Wind Turbine Plans
I remember our fruitless search for wind turbine plans. We had decided that we wanted to build a wind generator because it would be the most cost effective way for us to generate electricity. When we started looking around for wind turbine plans we found quite a few that looked really good, but the problem was that they were way to complicated for us to read.
If I remember correctly I think we bought over four sets of plans and all of them were garbage. I mean I don't really need to know how Bernoulli's principle works in order to build a wind generator do I? We decided that it would probably be best if we came up with our own set of wind turbine plans that was easy to understand so normal people could figure out how to build a wind turbine.
To begin with I needed to find a motor that would work good for electricity generation. There's a little trick with selecting motors for your wind generator. The input specifications ARE NOT how much the motor will produce. In reality, it will only generate about 50% of the rated input voltage. It took me a little while of spinning motors hooked up to a volt meter to figure this out. Ideally you'll be looking for a motor that produces 24 volts at 300 RPM's or so. This will ensure that at the same 300 RPM's the motor will produce 12 - 16 volts which is perfect to charge 12 volt batteries.
The next part is to build the blades for the wind generator. This is the part that I thought was impossible because I had no fancy tools to make an airfoil shape. As it turns out... if you cut 6 - 8 inch sewer pipe a certain shape they make a good blade with about 80% efficiency. The best part is that you can probably find this pipe left over and get it for free.
The next major part of the wind turbine is the tower. I went looking around trying to find out how much a good tower would cost and was shocked at the price tag. I had to figure out a way to get a tower for less than $50. Then it hit me... since we live in a very rural area many people used to have TV antenna's but now have satellite dishes. These towers are very strong and not likely to break even under high winds. I went out and asked my friend if I could have theirs. No problem.
The last part of the wind turbine was the tail and body. For the tail I used a piece of steel rod and some plastic I picked up at the local hardware store. The body was made with double insulated wood stove pipe. this would ensure that no dirt or rain would be able to get inside and muck everything up.
Are you ready to get your hands on some good Wind Turbine Plans?