I ran an add on the lockal community web site under classifieds asking people if they had treadmills that for what ever reason they needed to get rid of. I have accumulated quite a few. Only one of them produced any power for me with my homemade pvc blades. It took high winds and when it spun up to charging voltage it was very scary. You have to treat it like high speed swords. Swords that could let go and fly off with crazy potential energy.
Not good for a camping where people will be walking around. It will be difficult to cary the stuff to stick it very high up in the air, and let me tell you of the scaryest part of all of it. Shutting it down when its time to pack up and leave, if it is producing any good power.
If you want to persue experimenting with wind in a safer environment super. There are some good motors out there that can be had very affordably. I ended up buying one off the innernet that I'm using exclusively now. And I still have all of those treadmills to haul off but its all fun.
When searching for a motor the most important thing to remember is High Voltage, Low RPM. But that isn't all. Now that I have one up and producing I have come to realise the importance of the Amp rating also. The amps measure how much electricity is actually moving from one place to another.
My motor is 260 volts D/C rated at an RPM of 5100 but, it only has an amp rating of 5amps which is tiny. To get watts you multiply the volts times the amps. So lets say she is at charging voltage, about 13.8, and she is really gettin with it lets say the full 5 amps. Thats 69 watts. My point is you want more amps. Now I do see more than 5 amps with it periodically, I've seen 14 before, but it is rare and dont last long. I also have purchased commercially made blades so mine does better than homemade but not as good as the guys on this board do with carved wood. Thats the best and they say that they are alwayse blown away by how easy it is after they have made a set. That I dont know about. I'm still to scared to undertake that challenge. Some day I'll build an axial flux turbine with carved blades but I had to go threw all this other stuff to understand the difference it makes. And dont get me wrong I have a working system that is fairly consistantly producing, not much, but it is producing and it was cheap and a wonderful learning experience.
Its a lot to grasp and a lot of work, but very fullfilling. Just keep tinkering and the rest will follow.
I'm sorry I rambled on for so long. I used up my whole caffine buzz on this this morning. Man good luck dude, I'll close out saying though that I personally believe windmills are way more fun to watch than solar pannels and there are many here on this board that believe the same thing. Some super good people willing to help.
I gotta go there is a cute blond jogger out front looking at the windmill. See ya.