Minigen

[ThatOneWeirdo]

First off I am a noob. I am looking to get power in my shed so I can run a light and charge my tractor. I was hoping to do so by means of the Minigen. Will this work? If not are there other kits that would? I was also looking at Chispito Wind Turbine Generator. Which would work the best for what I need.

Thanks in advance.

Chispito

http://www.velacreations.com/chispito.html

[GeeMac]

I have a minigen. It's great. but the wire that comes wound on the coil with it is very fine. The fine wire causes a higher voltage output but there is little amperage.  As I understand it, you will need some amperage to do some charging. If you get a larger guage of magnet wire and replace the original wire with it, you might get the output you need.

Secondly, I am not an expert at this and I am still learning. However, the folks on this dicussion board are experts and can perhaps add more to what I has said.

All the best with your project.

[Capt Slog]

I too have a minigen, much modified.

I replaced the wire with something larger, it's a long time ago so I can't remember what I used, but I filled up the original spool.

I also put different blades on it, and because of their extra weight I had to make a completely different bearing arrangement and blade mounts.  There is very little left of the original I suppose, but it gave me a good grounding in messing about with windmills.

If you are interested enough, I'll take it apart and post some pictures, it hasn't been up in the air for some time as it's been replaced by a bigger brother!

I did have it producing 15V in a decent wind, and used this to charge some very small batteries (12v) which I ran some LED garden lights from.  Great fun, but whether it is upto the job of charging a tractor battery, I have my doubts.