The Most Straightforward Wind Turbine

We can all use a little more green energy in our lives at home. So when [ahmedebeed555] — a fan of wind power — ran into durability troubles with his previous home-built turbine, he revised it to be simpler than ever to build.

Outside of the DC generator motor, the rest of the turbine is made from recycled parts: a sponge mop sans sponge, a piece from an old CD drive case acting as a rudder, the blades from a scrapped fan, and a plastic bottle to protect the motor from the elements. Attach the fan to the motor and form the plastic bottle around the motor using — what else? — a soldering iron. Don’t forget a respirator for this step, folks.

A few zip ties secure it marvelously to the mop’s end, with the rudder similarly attached. If you followed along, you probably have something resembling a functional wind turbine now. Running a few wires that can withstand the elements to a charging circuit or whatever you plan to use this turbine power for is a separate endeavour. If you’re interested, we have a few ideas for low power applications.

[via Instructables]

17 thoughts on “The Most Straightforward Wind Turbine

    1. What? Somebody makes wind turbine from a mop, cd case and plastic bottle and you say it’s boring? This should be marked as “THE Hack of the day”! What says “this is a hack” more than using old mop and some junk to make wind turbine?

        1. It has a purpose built PM generator designed for small wind turbines, with internal gearing.

          It if was a regular brushed motor, this would not work as the motor is not designed for axial loads and would quickly burn through its bearings. In other words, the hack is about buying a generator from Amazon and fixing it to a pole.

      1. “What? Somebody makes wind turbine from a mop, cd case and plastic bottle and you say it’s boring?”

        Agreed. This totally gets the MacGuyver award for this week.

        1. The McGuyver award goes to the ingenious.

          This solution is too obvious, because it’s just using junk for raw materials, and in that capacity an old CD case is no different from a scrap piece of plywood, and a mop or a broom handle is just a long stick. Buying the generator from Amazon automatically disqualifies it as a McGuyverism.

          A McGuyver solution should do something unexpected in a completely ad-hoc manner, like hacking the motor in an actual desk fan to act as a generator by drilling a hole through the rotor and sticking a bar magnet in it, and then using the electricity to power a windshield wiper motor that lifts a cardboard target made of a movie poster to distract a bad buy into shooting at it, thinking it’s McGuyver, who’s actually waiting in the opposite direction with a fire extinguisher in hand ready to incapacitate the bad guy.

    1. Totally depends on your location, prevailing wind etc. Wind is better for me by far as we don’t get enough sun, being coastal helps along with open space. Certainly in higher latitudes solar is of less benefit. .

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