Flew my homemade wind generator for the first time today. I'm pretty proud, even though it is just a test model made mostly of scrap and stuff I had around the workshop.
Generator: Small electric motor out of an HP printer, 1/8" shaft
Hub: McMaster.com 9964K11
Two holes drilled through this shaft collar hub
Blade center: 1/4" plywood, 3"x8", through bolted to hub
Blades: 3" wide, cut out of plastic pail, with pail ridges sanded down at an angle
Blades are through bolted to hub
Frame: About 8" of 2x4 with a groove chiseled out for the motor, motor held down with a hose clamp
Vane: 1/4" plywood screwed on to side of 2x4
Swivel: Pipe flange with 3/4" pipe, 4" long
Tower: 10' of 1" conduit clamped to a fence post
It was not made very exactly, I just eyeballed things and cut away with the jigsaw. The blades are unbalanced. So far it has survived 20mph winds. It shakes a little bit but does seem to like to turn.
It only puts out a few volts. At 10mph it will put out about 1.5 to 2V. It seems to max out at about 5V in gusts. I suppose it would charge some Nicad batteries in parallel. I have no idea about how much watts it puts out. Probably not much.
It will run a small computer fan at about half speed when the wind is blowing maybe 15 mph. I am just having fun experimenting with LED's and other small electronic stuff.
Originally I was hoping to build a wind generator to charge 12V batteries on my boat, but after testing the motor by turning it with a drill it was pretty clear that the printer motor was not going to create much voltage. I built it anyway to see if it would work or if it would fall apart.
I have the parts for a dump charge controller but haven't built it yet. I need to find a better generator that will put out about 16V.
If we get some heavy winds I will check to see how much voltage it maxes out at, and maybe it will self destruct and I will learn what wasn't strong enough. Probably the motor, although it seemed pretty strong.
