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Okay, I have a grandiose plan. I expect to be shot down, but you never know, so hear it is:
I buy some used or imperfect lenses, the larger the better (perhaps some amateur telescope lenses). I find some suitably-sized solar cells for which to receive the maximum benefit from the refractive index of the lense, acquire some of these bulk on ebay, and affix the former to the latter. In turn, the individual cells are soldered onto a grid of suitably useful voltage.
My grid will be a circular panel array, affixed to a fan blade which connects to a wind turbine anchored in the ground. The blades of the fan will not be upright, facing the wind, but more like a pinwheel laid on its back, roatating on a plane parallel to the direction of wind flow. It will look like a flower.
So the solar panel will point up, the lenses directing light onto the cells even though the source of light will not always be perpendicular (I thought of a simple gear mechanism and light meter, to make the panel turn to face the sun, but wont the lenses accomplish that anyway?). The panel will spin around atop the fan blades that turn a turbine, doubley harnessing renewable energies with a single device.
I even thought of mechanizing the fan blades so that they extend outward when their rotational velocity reaches sufficient speed to counterract a spring, making the whole thing look like a blooming flower. hence the title Flower Power. But maybe that's getting too carried away, lol.
Any critical ideas are welcome. And, yes, I realize this whole idea may be infeasible for a number of reasons.
I buy some used or imperfect lenses, the larger the better (perhaps some amateur telescope lenses). I find some suitably-sized solar cells for which to receive the maximum benefit from the refractive index of the lense, acquire some of these bulk on ebay, and affix the former to the latter. In turn, the individual cells are soldered onto a grid of suitably useful voltage.
My grid will be a circular panel array, affixed to a fan blade which connects to a wind turbine anchored in the ground. The blades of the fan will not be upright, facing the wind, but more like a pinwheel laid on its back, roatating on a plane parallel to the direction of wind flow. It will look like a flower.
So the solar panel will point up, the lenses directing light onto the cells even though the source of light will not always be perpendicular (I thought of a simple gear mechanism and light meter, to make the panel turn to face the sun, but wont the lenses accomplish that anyway?). The panel will spin around atop the fan blades that turn a turbine, doubley harnessing renewable energies with a single device.
I even thought of mechanizing the fan blades so that they extend outward when their rotational velocity reaches sufficient speed to counterract a spring, making the whole thing look like a blooming flower. hence the title Flower Power. But maybe that's getting too carried away, lol.
Any critical ideas are welcome. And, yes, I realize this whole idea may be infeasible for a number of reasons.
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