Article - DIY Wind Turbine

[TWP]

This might be ugly, but it works and the parts are to be found in local junk yards and hardware stores.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/wind-energy/diy-wind-turbine-zm0z17amz?pageid=1#PageContent1

three page article.

[beorn]

Having done a little of alternator wind turbines in the past this design is poor and my guestimate is that you would need
50-100 MPH sustained winds to get any useable power.

Normally when a old vehical alternator is to be used it requires larger blades and gearing up to get to operational RPM
at  normal local wind conditions this had none of that.

An alternative is rewinding coils and perhaps replacing rotor winding with rare earth permanent magnets
this had none of that either.

This may have worked in theory but not as a useable alternative energy source.

Sorry if i missed something in article i skimmed through it twice but could find no mention of anything that would make this
useable in real life for the prepper or off gridder.

[beorn]

Mother earth news should know better.

[TWP]

  ROTFL 

Well, it is Mother Earth News...  I would add a wind scoop to broaden the intake area.

I agree, the use of at least one level of belt gearing would give you better RPM, but would then need higher wind speed to drive the blades.

I wonder what the actual power output of this system really is?

[beorn]

ROTFL 

Well, it is Mother Earth News...  I would add a wind scoop to broaden the intake area.

I agree, the use of at least one level of belt gearing would give you better RPM, but would then need higher wind speed to drive the blades.

I wonder what the actual power output of this system really is?

you can see in the vid even that winds were high and it just barely surged into charging voltage range and that at probably no load
actual power output of this system would be in the range of 1000 to 1500 watts at  12 volts 10kw at 100 volt thereabouts
of course this is assuming cyclonic and faster wind speeds.

That has always been the disadvantage of reusing car alternators the friction involved in the gearing takes a lot away from efficiency
plus the energy needed to run the rotor coil also takes away from efficiency.But it is very possible you just need to build it a little
bigger to compensate for losses.

The larger the blades and swept area the slower the wind can be to start producing useable electricity basically the blades just have to be of the best size to overcome friction losses and produce good energy at average wind speeds for the area.but not so large
that they cannot be controlled/shut down in above average speeds.

[TWP]

I tried to dig deeper but the author of the article has a very poor website and I could find nothing about this specific generator, in fact, nothing about much of anything.

The article makes the claim that it will charge a 12 volt system, but does not mention the rate of charge or how long it took to fully charge the four batteries.

I would be satisfied if it could keep a two battery, 12 volt system suitable for running a radio and LED lighting system.  That is a very low draw on the batteries.

Replacing the fan blades with a better blade design would also help immensely.  The automotive fan would have some torque but low speed.

Aside from the faults of the design, I saw this as an option to produce "some" power in a SHTF situation.  The components of the system will be readily available (assuming it is not a EMP-caused event) and I would make use of whatever I could find.

[beorn]

These guys and girls and this website has the best imformation on building DIY wind power

http://www.fieldlines.com/index.php/board,5.0.html?PHPSESSID=90ca88c3161741aeea79679052958188

On any wind turbine actual production is always very hard to quantify due to changing conditions most good manufactures put figures into a form of graph and that gives you an idea what you can expect with known average wind values in your area.

if you were to graph production of that wind turbine shown it would show zero production below say 30 mph  minimal up to say 50 mph
with good to high production at 50-150 mph basically you could consider it your hurricane/cyclone wind turbine the rest of the time
its somewhere for the crows to roost maybe hang a flag from it.

yes it would have torque but low speed this is the problem the alternator needs a certain rpm to even produce enough
field to start producing useable voltage.just looked it up i think the alternator starts at about 600 rpm which is pretty quick
for a direct drive wind turbine and produces most of its power when you get into 1500-2500 rpm range.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/howitworks.shtml

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/delcoremy.shtml

IMO this setup would produce less in a year than 10 dollars worth of solar not worth the trouble unless you intend to gear
up and enlarge.