Gallery, Projects and General > The Design Shop
How can you "drive" a wind clock?
John Hill:
A speedo cable is not too silly an idea but if it get turned backwards it might jam up, but maybe that would be after several years! :coffee:
Eugene:
John, lads,
My reasons for blowing out the mechanical route are access and water tightness ..... The chimney breast where I'd site it is 3' thick of 200 year old brick and rubble. It's outside face (flush with the wall) is right into the prevailing wind and more significantly in Wales, rain. I've had the wall skinned with a waterproof membrane because of penetrating damp so I'm not going to drill any holes in it even if I had a 3' masonry bit.
Ideally I'd prefer something like the wireless weather stations that are available and convert the readout to analogue. Second best are the Israeli synchos and third would any other electrical solution that only required a small amount of cabling; I can hide that under the gable soffits outside and the roof beams inside.
Still pondering.
Eug
mattinker:
Horrible Hi-tech solution, web cam following a flag with a screen inside!! How about instead of drilling a hole in the side of the chimney, a weather vane on top of the chimney, with a shaft coming straight down to a bevel gear?
Regards, Matthew.
awemawson:
A series of Pitot tubes arranged in an array radiating out from the chimney round the full 360 degrees. As many as you see fit, but perhaps N, NNE, NE etc. Bring the tubes down in a bundle and then arrange them in a suitable display array down stairs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube
Not only would you have a wind direction reading, but also a velocity reading :ddb:
John Hill:
I got an old alternator today and pulled it apart, unfortunately the stator is wound for several poles and re winding for just two poles probably puts that idea out of the park, unless someone is very keen!
Wireless sounds good but I find ours a real pain as the batteries always fail during the worst weather of the year and it usually takes somes messing around to connect to the indoor device which maybe because of other devices in the area using the same channel. Otherwise wireless is good especially if you can open the battery box and wire in a couple of 'D' cells for long life, even better if it is a solar powered system.
The second of BillTodd's pictures shows the easiest to wire as it takes just two wires but there is some careful mechanical work to make a head unit that will both work and tolerate outdoor conditions plus it needs some custom electronics at the display end.
There used to be a system available (from Australia I think) that was a wind rotor with a little tab, or sail really, on one cup and a single magnetic pickup and just two wires indoors. The way it worked was there were several points in each revolution where the pickup was triggered and the electronics could measure speed by counting the frequency of the signals and direction by analysing the frequency modulation which was the result of the sail on one cup. Custom electronics and complex (for me) software.
Nothing really simple there so I have invented another!
Imagine a transparent disk with binary codes painted around the edge, this disk is connected to the wind direction vane.
Another disk, this one non transparent, is connected to and rotates with the wind speed rotor. There is a slot in this disk which corresponds with the painted codes around the wind direction disk.
A light is arranged to shine on a photo cell so that as the wind speed disk rotates light passes through the slot and on to the photo cell.
Electronics decode the binary code for wind direction and read wind speed from the interval between codes being received.
For the non electronic version have the signal from the photo cell connected to a loud speaker and paint the codes on the disk in Morse Code! Only two wires required!
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