KiteX is moving into the Innovation factory

KiteX Kickstarter campaign ended in late March 2020. They ended up with more than 100 backers and a total funding amount of +100k USD. With the confidence that there would be demand for their turbine, startup have decided to rent a space in the Alfa Laval Innovation Factory in Copenhagen next to their offices, where their have space for testing, manufacturing and assembly.

The initial funding is just enough that company would be able to pay for the components for the initial batch of turbines plus a small amount allocated for assembly, but it’s not enough for further product refinement nor salary. Startup is looking for additional capital to make project more financially sustainable and secure.

Gear box Update

“One of the most challenging part of wind catcher has been getting the gearbox right. Ideally it needs to be lightweight, low cost, robust, efficient and quiet. Not an easy combination to achieve. With testing, we realized that the previous design featured a couple of weaknesses”, said the founder. The main weaknesses are:

– The large gear ring was made of 6 joined 3D printed PETG parts. It would develop a squeaking sound after sounds hours of use that would be annoying when standing near the turbine. It could be solved with lubrication but it wouldn’t last more than half a day.

– The ring gear with the torque-triangle was hard to disassemble. Transporting it in one piece takes up a lot of space in the van/car.

With this in mind, KiteX decided to start developing a new gearbox concept. One that would be more compact and one where the gear wheel/wheels could be printed in one piece to avoid creaking sounds. These efforts resulted in design B after a lot of iteration with continuous improvements.

Further testing of this new concept in the field showed that it worked, yet it would bend/deflect a lot under load, which meant it needs to be run with a high belt tension causing excessive frictional losses. The new gearbox also proved sensitivity to the heat generated by the generator, which over time would cause material creep, meaning the rotation axis would become unaligned.

Startup team decided to go back to the drawing board once again. Eventually, they decided to try manufacturing the gearbox B with essential parts made of parts cut from aluminum sheets. The newest design is ready for endurance, efficiency, noise, and load testing.

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