Bacon Powered Windmill

Intro: Bacon Powered Windmill

Have you ever wondered what you would do for light and entertainment do if you had no power, no candles, and no television, but you did have a plentiful supply of bacon?
Of course you have. But wonder no more, because I have come up with the highly entertaining Bacon Powered Windmill for hours of power outage fun.
We all know how nice it is to sit and stare at fire; well with this contraption you not only get fire, but a whirling, turning, spinning, rotating wheel as well.

I would like to thank Charlie at Goulburn Water Systems for the inspiration for this one.

STEP 1: Assemble Your Materials

Most importantly you will need a Bacon Powered Lamp as described in my earlier Instructable. This lamp is proving highly useful.

In addition to the lamp you will need the top (or bottom) of a large tin. I used the bit left over from making my Bacon Powered Bacon Stove, a length of stiff wire (high tensile wire or a bike spoke - that kind of thing) about 150mm long, and apart from some basic tools that's about it.

STEP 2: Create Your Windmill Components

Take the bottom or top out of a largish tin can and cut the rim off it with some heavy duty scissors or snips.
Try to locate the centre of the disc and punch a small dent right there, without punching right through.

Make yourshaft from straight length of high tensile wire, or a bike spoke. Sharpen one end with a grinder or file.

Try to balance the disc on top of the shaft by placing the centre dent over the point of the shaft. If it doesn't sit level snip a tiny bit off the disc at the heavy (low) side to try to make it balance. Do this again and again until the disc sits level on the sharpened wire.

Cut the vanes of the windmill into the disc with scissors. Just make simple cuts at even intervals right around the disc. My cuts were all about 35mm long and 10mm apart at the outside. All the cuts should point to the centre of the disc.

With pliers, carefully twist the vanes so they are all at about the same angle. I guess about 30 degrees from the plane.

STEP 3: Assemble Your Windmill

Carefully insert the shaft of your windmill into your Bacon Powered lamp, just inside the edge of the tin. Push it through the fat and sand, right to the bottom. Make sure it is as vertical as you can make it.
Gently place the fan part of the windmill onto the shaft so it balances level.

To make the wheel spin even more smoothly you can lubricate the point of the shaft with some bacon fat.

STEP 4: Fire It Up and Enjoy

Simply light the lamp and watch the excitement grow as the windmill starts to turn. Faster and faster. Turning. Rotating. Spinning. Twirling.

You will probably want to share this fun with friends and neighbors. Perhaps you could get them to bring around some beers. And some food, because you will be hungry with all that delicious bacon aroma filling your nostrils.

I hoped you liked this bacony Instructable.

Comments

[nutsandbolts_64]

Make that axis permanent, not just balancing, attach a gear, drive belt to a larger gear, bevel gear, shaft, bevel gear, bevel gear, attach the middle of a shaft horizontally to that last bevel gear, attach a reflector to each end of the shaft, with a color filter of red drawn out from the first to the second, and blue from the second to the first on the opposite end. Ensure each component is made of a light, durable and rigid material (color filters as exception). Wallah! Bacon-powered police-ish light!

[cammers]

Brilliant! I can just see one of those on top of every police car in the future.

[nutsandbolts_64]

It may be innovative, but I doubt police officers will compromise their lunch XD

[fullclip765]

cops dont eat eachother either

[Chuck US]

Could you render the bacon fat inside the police car?

[nutsandbolts_64]

What? When you said "render" I thought render bacon fat in a 3D design software in a rendered police car lol. Really, what'd you mean?

[Chuck US]

Rendering is (I think) the process of separating the fat from a piece of meat. Police are often referred to in a porcine sense (note - never by me, officer) and may provide a renewable energy source for nutsandbolts_64's idea for a bacon powered police-ish light - as long as the donuts/twinkies keep coming e.g. Chief Wiggum (Simpsons) or Sgt Al Powell (Die Hard).

BTW: I know and like many (all) of our "boys in blue" and they do a fantastic and difficult job. No offence guys. Respect.

[nutsandbolts_64]

Actually, what I described is very slow, inefficient way of getting things done. Might as well stick a vertical axis wind turbine on top and a couple of LED's. The marked cruiser when speeding along will provide incoming wind to the turbine and spin for you until a certain threshold, until which it will spin no faster (which is what VAWT's are good for, ability to operate in environments where conventional turbines won't, but at the cost of low, yet regulated, speeds).

[Bartboy]

"no power, no candles, and no television, but you did have a plentiful supply of bacon"

TACTICAL BACON.
Then you could just eat it.

[fsangheili]

lol, they have that

http://www.dudeiwantthat.com/food/novelty/tactical-bacon.asp

[MrF_DT_teacher]

Nice. I tried making a windmill powered by a tealight a while back and it failed. Looking at your design the more blades the better. Does your bacon light kick out alot more heat than a tea light?

[thelastonekills]

5/5 soo goint to vote 4 this,
ps. can u by bacon smell oil extract to make it smell better and stonger?

[cammers]

Thanks thelastonekills,
I'm not sure that you'd need the extra bacon extract. My workshop has never smelt so good just burning the straight bacon fat.

[snoopindaweb]

SueeeeeT.!

[cammers]

HAHAHA

[cleardanny]

yes just the hot air , a pitty it have no power , but can be an idea for something .

[cammers]

I totally agree. You never know what some clever person might be able to do with it.

[Green Silver]

Instructables own entrepBACONreneur, Horse Power is on the way out and giving way to Pig Power!
But how may BPP (Brake Pig Power) can the windmill produce? XD

[D00M99]

It's nice, but how does it work?

[cammers]

Thanks. It's just the hot air rising at the flame that turns the windmill.