3D Printed Wind Turbine Uses Bamboo

April 21, 2015 by James Hobson 16 Comments

Using wood and aluminum for wind turbines is one thing, but how about 3D printing the blades and using bamboo to hold them together?

[Jeff Heidbrier] of Hero Electronics decided to try something new. He designed his own wind turbine to use cheap and readily available bamboo, with 3D printed parts. It’s a vertical axis wind turbine, unlike the typical wind mills you see generating power. The blades were printed on a Thing-O-Matic (nice to see they still exist in the wild!), and the turbine blades are about a foot long.

To make sure everything was level, he used a laser level to ensure his bearing system worked well. All in all, it looks pretty sturdy, but who knows how it will hold up to mother nature. Unfortunately there’s no clip of it actually being used outside, but I guess that just means we’ll have to wait for part 2.

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Extrinsic Motivation: Daisy Kite Airborne Wind Turbine

August 29, 2014 by Matt Terndrup 10 Comments

Got another THP entry for ya’ll that didn’t quite make the cut, but is worth sharing. This time we are featuring an airborne wind turbine that, as the project description states, ‘can harvest strong and expansive wind safely and efficiently.’

Ram air kites spin a parachute that in turn transfers torque that can be captured on the ground. In a true hacker spirit way, the rig developed by [Rod] utilizes bike wheels and rollerblade wheels in the design. This homemade generator needs a lot of space to be deployed, but it looks like a nice solution to airborne energy harvesting. [Rod] goes over the specifications for the project throughout the build logs on the Hackaday.io page and includes a couple of video describing how it was created and showing what happens when it is released into the air currents outside. Diagrams and models of the open source airborne wind energy generation device are also included.

Below are a few of his videos. Watch them over, and let us know what you think.

This project is an official entry to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make the quarterfinal selection. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own.
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7-Foot DIY Wind Turbine Proves Size Matters

February 10, 2014 by Rich Bremer 15 Comments

7ft-wind-turbine

When [brokengun] decided to build a 7 ft diameter wind turbine, he had no idea how to even start, so he did as most of us would do and read some books on the topic. His design criteria was that it would be simple to construct and use as many recycled parts as possible. This wind turbine charges a 12 volt battery which can then be used to power a variety of gadgets.

Although made from recycled components, this isn’t a thrown together wind turbine. A lot of thought went into the design and build. [brokengun] discusses matching the blade size to that of the generator in order to maximize power and efficiency. The design also incorporates a feature that will turn the turbine perpendicular to the wind if the wind-speed gets to high. Doing this prevents the turbine from being damaged by strong gusts.

For the main support/hub assembly, a Volvo 340 strut was used because they are widely available, cheap and known for being long-lasting. The tail boom is made from electrical conduit and it’s length is determined by the size of the main fan rotor. The tail vane is made from steel sheet metal and its surface area is also dependent on the fan rotor size to ensure that the turbine functions properly. The blades are made from wood but instead of making them himself, [brokengun] felt these were worth ponying up some cash. [brokengun] also scored a 30 ft high lattice tower an airport was getting rid of. This worked out great as it’s just the right height for a turbine of this size.

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Windmill Made From Washing Machine, 555 Chip

April 1, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 32 Comments

Green hacks implement one of two philosophies. The first is über-technical, with very expensive, high-quality components. The other side of this coin creates green power out of junk. [Timot] obviously took the latter choice, building a windmill out of an old washing machine motor and a few bits of PVC.

The generator for the windmill is based on a Fisher and Paykel direct drive usually found in clothes washing machines, rewired to provide 12 Volts at low RPM. At high speeds, the generator can produce 80 Volts, so a charge controller – even one based on a 555 chip – was an excellent addition.

For the other miscellaneous mechanical parts of the build, [Timot] cut the blades of the windmill out of 200 mm PVC pipe and sanded them down a bit for a better aerodynamic profile. With a custom fiberglass spinner, [Timot] whipped up a very attractive power station that is able to provide about 20 watts in normal conditions and 600 watts when it’s very windy. Not enough to power a house by any means, but more than enough to charge a cellphone or run a laptop for a few hours out in the back country.

Make A Wind Turbine From 55 Gallon Drums

February 9, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 34 Comments

Although there are several vertical axis wind turbines listed on greenterrafirma’s page, the one built with 55 gallon drums was especially interesting to us. Although the spouse approval factor of any of these designs is debatable, at $100, the 55 gallon drum design could provide a very good return on investment. The tools required to make one of these are relatively simple, so this could make this experiment accessible to those without a vast arsenal of equipment.

If large blue barrels aren’t your thing, the post also features several other turbine designs, including one made with wood and aluminium foil, and one constructed out of PVC pipe. The video after the break does a good job of explaining the “blue barrel” construction process, but if you’d rather just see this [VAWT] in action, fast forward to 5:25.

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Sustainability Hacks: Wind Turbine Generator

October 8, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 18 Comments

With a little bit of thought put into the build, a wind turbine generator can be one of the greenest ways to generate electricity. Wind power doesn’t require a semiconductor fab lab (unlike solar panels) and doesn’t have very many environmental consequences (unlike hydro power). The Tech Junkies put up a build log of a wind turbine that ended up being a very easy build.

In the interests of sustainability, The Tech Junkies found an old 1.5 HP DC treadmill motor. After measuring the voltage output when the motor was connected to a lathe, they discovered the power output was very linear. With a little bit of calculations, they realized they needed about 1000 RPM to get 20 Volts out of the motor. The team connected an inverter (it’s always cool seeing a power meter run backwards) and started fabricating the blades.

The team found a wealth of info on blade design on this site and following a few guidelines made six blades out of 8″ diameter PVC pipe. An aluminum hub was fabricated and the whole shebang was put on top of a found steel frame.

The Tech Junkies’ build produces 10 Watts of power but they’re looking to increase that to 500 W with the appropriate gearing. A great build that harkens back to this awesome webpage about turbine building and living off the grid.

Sustainability Hack: Wind Turbine Battery Charger

September 27, 2011 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Hit your parts bin and set aside an afternoon to build a wind turbine that recharges batteries. You can see two AA batteries hanging off the side of this small generator. You only need a few parts to make this happen, and chances are you have them sitting in your junk bin already.

The generator itself is a small stepper motor which can be pulled from a floppy disk drive or a scanner. The blade is cut from a single piece of 3.5″ (90mm) PVC pipe, with another piece of smaller-diameter pipe serving as the body of the turbine. The tail-fin makes sure it’s always pointing into the wind and was made from some plywood. As the blade spins, a current is induced on the control pins of the stepper motor. By building a pair of bridge rectifiers and using an RC filter you’ll get the most out of the generated current.

This turbine can charge a pair of NiCad batteries in about 10 hours, but it might be worth developing some smart circuitry to manage charging. If it were able to choose between a dedicated storage battery and the on-board battery holder you could put all of the wind energy to good use.

[Thanks Michael]