[jwxr7]

I did some driving tests with a 3 blade rotor. Conditions weren't perfect, but I really wanted to see some power #s. There were light winds out of the NE between 2-6mph and my elevation is a bit over 900ft above sea level. Most of the testing was done driving north, but I tried to adjust the speeds to compensate for the light headwinds.

I was able to get 500 watts out of it at around 30mph using a 4 ohm load. I didn't go over 30 mph, that would be pushing the test rig more than I'd like. My load bank was maxed out anyway and those blades were really going! At speeds 20 mph and less, I had to lighten the generator load to 32 ohms to get the best power.

Here is a summary of max power vs wind speed I recorded;
12mph ~ 20w into 32 ohms
15mph ~ 70w into 32 ohms
20mph ~ 125w into 32 ohms
22.5mph ~ 231w into 8 ohms
25mph ~ 352w into 4 ohms
30mph ~ 506w into 4 ohms

Observations I had;
The low speed numbers probably aren't very accurate and should be redone on a windless day. Actually, don't put too much into any of the numbers since I was going by vehicle speed on a less than calm day.
This blade set really has a sweet spot for loading where it runs best at.
Too much load and it never gets into it's power band, too little and the generator doesn't put out enough. I suspect that with all 6 blades, low speed power will improve and high speed will probably come down some.