Maker Workshop – Wind Power Generator on MAKE: television
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at
6:19 pm
Taking a motor from an old exercise treadmill and some PVC pipe, John Park constructs a wind-powered generator. The electrical power may not be enough to get your home off the grid, but the great thing about the project is how it explains in simple terms the technology involved in turning wind into free electricity. Download the PDFs for these projects at www.makezine.tv
Tagged with: episode 7 • green • john park • Make: television • Maker Workshop • pvc • Renewable Energy • wind power generator
Filed under: Wind Power
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Or attach a motor and rectifier to a stationary bicycle and you solve 2 of America’s problems in one go.
he said one of those can charge a 12v battery, you do the math
I found the right ratio is 5 to one diameter 10 in, then 1 blade length could be 50 in long. Union swivel is cool. The rest is for cub scouts.
If you were to build an army of many of these generators, would you possibly be able to power an entire household? How many generators would that take?
Where he uses the term “bridge rectifier” he should have simply said diode.
Since the diode is being used to block reverse current and not to rectify ac to dc.
Is it just me or is there nothing stopping the motor from doing several revolutions and unscrewing off the top of the pipe nipple? Other than that a very nice simple design for off grid power.
just remove the bridge rectifer and you got a fan!!
he said nipple te he
Be smart – don’t pay any more electricity bills. more info: solar.xfollow.me (Copy to your browser’s address bar)
You can build one cheap. Search youtube/ google for plans
Great show, especially the blades. If you are not happy using a treadmill motor, you have a lot of other generators/alternators you can substitute with a little adaption.
it is for any thing that sticks up in the air… The solution is grounding the thing to the ground with heavy cable… Really not a problem, just something that needs to be taken it to account.
He used a new motor in the video, the
McMillan Electric model S3456B3282 permanent magnet motor.
Costs about $90 new. I got an old one from a
Treadmill, and it had rust spots and flaking
paint all over, but it works…….
That’s truly amazing! I slashed my electric bill in half! look here: solar.xfollow.me (Copy to your browser’s address bar)
Lightning may be a problem.
The pipe will unscrew in a week. Flange bearings would be a better choice
Also, you can get a 750 Watt Black and Decker
power inverter from Wal-Mart for $ 60 which
can run off the 12 V battery and run 120V AC
appliances, up to 750 Watts with 1500 Watt
surge-start…………
Dont need to use 12V car appliances at all,
Just needs time to charge battery full.
Venger
Noticed something………..
If he had swapped the leading edge of his
blades for the trailing edge, he would have
increased efficiency of windpower collection
by 331 percent, sice the blade ends would
not have been totally vertical, blocking airflow.
They’d have been almost horizontal instead
which would provide lift-torque………
Venger
All right! I wish I was technical, I cant even saw a plank of wood right.
If you watch my video i attached a DC motor to a bike and made about as many volts as your wind turbine
okay then…….
shame that the commie didn’t mention that the bateries has limited number of cycles. Wich makes the engery not free. But number of cycles/battery cost.
but long live propaganda….
awsome, but needs strong wind.
now i just got to make a smaller windmill so i can charge my cell phone and ipod…then ill be happy…
Those were 6V golf cart batteries though, and they were made to be discharged and recharged deeply and many times. That’s why a lot of people will use those instead of 12V deep cycle marine. More battery storage space, but if you run them in series you will get 12V.