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Homemade Wind Generators
Why pay $2500 for a wind generator when you can build your own for under $100?
If you're serious about living off the grid you have probably looked into buying solar panels or wind generators. The problem is that it's just too expensive to buy enough solar panels or a big enough wind generator without breaking the bank. We've been there and have a solution for you. Our plans:
- are easy to read and follow
- produce over 1000 watts of power
- can be built for under $100 USD
- can be made from readily available material
- are easy to build and assemble
- are tough enough to endure the tough Canadian climate
- look good when finished!
We've been where you are right now. When we first started out living off grid we barely had enough money to build our house.
How were we going to power our home?
We were talking to our good friend Mike Shepherd and he told us that it's pretty simple to build a wind generator. He said that there were plenty of plans available online to download.
What a mistake!
We could barely understand any of the plans that we found. It seemed that the author just wanted to prove to everyone else that he was the smartest person in the world. We ended up spending well over $100 on plans until we decided to do the research ourself and build our own. It tooks us over 5 months of research to get our wind generator working well, but in peak wind it generates over 800 watts.
Check out one of our early prototypes:
We decided to put all the hard earned knowledge into easy to read plans so that even if you're not technically inclined you can still build your own wind generator.
Our Homemade Wind Generator Challenge
- the plans must be easy to read and follow
- it has to produce over 1000 watts of power
- it can be built for under $100 usd
- original design for the homemade wind generator
- must be made from readily available material
- must be easy to build and assemble
- tough enough to endure the tough Canadian climate
- and it has to look good
We've shown these plans to Mike and he told us he wished that we had given him these plans before! He had the same problem we had... he couldn't decipher most of the plans that he found either. Here's an email we got from him a little while back.
Mike says:
Hey Andrew,
The wind generator plans you showed me were even easier to figure out than you told me. I had my 2 sons help me over a couple weekends and we put things together quite nicely.
We want to thank you for helping us set up a better system to run our home. As you know we are 34 miles from the nearest hydro line here at our lodge- by the way you haven’t visited lately. Bring Jane up and see the new wind generator soon.
The boys and I did have a lot of trouble finding plans that were easy to read and easy to follow. The motor for the wind generator was available right where you said it would be (lots of them) and we even managed to build it for less than $80 !! We thought that was great.
Our regular guests at the lodge will be in for a surprise when they start showing up next summer. Thanks.
Mike Sheperd
Bill says:
Hello,
Your plans are by far the best I have seen. I was like you and bought many different types of plans which I couldn't understand.
I've attached some pictures of our new wind generator which produces slightly over 1000 watts at wind speeds of 12MPH.
Thanks for the emails when I had questions... it helped me tremendously.
Sincerely,
Bill xxxx (last name witheld at request)
Up and Running!
Our newly built wind generator now sits on top of the rebuilt TV tower spinning away producing power for our home. Send us the photos of your completed project and we will put them on the website!
We had a lot of fun learning how to build a wind generator and we want to share that fun with you. We could have spent thousands on a new wind generator but why?
And we make this promise to you: these plans do meet the preceding requirements, but it does take some work on your part. You bought these plans because you presumably didn’t want to spend over $2500 for a wind generator. These plans offer many solutions to the challenge above, use your own imagination too.
My wife Jane, our 14 year old son Andre’ and myself all took part in the challenge, and we have, after many months of work come up with a design that meets ALL of the above criterion.
With our 15 years of experience Living Off the Grid with renewable energy we have seen many different wind generator designs. We think these plans are the very best plans available on the ‘net’, when cost, ease of assembly, and the short time frame to achieve the desired results are all considered.
Click Here to Order Now
Only $29.97 $19.97
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Some questions...
Question 1:
Once I know how much power I will need to run my home, how will I figure out how much power production I need?
Answer: You figured out how much power you use in an earlier exercise. You should be aiming for around 10 kilowatt hours per day. We actually run our entire home on just under 3 kilowatt hours per day with conservation.
The power formula goes like this-
System Power = (Wind Speed ^3) (Blade Diameter ^2) x .00478 or like this:
System Power = (W x W x W ) (B x B) x .00478
Wind Speed is measured in miles per hour. Blade Diameter is measured in feet. It is easy to figure out your blade diameter. How wide is your blade assembly in feet. Plug that into the formula. We have used 8 foot blade diameter with great success.
To find your wind speed you will have to find a wind speed chart, or monitor your own wind speed for a while to obtain your own readings.
Let's say your average wind speed is about 12 mph. which is pretty good. Plug that into your formula too. It would look something like this:
System Power = (12^3) (8^2) x .00478
= (1728) (64 ) x .00478
= 110592 x .00478
= 528 watts
Multiply this by 24 hours and you will have 12672 watt hours, or about 12.6 kilowatt hours per day.
Wind speed has the greatest impact on power output since it is cubed in the previous formula. You can’t change wind speed though, you either have it or you don’t.
This brings up our next question usually.
Question 2:
Should I build one large wind generator, or several small ones?
Answer: Well, obviously blade diameter can have a huge impact on the amount of power that your homemade wind generator produces. There are a few concerns though.
Yes, you could put up a homemade wind generator with a 20 foot blade diameter, but the forces of the wind at storm levels would demand a very substantial tower.
Also, if you live in a populated area your neighbor might not appreciate a huge wind generator in your backyard. Ask first.
Some areas even have bylaws about this stuff, do some research first and find out what you can and cannot do.
Usually it is much easier to find towers for several smaller wind generators and parts to build them too. We have areas on our property that are clear in different directions so we put up several homemade wind generators to capture the wind more effectively from different directions with MUCH smaller towers.
One final thing, when you have several homemade wind generators you can shut one down for cleaning or maintenance and your other ones are still providing power… or if a storm does this for you.
A lot less work in the long run, and less headaches with a smaller system.
Question 3:
How do you prevent the power cable coming down the inside of the tower from winding up over time?
Answer: The short answer is I don't do anything to prevent it. The cable really doesn't wind up that badly. The wind changes direction constantly and turns left one day and right the next, the cable does not wind up that badly because of this.
Click Here to Order Now
Only $29.97 $19.97
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