Dan, did you give up on your extrawheel wind powered generator?
Hi Rual!
Thanks for the link. I have been following this for some time and am pleased to see it moving forward.
I still have my Extrawheel trailer and was just recently playing with it as a wind turbine again. It continues to work well for that, generating a charging current in relatively low winds while inverted behind the parked bike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGvKlMBftc I have three options for vanes I am still trialing, as I want a final version that can be unclipped to reduce drag while underway, yet attaches with minimum fuss when the trailer is inverted, generating electricity in camp at night. This will nicely augment the charging that takes place while riding.
Unfortunately, the Extrawheel works less well as a trailer
in my applications due to the interference between the trailer tongue/fork and the rear mudguard drawbolts/nuts (all my bikes use mudguards, this would not be a problem with bare tires). When riding on rough ground, the fully loaded trailer lofts on hitting bumps and the tongue makes contact with the mudguard drawbolts and all that kinetic energy goes into the fender blade, cracking it. I lost one mudguard blade already (inconvenient while touring and expensive afterwards).
I need to again contact the principals at Extrawheel, but at last word they had no plans for creating a tongue with greater clearance. I have a couple of the tongues and have drawn up plans to modify one myself (I am a hobbyist bicycle framebuilder), but need to determine if the steel used has been tempered so my modified version will have the same characteristics. At present, it appears all that is needed is to braze in some radiused pieces of steel opposite the drawbolts, then cut out the original sections of the tongue for clearance.
I really like the idea of the trailer especially for hauling the extra water I need during desert crossings and the large diameter wheel (26in or 700C in my case) handles rough tracks well, but I have to solve the mudguard interference problem before I use it again. One project among many, it has been temporarily back-burnered over the winter awaiting a warmer garage to work in.
More updates as I cross some of the other tasks off my list.
All the best,
Dan.
