# newbie question LOL



## MsSage (Mar 3, 2012)

Ok first off I I get the very basics of electricity but anything more and I am lost.
My S/O asked me to search and find out if you can hook up a generator up to a windmill that is also being used for water? I am talking about the windmills that fill up a stock tank.....
I did a search and they keep talking about turbines....uuggg can anyone help?


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## FatTire (Mar 20, 2012)

Check it 
http://www.windmillpower.org/


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## JoKing (Mar 11, 2012)

I feel your pain about the search engines. Unless you know how to use the (-$:"! Characters (I wasn't swearing; those are the characters you need to know), it's quite the flusterer. 

The short answer to your question is Yes. Any drive train with a shaft can run an auxiliary component. To know what kind of load you can put on it depends on what comes after the equal sign(which is the only thing I know about the formula). 

While your waiting for a better answer, you could try to figure out the energy required to run each and see if the windmill is capable of running both at the same time or intermediately.

Good luck and chime in if you figure it out. It's always great to be able to use all of the potential energy.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

JoKing said:


> You could try to figure out the energy required to run each and see if the windmill is capable of running both at the same time or intermediately.


MsSage,

A windmill or wind turbine captures wind energy. How much it captures, is directly related to the size of the disc. Bigger is better, since it captures more wind.

A "windmill" that pumps water needs slow speed and high torque to do its job. It is also optimized (with a LOT of blades) to capture even small breezes to get the water pumping.

The problem encountered with using one for generating electricity is: "Cut in speed".

All wind electric generators produce electricity when turning at any speed. However; if they are turning too slowly (light breeze) the voltage they put out is far to low to be useable. You need more "speed" to get the voltage up high enough to be used. The "speed" comes from using fewer (usually three blades) with good airfoils.

Water windmills are not designed to run at high speeds. If you used gears, belts and pulleys, chains and sprockets, etc. to increase the speed between the windmill and the electrical generating part, you would lose way too much energy in the form of losses through the drive-train. That is why all small scale (home sized) wind turbine generators are direct drive.

The huge, massive commercial wind turbines are geared, but that is because they have a 200-300 foot diameter "disc area" and are harvesting 1000's upon 1000's of watts of power.


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