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Guide To Building Homemade Wind Generators

Most people assume that homemade wind generators are very difficult to build. A couple years ago I would have agreed with you. I mean they look very hard to build with those fancy blades spinning atop of their tower. After seeing the price of the commercially available models we quickly decided that no matter what it took we would find a way to have one of those homemade wind generators.

I went online looking for some plans after a friend told me that he had purchased some plans online. It really sucked. I spent $94 on four sets of plans which had me no closer to learning how to build homemade wind generators. So I decided to do it myself. I mean how hard could it be?

I set out collecting all the parts that I needed to construct our homemade wind generator. I bought an Ametek motor from eBay. I got the tower from a friend who had an old TV tower he wasn't using any more. The blades would be made from a leftover piece of sewer pipe which I got for free from a local construction site. I got the odds and ends that would hold everything together from our local hardware store.

I used the template that my friend gave me to cut out the blades which took about an hour to complete. This included a coat of UV paint to protect them from the damaging effects of the sun. I used a piece of pipe to mount the motor inside to protect it from the rain (wouldn't want to fry it) and mounted this to a flange. The tail was mounted to the other end of the pipe that the motor was in.

The tail consisted of a piece of steel rod from the hardware store and a piece of plastic I had cut into a triangle. The flange was attached to a 2 inch piece of pipe so that it could rotate. Why 2 inches you ask? Well, TV towers have a nice fitting on the top which fits a 2 inch pipe quite nicely.

In total I spent $194... most of which was spent on the motor. In 16MPH winds our generator produces roughly 1000 watts. It doesn't get much windier than that here, but in storms I've seen it peak at 1400 watts. In total I saved well over $2300 over buying a new wind generator. Homemade wind generators certainly can perform and look like commercial ones, and we can prove it!

About the Author

Andrew Oke is very interested in renewable energy.He has 16 years experience living off the grid, and has completely built his own renewable energy system. Visit his website at Homemade Wind Generators

Author Profile: andrew1056

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