6 Simple Steps On How To Build A Wind Generator

You live your life every day fully dependent on energy, mainly gas and electricity. But with the constantly rising costs of these energy sources, you might be wondering how you can cut back on these expenses and make your life a little easier. You likely already know about renewable energy and that it is being used around the world. But how do you take advantage of this without spending a fortune? You might want to consider building a windmill, but do you know how to build a wind generator?

Good question. Here are some tips to guide you:

- First you need to know where you are going to put it. You need an area with at least a 300 to 400 foot radius of open space and a 30 to 40 foot vertical clearance. There are two types of towers you can choose from, a tilt-up or a freestanding design. Tilt-ups are more widely used in residential areas because they are easier to maintain, since you don’t need to climb them to clean them. However, since free standing towers are taller, they help maximize the output of your wind turbine.

- Next up on your list are the materials you are going to use. You can start with a high voltage, low current DC motor that runs at low rpm’s. This is the heart of the unit that will convert the wind into electrical current.

- Now you need to create the blades of your windmill. These can be made of wood, plastic, sheet metal, or better yet, PVC pipe. Keep in mind that the longer the blades, the better. A wider covered area means the more energy it can extract from the wind.

- Next you need to connect the blades to a shaft which, in turn, connects to the motor. This is done with a hub. The hub can be made from a steel disk that you can drill holes into. Attach the blades to the hub, the hub to the shaft, and the shaft to the motor.

- Finally, you need to attach a tail and pivot to your windmill to keep it turned to the wind. You can do this with some square tubing and pipe nipple, a flange for the pivot, and some scrap sheet metal for the tail.

- One last, important step to cover for your wind generator is the battery. The wind doesn’t always blow, so you need a way to store the converted energy. Try to keep the batteries as close to the generator as you can in order to monitor the charging. Try to get batteries that are highly efficient, yet low maintenance.

You need to look for special batteries called “deep cycle”, because they are rated in amp-hours and have indicators of their charge-discharge cycles. They are best for power system applications such as this.

Now that you know how to build a wind generator, there is one more recommended step. You need to place a diode between the battery and the generator to stop the current from being wasted by flowing back into the generator. It would probably be a good idea to add a secondary load as well, to act as a depot for excess produced current.

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