Introduction: Anemometer on the Cheap (Wind Speed Meter)

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About: ***...Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new...*** ...Albert Einstein...

This homemade construction is easy
and cheap, almost free.

Αll the materials used I found in my house.

Almost all, because all I bought was the container for watercolors.

The basic idea is the DC motor which torsion due to the wind produces an electrical current which can be measured by an ammeter.

This is my first attempt with DC motor (basically a wind turbine).
I think the next Instructable will be with a rotary optical encoder. (Coming Soon).

Well, let's start...

Step 1: What We Will Need

First of all, let's see what we will need:


1) Watercolor Containers (about 0,50€) or Ping pong Balls (about 1,50€)
2) DC motor (ripped from an old CD-ROM)
3) Wire
4) Some Tools (like: Dremel, little hand saw, sandpapper and an old solder iron)
5) Epoxy Glue (optional)
6) Pizza "Tables" (when you buy pizza don't throw them away) [that's their name on google]
7) and of course cold Coffee...

Step 2: Worklog - Cutting the Cups

First of all, let's Drill a little hole around the cups an trim away the unnecessary plastic but don't throw it away, because later we will use it for melting and gluing the plastic legs and cups.
Sandpaper the cups in order to be smooth.
And then take a sheet of Paper ,draw a circle and divide it to 3 by 120 degree.
This will help us to align the cups and the pizza table legs.

Step 3: Worklog Melting and Gluing

Αlign and carefully melt the plastics with the soldering iron and where necessary, fill with the plastic was left from before.
I also use the holder (the black thing at the photo) that sit on it the CD to connect the shaft of the DC motor.

Step 4: Finishing

I used a broom stick to put on my balcony in order to get measurements, but these days in Greece it's not windy at all.

So I'll wait until we have winds, until then I will make on arduino the algorithm and the appropriate circuit in order to take measurements accurately.

Thanks for viewing my Instructable and wait untill we have measurements so this thread will be finished.
So, the next Instructable will be Anemometer with Optical Encoder.