Simple Wind Turbine

In this Instructable I am going to show you how to make a wind generator or turbine out of household items.

PARTS:

1. First I looked for the two main parts: the propeller ( in my case it was a old fan blade ) and a permanent magnet motor. I have tried to use motors that werent permanent magnet and I got bad results.

2. Then you need a long piece of pvc pipe (I used 1/2 inch) but the diameter of the pvc pipe really depends on the diameter of the shaft you are going to use

3. the rest of the parts I found laying around like all of the metal and the plastic for the fin

4. You will also need a hot glue gun 
 

Step 1 The Motor

Im not sure where I got my motor it was in my parts bin but make sure it is a permanent magnet motor. I put a small gear on the shaft of the motor and a larger gear on the shaft going to the fan blades. Look at the picture and it explains itself.



A simple test to find out if your motor is good enough for a wind turbine:

1. Get your motor and if you have access to a shop vise place it in there VERY LOOSELY as not to damage it ( or you can just hold it in your hand )
2. connect your multimeter to the terminals on the motor and set the multimeter to a low DC voltage setting
3. with the multimeter still connetced, spin the motors shaft with your fingers as fast as you can and if the reading is more than or at least 3-4 volts...you have a good motor for this project

Comments

[1000%]

I wonder if that would work on a pager motor if it does its going to be tiny

[Electronics Man]

I tried this with a small pager motor I dug out of an old cell phone... And it didnt work :(

[Electronics Man]

I'm not sure if it would work. If it did that would be awsome!!!

[artworker]

Using a stepper motor ripped of from a floppy drive can give you almost 20Vs. This is very good! 5*

[Electronics Man]

Thanks for the info I never thought of using the motor from an old floppy drive
I'm going to try it out