home made wind powered generator

**rebel** · 07-28-2013, 06:59 PM

http://www.thekevdog.com/projects/wind_generator/

**hunter63** · 07-28-2013, 07:41 PM

That's kinda cool, thanks for posting.

He's gonna have to up the price though, this was constructed several years ago, and material prices have risen.
That is if you have to buy the materials.
He's using 2 deep cycle batteries over $150 bucks alone.

I followed Mother Earth News projects the Red Barron and Blue Max, including their testing....back in the day...and looked into building one.
Never did.

**rebel** · 07-28-2013, 08:24 PM

I was impressed with the blade construction.

**tjwilhelm** · 07-28-2013, 11:14 PM

It is clever for a quick homemade "demonstration" unit. Unfortunately, it's missing a few critical elements. One in particular is over-speed protection. The power output of a wind generator varies with the cube of the wind speed. This means if the wind speed is doubled (multiplied by 2) the power output goes up 2-cubed, or 8 times. Without a means to limit power during periods of high wind, a machine like this can easily melt its own armature windings.

The international guru of homebrewed small-wind design is a guy from Scotland named Hugh Piggot. His work has been studied and adapted to proven, functional, home made wind machines by Dan Bartman and Dan Fink of Colorado. Their website is loaded with REAL info, on field-tested and time-proven homemade machines. The web address is www.otherpower.com.

**hunter63** · 07-29-2013, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by tjwilhelm

It is clever for a quick homemade "demonstration" unit. Unfortunately, it's missing a few critical elements. One in particular is over-speed protection. The power output of a wind generator varies with the cube of the wind speed. This means if the wind speed is doubled (multiplied by 2) the power output goes up 2-cubed, or 8 times. Without a means to limit power during periods of high wind, a machine like this can easily melt its own armature windings.

The international guru of homebrewed small-wind design is a guy from Scotland named Hugh Piggot. His work has been studied and adapted to proven, functional, home made wind machines by Dan Bartman and Dan Fink of Colorado. Their website is loaded with REAL info, on field-tested and time-proven homemade machines. The web address is www.otherpower.com.

I was kinda hoping you would jump in on this.....Tried to give ya some rep, but says I gotta spread it around.
Thanks for the input.

My take on most of these are a good model, but not really big enough to be practical......and I do get a kick out of the price put on things.
Apparently a lot of people have a lot of stuff laying around, keeping the down....tread mill motors?....where in the heck you get these?

My quest to be off grid at "The Place" is slowed down and stalled as I upgrade windows, insulation and other low draw appliances.
Much easier to conserve energy then to manufacture it.

There is a straw bale house up the hill form me, that was off grid to start with, the connected with a grid tied transfer switch and separate meter.
Was designed to be off grid........Where as a log cabin isn't a good choice for alternate power.

Don't get me wrong, anything is better than nothing when the grid goes down......just looking for the biggest bang for my buck.