best results? It is a school project after all. I would only suggest perhaps a 1Mfd capacitor at the largest as a starting point.
Otherwise I can only offer that you search Bill Beatty's website- He may have something there. http://www.amasci.com/
: I am looking for a simple schematic for and Aerovane (to measure the wind) for a science fair project.
: Can go to this website to see exactly what I am talking about.
: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wanemom.htm
: Just want to build a homemade aerovane, but don't even know where to begin in the building process. Please help!
You can use an infrared LED and detector to generate pulses, in combination with some kind of "shutter" mounted on the rotating element of your wind vane. The shutter would be something that would intermittently block the path between the LED and the detector. Radio Shack should be able to supply the infrared LED/detector.
The electronics part is a little more complicated. The pulse from the detector can be cleaned up with a simple transistor circuit. That pulse can then be fed into a TTL (transistor-transistor) logic ciruit that counts, latches, and decodes the pulses (i.e. drives a 7-segment display). The circuit is "calibrated" by using a 555 timer with variable pulse width to act as a clock, i.e. within a particular clock pulse width, a certain number of pulses from the windvane can be counted before the decade counters get reset.
I don't have a specific circuit designed for this application but the design and construction is all the fun. I designed and built (with the help of an electical engineer buddy) a digital speedometer for a 1951 Chev, using similar concepts (counting pulses from a driveshaft to determine vehicle speed). I would build the prototype circuit on a breadboard and build the final version on a circuit board using wire wrapping. Wire wrapping allows mistakes to be undone relatively easily. I would use TTL chips because they are relatively easy to use and there are many chips that do many different functions. I'm not sure of their availability, as TTL chips are probably 20-30 year-old technology. I use a book called "The TTL Cookbook" to help design circuits. You will also need a 5vdc power supply for the TTL chips, a 7805 chip may work depending on the overall demand of the chips.
Hope this helps.