Introduction: Make a Wind Turbine From a Cardboard Roll

By AeroArduino
About: DIY my way through life. For me, Instructales is a way of living. It's my making log. My life is counted with the instructables I make. Visit my website and If you need more Arduino Mentoring for your class yo…

Who does't want to build his own wind turbine?

In this post I'll show you how I made this easy rotating simple wind turbine out of recycled materials. I've made many of them before.

But in this one I've gone so far.

I've tried to use cardboard roll as wind turbine blades. I've tried three designs. Then I had two failures and one success.

Here is how I did it.

Let's get started.

Here is my Channel on Youtube:

AeroArduino

Supplies

Permanent Magnet Motor

Step 1: Materials and Tools

Materials:

Wind turbine motor/generator. I used 120 Volt permanent Motor/Generator from Amazon

Amazon DE , Amazon UK , Banggood , eBay , Aliexpress

  • Blades

Cardboard roll cut into airfoil shapes to make the blades.

  • Pole

I used old steel mop --- This is the main pole for the wind turbine

  1. Rudder

Old CD-Rom player metal cover --- This is the directing rudder. For wind turbine automatic direction through all wind situations.

  • Generator Protection

PET bottle ---- To cover and protect the motor against dust and water.

  • Some Wires
  • Tie raps

Tools:


  • Saw
  • Pliers
  • Nails
  • Pen


Step 2: Generator Pole

Make motor cover using the PET bottle.
Cut the bottle in two halves and cover the motor with them. Use a solder iron to shrink the bottle around the motor.

Install a directional rudder that can direct the wind turbine automatically.

You can use an old CD drive cover as a rudder and connect it to the wind turbine using tie raps. Install the generator to the pole using tie raps around it. Connect a long wire to the motor terminals.

Connect an LED to use it as a test.

Step 3: Blades

This is the tricky part.

I used two designs that didn't seem to work. And then I've tried a third design that worked well even in moderate wind speed.

The first design came by accident when I drawn the airfoil shape on two sides of the paper roll. Then I found that the shape resulted from this design was impossible to rotate.

This design didn't rotate at all.

The second design is the separate blades setup. I made two blades by cutting them on the cardboard roll just as the blades made from PVC pipes.

This also didn't work.

The third design success. That came when I drawn the blades on the same side of the cardboard roll. This gave me the easiest blades shape I imagined.

This design was success.

Step 4: Final Assembly

Install each set of blades on the rotor for test. The blades can be attached to the rotor using 2mm copper wire. The first two set of blades didn't even rotate.

The third design rotated even in moderate wind speed.

Step 5: Test

Here is my Channel on Youtube:

AeroArduino

I finally put my wind turbine into the air and waited for the wind. It works.

Yes I know. This is only an LED. But this has been a long time dream of mine to even light an LED using wind energy. Besides, this setup can be used to charge a battery and energize some of your electronic devices.

Thank you for reading.

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