Me, I got confused too because someone changed the other posting (where there were several replies already) to read-only WHILE I was trying to reply to it.
In that thread, Old F pretty much shot Jeremy's balloon down saying that it's not worth doing.
I'm here to propose the exact opposite. To me this seems like a VERY worthwhile project. The reason for this is simple. The windmill is already there. It spins in the wind and it is beautiful. It can be made to produce electricity at very low cost. It may not produce A LOT of electricity, but that is not the point. Jeremy did not ask whether the turbine would power his entire household or village, just whether it would be worthwhile to convert it to provide electricity.
Others have suggested using the tower to mount a modern wind turbine. I would not do this. I would keep this beautiful machine looking exactly as it does today and simply use it to charge a couple of batteries and power a couple of lights. The free Garbogen stators offered elsewhere on this site come to mind. Jeremy is 17 years old and he will learn a lot from this project and it won't cost him much other than his time.
Even if the machine only produces 100W (and my guess is it'll produce more than this, 100W is worth having just for the gee wiz factor.
Go for it, Jeremy!
Owen
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
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