Wind Powered Yard Light

I live in a pretty windy area and decided this might be a fun little project to throw together. It's pretty simple to do, and could easily be improved to make it more permanent and efficient. It would also make a good school project if you have appropriately aged school children.

Step 1: Prepare the old fixture to start

In my yard I have an old gas lamp that had long been disconnected and which I thought could easily be updated to modern lighting. I removed the top, and dismantled the guts of the old lighting system to make way for the new stuff. Obviously, if you're doing anything with a gas line make sure it is disconnected before you start.

I removed the glass first and placed it inside to prevent it from getting broke. It was also the last thing I put back in place. I also saved the eagle off the top to replace later after I took down the lamp. Then it was simply taking stuff apart, which is far easier than putting it back together.

Comments

[emdarcher]

that turbine design should be an instructable on its own. Nice Work!

[yokozuna]

Thanks. Nice Avatar.

[DeanC993]

Hi well done thats a very nice wind turbine how many volts does that wind turbine produce? Very nice clap clap! (:

[yokozuna]

It's been a while now, but if I remember correctly turning it by hand as fast as I could produced around a half a volt... outside during the storm was enough to blow the LED, whatever that would take? Volts, amps, don't really know for sure.

[neardood]

true. It really needed a recharger, rechargable battery, and a photoresistor circut to come on anly at night.

[ScaryBunnyMan]

Looking good bud! I enjoyed the idea and effort!

Just an FYI, if you're doing more hobby projects and need LED's, china is the way to go over radioshack. Seller hktaiyuen is fantastic. 15 for 99c, 100 for 6/7 bucks..
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZhktaiyuenQQssPageNameZADMEQ3aBQ3aFSELQ3aUSQ3a1124

[Plasmana]

Wow! Great instructable, now I got to build this, unfortunately I don't live in a windy area, oh well... 5 star rating!

[faroun]

I like It. Great outdoor Savonius night light. keep up the good work.

[bhunter736]

Excellent concept and good first attack. I like it. : )

[Mr. Rig It]

I featured this instructable even though in depth detail was not provided and the overall end pictures are not very good and he blew his LED. Here is why I featured it... the concept, use of raw materials, and effort that went into trying to get it accomplished on a time crunch were major factors and the fact he had the courage to inform his readers of the problems that he had. he also added a lot of photos, although some are not that clear, but we have all been in that situation before. Yokozuna, I think you should try it again, the first time is always the hardest and the steepest learning curve. Next thing you know you will be powering your house with it. Good job with your instructable. :-)

[yokozuna]

Thanks... I know some of the pictures suck, it's because I'm trying to take pictures in the dark with a camera that's not really capable of doing so. Even though I didn't really say it, I have redesigned each part of this instructable several times to kind of get it to this point. Basically, I don't think this or anything similar would work for about 99% of people because they don't get the constant wind stream needed to keep it lit up. Even in an area like mine, it only lights up around half the time. My first turbines were all laid flat, and didn't really seem to catch the wind that well unless it was directly from the east or west. Modifications I've made since I took these picture about a month ago include adding another "layer" to the turbine (two sets directly on top of each other, and turned 90 degrees), changing to a bigger electric motor (I hope to eventually light 4 or 5 LEDS), and adding the bottom half of a pop can to help stabilize the mount. If I ever get a version that works as well as I hope, I will try to update this instructable at that time. Thanks for all your input and for featuring my instructable!

[PKM]

Don't the ever-present solar yard lights, because of their nature, contain a battery and a simple charger circuit? Presumably you could replace the solar panel with your wind turbine and so keep the light on when there was no wind? The only problem might be that an input from the "solar panel" would make it assume it was daytime and turn the light off, I'm not sure how they work that part out. Great Instructable, anyway!

[yokozuna]

Yeah, that's the idea... the actual part is called a light sensing diode, which tells it when to start shining the LEDs so that wouldn't be a problem. I made reference to this but didn't go into a lot of detail, but it's pretty much based on the solar yard lights and just replacing the photovoltaic portion with a wind turbine and electric motor. When I get a model that has a nice balance between function and longevity, I'll probably start adding some of those components.

[thewoodcarver]

Good Idea ,I like this .most attempts with wind power with kids at sons school have failed ...most due to the lack of strength in the turbine (gusts to 40 that day)will have to show this to the kids and have them try again ....I also like that you show that when it failed you went on to try again

[EaKLondon]

Nice idea using wind power, will have to try something like this