bWKA

Small Wind Turbine Generator System

Author: Benjamin Kelm Date: 04.01.2023 Name: bWKA - baby WindKraftAnlage (german acronym)

General Description and Limits of Operation

This software has been written for the use of the bWKA hardware, as detailed in this video: "Build your own Wind Turbine - Part 1 (Theory and Design)" by Benjamin Kelm on Youtube

The software does the following:

1. Read out the PWM signal a servo tester
2. Control rotational speed of a motor with an ESC (via Dshot protocol) - in this case of a windmill, the ESC regeneratively breaks the motor, feeding energy back into the battery
3. Log Telemetry Data from the ESC onto an micro-SD card.

Note: This project is educational. Do not expect high power outputs, nor expect it to scale to bigger turbines without adaptation.

Electronics Description

Target Board: Teensy 4.1 Environment: Teensyduino

Components Used:

1. Teensy 4.1 with micro-SD card inserted
2. KISS ESC 32A (needs to support Regenerative Breaking)
3. PWM Servo Tester or similar

Wiring:

ESC is wired up normally to Battery and Motor

KISS ESC 32A is wired to the Teensy in the following way:

• ESC TLM Pad (or TX) <-> Teensy Pin 0
• ESC SIG Pad <-> Teensy Pin 4

The Servo Tester PWM Signal is wired to the Teensy on Pin 14

Program Description

The program is heavily relying on these two sources:

• teensyshot by Jacques Gangloff and Arda Yigit
• teensy SD Logger by MBorgerson

To compile, the following files from teensyshot need to be in the same directory:

• DSHOT.h and .cpp
• ESCCMD.h and .cpp

Original Idea

The original idea was to develop an MPPT controller similar to this one. Once I have a current sensor implemented, the code can be adapted to track the maximum power.

Disclaimer

This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the MIT License, as published by Scott Chacon and others.