How I built my own wind turbine for my house

Last summer, a relative was talking to me about all the great resources where I live. We
have good wind, plenty of sunlight, and two rivers flowing in the woodland behind our
house. That very afternoon, we had a huge storm where the power went out for three
days. That got me thinking about somehow putting up a little wind turbine to get some
power. This is how I made it. *I am constantly updating this site as the project goes
along, so bear with me*
Step 1: Researching the Area
The first step that I had to accomplish was trying to figure out if it was really worth the
time and money to put up something to produce power. I measured daily wind speed,
looked at weather maps http!""www.awea.org"fa#"usresource.html$ and just walked
around the yard trying to see where the wind blew the best. %tuff you want to consider
are the trees, shrubs, physical obsturctions &ouses, sheds, barns, ect.$, and birms, which
can make the wind go above your wind turbine. I found a little mound that looked good
because it had a great view of the front yard, where the wind usually comes from. I
deicided that this is where I wanted my turbine.
Step 2: Designing the turbine
'efore you start grabbing your tool belt and start buying parts, have an idea on how your
turbine is going to look, how fast it is going to go, and how much power it is going to
make. %ince I never really made a turbine before, I decided with making a turbine that
would produce enough power to charge a ()* battery since the wind doesn+t blow all the
time and I don+t want to suddenly lose power$, which will be connected to a ,-".-
converter. The inverter will turn the power made by the turbine in the battery to )
standard ()/ volt .- house outlets that I can plug appliances into. I may e0pand or make
another turbine in the future, but for now it is so much easier to start small. If you want to
make a turbine that produces more power, feel free to use bigger dimensions to fit your
needs. 1ou can always add more batteries to make a )2 or 23 volt system instead of a ()
volt system if neccesary. 4or major systems that will power an entire house, you might
want to use a much bigger setup and something much more advanced that I have here. I
spent a while drawing sketches, despite my somewhat average art skills. That helps cover
obvious problems. I also did some -., work, but that really isn+t neccesary.
Step 3: etting a enerator

5ust about the hardest step in the project is trying to find a generator for your wind
turbine to turn. 6ost people including me$ use ,- motors. They have to have permanet
magnets, or 76, or else they won+t produce power. 1ou want to get a motor that has a low
876, but high voltage. I know it+s an odd cobination, but basically a motor rated for
)/// 876 at )2 volts won+t make at least () volts until it is spinning at least (/// rpm,
when a turbine will only go about 9// rpm. 1ou want something like 9/ volts at ://
867 I have spent many hours searching the internet, and motors that meet these
specifications are hard to come by. -heck places lile ;bay and -raigslist first, because
new stuff is coming up all the time. . lot of people want to use .metek motors for their
turbines, but they are even rarer. <ther brands will work just as good. I got a ,ayton
2=:9> that makes ?/*,- volts ,-$ at roughly 9)@2/ 876. %hown below$ If you
really don+t want to use a dc motor, a 9@phase alternator will work just as good. I+m not
currently very e0perienced with them here, so be sure to check out otherpower.com for
other information about them.

,<A+T get a gear motor unless it+s really worth it. The motor I bought was a gear motor,
but it was too hard to turn by hand, more or less blades by the wind. I later adjusted the
gears in a way it can turn that I will discuss further down. The motor"generator is one of
the most important components in a wind turbine sytstem. It determines the siBe of the
blades, the siBe ofthe mount and tower, ect. 'e sure to pick a good one when shopping.
Step !: "he #lades
The blades are by far second on the hardest things to do. I+ve seen many forums on how
big to make blades, what to make them out of, ect. I found out that the easiest way to
make blades is using 7*- pipe cut into airfoils. This looked promising because they
cannot bend, water can easily slide off them, and they are also durable. I had a couple of
mishaps, but I decided that the best way to make the blades is to cut a slit halfway down
mostly for asthetics and making it lighter$. I made my blades ) feet in diameter. I also
made a 2@foot diameter one in case I need the bigger siBe, but I haven+t used them yet. .s
you can see, they are on a weak looking piece of wood, but I later added a metal plate
from the bottom of a coffee tin. 'e aware that making blades take an awful long time, so
make sure you can work for at least 2 hours on them. In the end, I decided to put some
duct tape on the edge of the blade that cuts into the wind. It+s a lot easier than sanding or
filing it, and it+s downright #uicker. 4or the hub, I got an old piece of round wood, but I
would recommend using the bottom of an old coffee container. I later put that on along
with a rubber reinforcment. I+ll hopefully make a new page for pictures and videos soon.

<ne design I found that doesn+t work well is the one below. It is too flimsy and bends in
the wind so much there really isn+t any tor#ue. 6ake sure to have a strong centerpoint,
and be e0tra careful where the blades connect to the hub because this is a really weak
spot. . great way to check how your blades work is to put a bolt into your drill and then
take it ouside. 6y blades easily spun up in a slight breeBe and stayed pretty consistent
afterward.
6.5<8 C7,.T;DDD
.fter much testing, I have decided to make the blades from wood instead. <ne 7*-
blade has already broken during a windstorm while I was testing it with a table outside.
The blades also need an e0treme amount of wind to properly get going once they have a
load the generator$. When they do get going, they rarely e0ceed (// 876, when my
generator needs ?3 876 after gear modification$ to start making useful power ()* and
up$. I will e0plain more about the blades later after I get some pictures, but for now I+ll
just talk about it. The blades are made from pine wood that is 9 feet instead of ) feet like
the 7*-. They are actually more than 9 times as big as the previous blades. %ince these
blades are so much bigger, they should be able to start in almost no wind and travel pretty
fast they are e0tremely light blades$.
,<A+T get a gear motor unless it+s really worth it. The motor I bought was a gear motor,
but it was too hard to turn by hand, more or less blades by the wind. I later adjusted the
gears in a way it can turn that I will discuss further down. The motor"generator is one of
the most important components in a wind turbine sytstem. It determines the siBe of the
blades, the siBe ofthe mount and tower, ect. 'e sure to pick a good one when shopping.
Step !: "he #lades
The blades are by far second on the hardest things to do. I+ve seen many forums on how
big to make blades, what to make them out of, ect. I found out that the easiest way to
make blades is using 7*- pipe cut into airfoils. This looked promising because they
cannot bend, water can easily slide off them, and they are also durable. I had a couple of
mishaps, but I decided that the best way to make the blades is to cut a slit halfway down
mostly for asthetics and making it lighter$. I made my blades ) feet in diameter. I also
made a 2@foot diameter one in case I need the bigger siBe, but I haven+t used them yet. .s
you can see, they are on a weak looking piece of wood, but I later added a metal plate
from the bottom of a coffee tin. 'e aware that making blades take an awful long time, so
make sure you can work for at least 2 hours on them. In the end, I decided to put some
duct tape on the edge of the blade that cuts into the wind. It+s a lot easier than sanding or
filing it, and it+s downright #uicker. 4or the hub, I got an old piece of round wood, but I
would recommend using the bottom of an old coffee container. I later put that on along
with a rubber reinforcment. I+ll hopefully make a new page for pictures and videos soon.

<ne design I found that doesn+t work well is the one below. It is too flimsy and bends in
the wind so much there really isn+t any tor#ue. 6ake sure to have a strong centerpoint,
and be e0tra careful where the blades connect to the hub because this is a really weak
spot. . great way to check how your blades work is to put a bolt into your drill and then
take it ouside. 6y blades easily spun up in a slight breeBe and stayed pretty consistent
afterward.
6.5<8 C7,.T;DDD
.fter much testing, I have decided to make the blades from wood instead. <ne 7*-
blade has already broken during a windstorm while I was testing it with a table outside.
The blades also need an e0treme amount of wind to properly get going once they have a
load the generator$. When they do get going, they rarely e0ceed (// 876, when my
generator needs ?3 876 after gear modification$ to start making useful power ()* and
up$. I will e0plain more about the blades later after I get some pictures, but for now I+ll
just talk about it. The blades are made from pine wood that is 9 feet instead of ) feet like
the 7*-. They are actually more than 9 times as big as the previous blades. %ince these
blades are so much bigger, they should be able to start in almost no wind and travel pretty
fast they are e0tremely light blades$.
7*- testing and results
I tested this wind turbine on a small table which I set outside on a windy day. These are
the results of the small 7*- blades, not the new wood blades. 4or testing I had a volt
meter to record the voltage and a small radio in case I needed a load.While I was testing,
the sky started to turn threatening. 7retty soon, we were getting wind gusts all the way to
9/mphD I tried to use the ,- load to slow the turbine dBown, but I didn+t have any luck.
4inally, I just tried shorting out the turbine. It seemed to slow it down until the gear
started slipping on the hose and the blades decided to start right back upD 'y then, I just
wanted to get it to stop so I don+t literally$ shoot a blade at something or someone$ at
the speed of a bulletD I ended up making a huge amount of friction on the jack shaft, and
that seemed to slow it to the point that I could jam a screwdriver between the blades and
hold them still. Won+t make that mistake again. Aow I am considering a furling system to
try and prevent this thing from ripping itself apart from the inside out. While I was
taking it in, our decorative wind mill > feet high fell down, and bent a few blades it has
twelve if you were wondering$, and also beat up the tail. I did find a way to use it+s
lattice@style tower as our ETest towerE before it goes up onto 9/ feet. It also got me
thinking of somehow adding a furling system so I don+t ruin this turbine in storms. <f
course, the wood blades will probably have similar problems that I hope to fi0. <ne
major problem is that the blades overpower the alternator, so if I were to short it out, I
have to potential risk of burning out the copper coil inside the generator with way too
much heat, which means that the motor is ruined.
Step $: "he %ount
The motor and fin will need something to mount on. I+ve seen complicated mounts with
computer@controlled turning for turning e0actly into the wind, but for this basic project, a
simple fin will do the trick. I found an old piece of scrap wood lying around, and I
figured that should work. I ended up cutting two other pieces of wood that s#uished
the fin, and then I put a screw holding it in. I would suggest using metal or something
stronger than wood. The fin is a little flimsy, so I am prepared for it to break eventually. It
might be good if it were to break in e0tremely high winds so that the rest of the turbine
will turn out of the wind and hopefully last longer. 6uch drilling, sawing, and measuring
later, I had my mount.
. word of advice is to maybe make the fin a little bigger. This one is all right, but it+s not
as good as I hoped. I might unscrew it and make a bigger one in the future. 'e sure to
make the mount big enough for your motor. I found out that the motor I bought needed
some work. I bought a gear motor, and therefore had to take apart the gearbo0 and mess
with some of the components. If you made the mistake of getting a gear motor, my advice
would to either return it or sell it and get another one, or, if your a hands@on person, get
your hands dirty and take out the gears one by one until you get the tor#ue you want. I
later made a wood cover that I screwed into the mounting holes to hold the gears in.
%orry about the fuBBy image.
Step $: &onnecting the blades to the generator
&ere+s where we really start digging into the middle of things. The first connection I had
to make was conencting the motor+s gear to the blades. This is really hard, because
you must prevent the blades from sliding in Tower strike, where the blades hit the tower
and ends your turbine+s life in a catastrophic failure that could also kill someone else$,
and even worse, when the blades and hub together start rocketing in any direction, which
can hit people, buildings, animals, ect. Let me just say up front that I don+t want a 9//@
876 spinning disk rocketing towards me or the house. . relative in the project suggested
that I use a bearing that will take some of the stress off the motor. That turned out to be a
great idea. We drilled two holes in two blocks of wood, and then ran a long screw through
it along with some bearings. This way, the entire motor@housing will be in a weather@
prood enclosure. I haven+t yet found a hose that will connect the end of that screw to the
motor, but I+ll hopefully find a clamp and then connect that soon.
C7,.T;
I finally found a hose that fits, and I decided to use a hose clamp to keep it on the
generator. I used another clamp for keeping it from slipping on the screw. It worked
pretty well. I decided on cutting the hose down as much as I could, because with it longer
it tends to EWind upE, and so the blades get harder to turn. Then it suddenly has enough
force to start the generator and re#uires the normal tor#ue again. With it shorter it no
longer has that tendancy to wind up.
While I was building, I also made a new hub. This one is more precise than the previous
one, and is made of steel. 4rom just looking at it you couldn+t tell if it was off. The blue
stuff is this stuff that allows us to make marks on the steel. If you look closely, you can
sort of see a thin ring where I used a compass.
.s soon as I find the proper fitting hose and clamp, I plan to take it outside on a ladder
for it+s first test to get an estimate on power production, and to see just how well it all
holds together. I really don+t want any vibrating, because I have heard as such a thing
where the e0treme vibrating will slowly but surely take out the screws, and then can
easily disassemble the entire mount and send everything flying in just a strong wind.
Step ': "a(ing a loo( at towers
While I was working on the mount system, I was also considering how I was going to get
this system up into the wind. I saw people using pieces of conduit for the tower, but I
thought that it would bend a lot. 'esides, I didn+t want a bunch of guy wires everywhere
because that could be dangerous for dirt bikes, skiing, ect. I thought about using
something like a flagpole, They+re pretty cheap, don+t need guy wires, and are reliable.
6ost models are also telescoping, so it will be pretty easy to repair and maintain the
blades, generator, and all the bearings and stuff. I thought about also how high I wanted
it. I really wanted it where the wind was really going to blow, and not where there was
just a slight breeBe. &owever, I didn+t need it 3/ feet up in a jetstream. .fter some more
research, I decided that anywhere between )/ and 9/ feet should suffice. I also used a tall
piece of conduit and strapped a flag on the top so I could see how fast the wind was. I
also tried my blades out this way. I decided on later on buying a (F@foot flagpole for
about 9/ bucks, and then strap some conduit to get it to at least )/ feet. I may do that or
even cut down a tree in the backyard and shave the branches off until I just have a trunk,
and then use that. I also was thinking about how to make the mount turn easily into the
wind, without winding up the wires from the generator. I think that if I put a bearing on
the bottom of the mount that slid onto the conduit, it might just work.